What is your favorite tree to cut?

[CX3]

Well with all the different types of folks on here I was wondering.  What is your favorite tree to walk up to, look up at it, start your saw, and lay that sucker on the ground? How big do they run? Are they easy cutting or dense wood? Alot of limbs? Veneer?

Mine is a good ol white oak stave log standing down in the bottom of a canyon, one that is real tall,, about 24dbh, but holds its size for 50 feet or so, and just falls real slow and makes a deer rifle crack when it hits the floor. 

White oak cuts pretty easy, not like walnut though.  It generally runs sound, makes beautiful logs, brings good money, and is just a beautiful tree.  I am always impressed by a nice white oak.  You can always spot them standing in the timber and I just cant wait to get down to it and cut her down.

What about you?

[isawlogs]

 Well I am kinda partial to the great white pine. Impressive tree to look at, ya can build a house and all of its furnishings with its wood. It is fast growing, easy sawing and when the market is there , relatively good money for its choice logs. Anywheres near 24" to 36" BHD are real crashers when they come hurling down.

[treefarmer87]

poplar, any size, plently of veneer and very few limbs.

[chucker]

  norway or red pine, thick trunked straight as an arrow and also few limbs... they whistle on the way down with a loud crash easy to skid in tree length. usual height is around 75 feet dbh 20" on a nice day.....   ;D 

[Ianab]

Monterey (Macrocarpa) cypress.  8)

Although it's a North American native species it's not used as timber in your part of the world as it doesn't get big or straight enough. Here in NZ it grows fast and HUGE. Think 120ft tree, up to 9ft dbh in maybe 100 years.

The timber is a bit of a lucky dip, some logs are brilliant, other are a mess, full of bark inclusions and knots, but that's all part of the fun.

Largest one I've dropped was 52" through the base, but my buddy took one down last year that needed to be felled from both sides with a 5foot bar on the saw!!!

This is dropping and sawing a decent size macrocarpa.
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,22582.0.html

Ian

[Bobus2003]

Ponderosa Pine, Bigger the better.. Biggest I ever Cut was a 37" DBH, and was 73' Millable wood.. I love felling them after a few days of 0* weather.. The limbs just shatter off when they hit the ground

[Mark K]

I like to cut hard maple. The one's I'm cutting now are anywhere between 20 to 32" dbh. and can get 3 good saw logs and a pulp stick out of them most of the time. Real nice timber, makes a heck of a crash when they hit the ground. To bad most of them are already leveled from a wind shear. Takes 18 to 22 tree's to fill a tri-axle with a pup. 

[riggin rat]

Old growth fir and noble fir love the smell.

[barbender]

Big Red Pine is nice wood to cut. Actually, good ol' aspen is pretty decent to cut too, you can put a lot of it down quick, and it gets fairly tall around here. Bobus, there are some pockets of big wood out in the Hills, right? I remember seeing some nice timber out there.

[DonT]

I did some large beech tree's last winter.They where about 60ft tall and 30"dbh,and shook the ground when they fell.

[motif]

bamboo  ;D

[terrifictimbersllc]

The best are ones laying on the ground that you can drive up next to.  8) 8) 8) 8)

[mad murdock]

Big Douglas Fir.  The one in my profile pic, is one of 3 on my place.  (See my gallery pics for more info on this tree).  I can just imagine what it would have been like to be a logger in the early 1900's, topping trees, and watching the big ones fall, all done without the aid of chainsaws!  Lots of hazardous work, for sure!  I know that toppers did not have a long life expectancy.

[tjdub]

I love to cut down boxelder trees.  For one, they never grow straight, so I never have to put much thought or effort into directional falling.  Second, every time I kill a boxelder I can walk away feeling like I made the world a slightly better place.

[Cedarman]

ERC, about 10 to 12" DBH,  sound, with 40 to 50 feet of good log to 4" size, very few limbs.  What I want is not what I usually get to cut.
With a clear path to the ground.

[Skiddah]

I love getting in a stretch of some fat white pine on a nice sandy hillside.  I just know the logs are going to be nice, hopefully at least two nice 14', a pallet and a pulp but always looking for more  ;D.  I love charging up a hillside with the snares of the old Deere filled right up with nice pine.  Looking back is always a sense of accomplishment.

[Maine372]

the one im standing beside!

i like cutting them all for different reasons. its shorter to list the species i dont like.  
-eastern hemlock  -  likes to take the chain off the bar when limbing
-american beech   - never fall all the way down, also likes to derail chains and leave bruised shins when limbing


other than that i like to cut softwoods in the winter when the pitch is frozen, and hardwoods in the summer when the leaves help indicate the health of the tree and the wood dries for firewood.

