Sometimes I Forget

[Autocar]

And only see the dollar amount a tree is worth. Where I was working this week I came across a small dead white oak it was shooting to the stars and looked like the next generation timber tree. I cut it down in more curiosity then anything, at twelve inches above the ground it was 7 1/2 inches. I sliced a peace off and threw it in the cab of the skidder and went back to work. That evening I sanded it on a belt sander and started counting the growth rings. I was able to count a hundred years and then the center was so close that I was unable to make them out anymore. I wonder when I go back to work on Monday if I will see the beauty and understand the time it took to grow the tree that Ive selected to cut  or will it only be dollar signs.

[drobertson]

You got this right!  This really came to light when I read a post by Riggs, a while ago, he had fell a poplar and did the same, marking the rings as they related to his family's growth. Very new perspective for sure.

[lumberjack48]

The Federal were going to widen the South Round Lake road, i was cutting right away. I came to a big White Oak, i asked the Ranger way can't they move the right away over so i didn't have to cut it. The road has two resorts on it, it gets a lot of fishier men, deer, bear hunters and ect way not leave it for land mark. The Ranger i talked to agreed with me, so he went in to the Ranger Station and took it up with the big boys. He came out the next day with the news, no way cutter her down. It was a sad day for me to have to take such a beautiful tree down, i suppose this sounds crazy.
    When i got the Old Oak on the ground my dad counted the rings, he came up with 430 rings, i counted 480. There so close together some dry yrs. its really hard to get an accurate count. It was perfectly sound, 46"s, a first grade pencil dot in the center.

[Texas Ranger]

Several years ago I spent some time cruising company land for an upcoming sell out.  Part of the cruise was to measure the dominate tree on the spot, and take a core out of it for aging.  I found one spot where the dominate tree was a long leaf pine, about 13 inches in diameter.  I did the measurements, and took the bore, I did a rough count and came up with over 100 rings.  It made me look closer to the site and the tree.  It was growing in a rocky out crop and seemed to be healthy, but root bound.  The finale count under the lens was 127 years.

Again, several years ago, I bought some white pine 1 x 12 for some shelving at the shop, got to it, made a cut, and noticed dense ring structure, so I counted them, in that one board the rings counted over 150, no where near the center, checked the other boards and found they had come from the same tree.  It had blue stain, so I knew it had been beetle killed, and salvaged some where out west.  Still have a  piece or two of it.

[James Arsenault]

Oak and beech really pains me to cut. Right now the acorns are on, and every oak represents deer and other wildlife food to me. Mind you, I've been logging a long time, and killing oaks and beeches, bothers me more than ever. I can select cut a stand of oaks and feel OK, but hate it when the landowner says they care not about the food value to wildlife, strip every tree. Killing a stand of oak or beech just kills me. Killing a small oak or beech for what little the tree is worth, taking away the potential future value to both wildlife and the log value, seems a waste.

No hickory, chestnut or walnut here. Very few white oak.

[mills]

Back last fall I cut a large oak on a farm about a half mile down the creek from our place. To kill a little time while eating my dinner, I pulled out my pocket knife and started counting the rings. The tree was 109 years old. It was born the same year as Grandpa. Dad had just told me the day before that when he was very young, after he caught up on his farm, Grandpa would pick up a little cash by breaking ground with mules in the field next to this ticket. I wonder how many times Grandpa cussed when his plow hit a root from this same tree?

[thecfarm]

My Father and me was cutting wood on where I live now. We was cutting some big white pine. The land have never been cut before. We was cutting trees 3 feet through was no big deal. I cut one of those big ones down and misjudged by a few feet and snapped off a tree like Autocar posted about. Kinda looked like a telephone pole,but taller. That tree was reaching for the sky and not many limbs.  Probaly the best looking tree on any of our land. I cut it down and counted the rings. tree was not  much more than 16 inches across but had 80 rings on it. just as old as the one I just cut down before it. The poor tree was fighting to live all those years.