great article i thought others might like to read
https://northernwoodlands.org/articles/article/a_foresters_pursuit_of_excellence
Well written article, even if it's 17 years old. ;)
just as true now as it was then.
Very good article.I always wondered what high grading meant and can see that is what happens to my neighbors when they decide to sell their timber.Trees left will never be more than firewood.
Especially weak hardwoods that grew tall with little diameter growth, which typically happens to cherry, birch and ash. The first wet snow that clings to the trees for days or spring sap flow will bring the tops to the ground. I've seen one mill owner in particular take mulchers to that stuff and plant better trees.
Cherry is a very unreliable tree for my site. Ive reluctantly taken to culling it for poplar which does really well.
Rare to find a black cherry up here that isn't full of black knot in the limbs and trunk. You often get a good but log, but then it quickly turns to crap on up the stem. This kind of stuff. :D
(https://forestryforum.com/images/04_01_03/blackknot%20005.jpg)
You have to cut what don't work for you and save what does.
My land, fir is the one I cut down.
Eastern white pine grows good and was good money.
swampdonkey must have taken that picture on my land. I can count the cherry trees I have on 2 hands, and that is about 150 acres too. I have 2 cherry trees that I have cut around down by the road. As my Father would have said, That tree won't even make straight smoke. Them trees always grow crooked on my land, all 9 of them. :D
Some of the best black cherry grows on the Allegheny National Forest in NW Pennsylvania. It was not uncommon for us to have timber sales sell at over a million dollars on the stump back in the late 1970's.