[Autocar]

Big white oak and walnut but to think about it any tree  :D Saw dust in my veins !

[Jasperfield]

Christmas Trees!

[Bobus2003]

Big Red Pine is nice wood to cut. Actually, good ol' aspen is pretty decent to cut too, you can put a lot of it down quick, and it gets fairly tall around here. Bobus, there are some pockets of big wood out in the Hills, right? I remember seeing some nice timber out there.

Oh yeah, theres some pockets of big timber with a Few "Hooters" mixed in.. See how many are left after the beetles get done. Best load i ever saw got to the mill consisted of 33 pieces between the truck and pup.. it was a neat sight and all too rare to see :'(

[Okrafarmer]

I love to cut down boxelder trees.  For one, they never grow straight, so I never have to put much thought or effort into directional falling.  Second, every time I kill a boxelder I can walk away feeling like I made the world a slightly better place.

Ditto feeling for Bradford pears. We cut a lot of them. Usually ABH is hard to determine, because that is the height at which it crotches out into 10-20 leaders. I prefer to cut the leaders off one by one and then cut the stub off at my leisure. Usually the stump piece is about 12-20". A bunch of misguided people plant them in their yards down here. Along comes an ice storm or a big wind, and "CRACK" One or more leaders snap off. But they are actually one of my least favorite to cut.

[Okrafarmer]

I like cutting down tulip trees. As we do a lot of residential removals, we rope-pull a lot of them. Often times we use a continuous rope puller, which is a come-along like tool that uses rope fed through continuously. I am often the one making my arms stronger by working the puller handle. I have to run out of the way if the tree is too close to me, but sometimes we pull from farther away than the tree's height and when we know the margin is wide enough, I often stay right there downwind of the falling tree. We sometimes do tuliptrees 80-100 ft. tall, and when you stand downwind of a tree that tall falling, you catch some beautiful wind! It smells great too-- tulip trees are some of the sweetest smelling trees out there. I love how the limbs even of healthy tulip trees just shatter into a million pieces on impact-- less firewood cutup to do. It's an impressive sight watching one fall at you in a wide open space, knowing you have 30-40 feet to spare, and feeling that big old rush of wind washing all over you with that candy-land tulip smell, and the crash of the limbs shattering into matchwood. If I open my mouth I can just about taste it. I love milling tulip and it's the best firewood to tote around, i can pick up a big old piece of it and make it look easy because it's so light. It's super easy to split with a maul.

But I also like cutting figured maple and anticipating the grain pattern, and I love cutting millable size cherry, walnut, and holly, and drooling over the saw logs.

[northwoods1]

Thats difficult to answer. Got to love cutting big hardwood logs, but a guy can really take a beating lugging the big saws around and cutting hard wood all day long. Still its nice to cut the real high value wood and do it right everyone loves a nice load of high grade hardwood. If it comes to money than it would be large aspen or poplar 9 sticks high no limbs clear cut big jobs like 500-100 cords that is when the paychecks really come rolling in. Love to cut pine logs either red or white. Cuts easy, skids easy, smells nice, few limbs. Another thing I love to cut is cedar. Not high production, might drive a lot of guys crazy it seems like you never getting much done small diameters just don't add up, but the money end of it does work out and I just love sawing it. Easy to handle also. I'd love to have some cedar to work in every winter not easy to find though.

Now THE WORST would have to be scrub,black, pin oak or similar species!

[IndyIan]

I've done alot of Eastern White Cedar in my woods.  Its sort of like a training tree, usually no dead stuff up there to get you, doesn't barber chair.  Also its so densely packed you have to get your falling direction right and use a felling lever sometimes, but if you hang one up, usually its pretty easy to roll it out with the peavey, or even lever the bottom out with the peavey.
I was selling fence posts at one time and it was like running around cutting down $20 bills.   8)

I'd like to rip into a stand of nice white pine but we don't have a use for it right now.

[Bruce_A]

We don't see many 3 or 4 log loads anymore.  Last week I noticed a 6 log load headed south with 40 foot doug firs.  It was very nice wood and would have been nice to fall.  Looked to be all export and had no state paint on it.

[missouri_logger]

big black walnut $$$$$

[Ken]

Cutting high quality Eastern White Cedar in the winter is probably one of my favorite trees to cut.  Generally they are not that big but very little limbing to do and the money adds up very quickly.  Hook onto a big hitch, drag it through a twisty trail, back the hitch through a thicket and presto the limbs are gone.  This method works well with Balsam Fir as well.   My other favorite would have to be large White Pine.  Ironically we have about 80 - 90 MFBM of large Pine to move into over the next couple of weeks.   Can hardly wait as the trees will average 400 bd ft or better.   8) 8)   Doing an improvement cut in high quality hardwood stands is also on the top of the list.  Laying out the skid trail and falling trees in such a way as to not damage the residual stand takes some thinking.    Come to think of it I like to cut any large trees. 

