What is your favorite tree to cut?

[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.