Cheers
Ken

[Okrafarmer]

Hook onto a big hitch, drag it through a twisty trail, back the hitch through a thicket and presto the limbs are gone.  This method works well with Balsam Fir as well. 

Some loggers I knew in Maine would use this method, and they also said they would they would twitch several balsam fir together (maybe other species sometimes) and back the skidder along them to break the limbs off. I miss balsam fir, white birch, yellow birch, and hackmatack. Wouldn't even mind seeing a few popple again.

[Frank H.]

I love really big cherry, from the smell to the ching in the pocket in good times.  But to be honest, my favorite tree of all to cut is tulip poplar.  They grow huge and straight around here, and cut like butter.  They just don't fetch much money.   ;D

[gologit]

Doug fir.  There's some big second growth and some passed-over OG stuff where we're working now.

[cutterboy]

Red oak, tall and straight, 22-24"dbh and 40 feet to first branch. Makes beautiful lumber.

[indiaxman1]

Got to agree with Autocar....big old white oaks....lots of comments on the smell cut timber emits.....can't cut the white oaks without smelling bourbon barrels (staves used just south for that noble purpose)...even had some fine beer aged in the same barrels....sawdust if like nature's aftershave..woodgrain is flat beautiful
Second choice has to be hickory......some people don't care for scent...one logger told me smells like pigs--t....I used to keep fresh cut pieces in truck cab for air freshener 
Last...cedar is real nice....but don't get any size around here....small trees make for fragrant firewood

[Dave Shepard]

I like cutting ewp, as that is what I use all the time in my timber projects. Red oak cuts like butter, but I don't have much use for it. I've never minded getting covered in pine pitch, if I'm in a nice stand of straight, clear pine.

[barbender]

hackmatack=tamarack=eastern larch, right?

[Okrafarmer]

hackmatack=tamarack=eastern larch, right?

19 years ago we had 5 acres clearcut up in Maine by Kendall Davis and his outfit. They chipped it for biomass. Then they crossed the road and did +/- 20 acres on our neighbors' property (word-of-mouth advertising). Their shear operator at the time got talking with Kendall and some other people nearby (I was a 13-yo kid hanging out and being annoying), and somebody asked the shear operator what his favorite tree was to cut with the shear. He said, "Hack, hack, nothing but hack. I sure would like to have a few acres of nothing but hack to cut." He was about 19 years old at the time. I heard, many years later, that that boy got killed in a car wreck not too long after that. A few years later, maybe. It just made me think of it.

And Hackmatack is Tamarack, is Eastern Larch, as far as I understand. Loggers in Maine often call it Hack for short. My parents had a huge one in their yard, over a hundred feet tall-- tallest tree for a mile around, I think.

[barbender]

Tamarack is typically stunted around here, but you will find pockets of it that get pretty nice. I still have about 7 cords  in the yard I need to get sawed, I've had it for 2 years :( It is still in decent shape though. That's sad about the young fella, you never know when your time is up.

[brianJ]

I got a thing for Sycamore and their unique color and grain with such a bargain price

[Walnut Beast]

big black walnut $$$$$

YOU GOT THAT RIGHT 💪

[Hogdaddy]

As far as favorite tree(s) to cut it has to be poplar in my neck of the woods. You can make them go about anywhere, and they are soft compared to everything else around here. Can roll the footage out in a good location and the tops are small. As far as my favorite logs to cut, I like walnut and white oak for the price and the smell. Nothing like a cool fall morning and the smell of a freshly cut white oak.....

[barbender]

Big white or red pine up here. 

[doc henderson]

Catalpa.  grown in groves no limbs for 30 to 40 feet.  nice grain, light when dry.  smells like an old man with a pipe at 50 paces.  or 48.68 paces as WDH Danny said recently. Amen.

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Poplar.  The ones I cut usually have some real size to them. They are most often straight and you can lay them just where you want them.  

[Kodiakmac]

Years ago when I was falling in BC doug fir was my hands down favourite.  Back here in the east it's hemlock or white cedar.  Most of the lands I've worked on have had tall, straight trees with very few limbs on the bottom two-thirds.  It is easy to nudge them in the direction you want and they don't do a lot of collateral damage on the way down. 

[Frickman]

Tulip poplar

[Log-it-up]

I would have to say white pine, nothing like tipping the 80 footers over in the winter complete white out for a good 3 minutes,snow dust every where in the beard down the back of your coat refreshing and cold at the same time make you want to go tackle another one for the next rush of excitement 

[Wlmedley]

A nice straight tulip poplar with no limbs for 60 feet.