Notre Dame Cathedral in France is on fire

[Kingspoint]

In Europe? Where do you get that? Depending on the target use, the trees may be grown fast or slow. If it's for paper mills, they'll grow plantations of pulpwood. If it's for furniture, it will be grown in managed forests. It isn't grown weaker and does not "warp over time very quickly" (whatever that means).



Air seasoning was by far the most common method. Sometimes trees were kept underwater until they were ready to be transported to the place where they would be stored and air dried.



That would apply for firewood, but not anything else. Typically trees were cut during the winter for several reasons. One, that is the time when the trees are the driest since the sap is in the roots. Two, it causes much less damage to other trees when there are no leaves. Three, it's easy to yard them out on frozen trails. Almost always they would cut trees during the winter and bring them to the banks of the river and then transport them in spring when the river water was high and fast moving.

It's not conjecture that 2nd and 3rd growth of trees produces significantly weaker wood. And, no, mankind will never grow as strong of wood that nature itself produced before man came along. The water has changed. The air has changed. The climate has changed. Monsanto's chemicals are in everything that lives. Plastic is ruining the oceans and its sealife. China pumps out more coal residue into the air than every other country on the face of the Earth combined.

Baseball can't come close to making a decent bat these days because they can't find any wood that has the integral strength from the trees that were used when Ruth was clobbering homers.

It sounds like you have spent time in the wood industry. I hope that you and your fellow professionals can get all the help they need towards proper and well-balanced forest management.

[BernieCarbo]

It's not conjecture that 2nd and 3rd growth of trees produces significantly weaker wood. And, no, mankind will never grow as strong of wood that nature itself produced before man came along. The water has changed. The air has changed. The climate has changed. Monsanto's chemicals are in everything that lives. Plastic is ruining the oceans and its sealife. China pumps out more coal residue into the air than every other country on the face of the Earth combined.

Baseball can't come close to making a decent bat these days because they can't find any wood that has the integral strength from the trees that were used when Ruth was clobbering homers.

It sounds like you have spent time in the wood industry. I hope that you and your fellow professionals can get all the help they need towards proper and well-balanced forest management.

Yes, it is conjecture. There is no evidence that second growth wood is significantly weaker. In fact, there is no such thing as "first growth" unless you go back to prehistoric times. Whenever a forest is decimated (either through a natural catastrophe like fire, flood, or disease or by a clear cut), the next growth will be a new generation of trees. The quality of those tress depends on the growing conditions. I have cut literally thousands of oak on my woodlot, and the characteristics of the trees are all over the map. If the trees were on the edge of a field, the rings will be wide on one side and narrow on the other (good enough for pallets, lobster traps, or things like spools or clothes pins). If the tree was alone in the middle of a field, it will be very symmetrical with rather wide rings, but still with a nice look. This would be good for turning balusters or something like that. Trees that grew up close together on good soil where their only competition was the tree next to it are the best, but it takes a long time to grow them. It's funny that this thread just came up, because I was squaring up the butts on some trees I cut last winter, and several of them have rings so close I can barely count them (about 15-20 per inch, which is very dense for red oak). These trees started growing in the 1870's, probably after a farmer cut off all the softwood for a barn or something. These trees are veneer grade and can be used for just about anything, and would stand up in quality to any virgin forest the original settlers found. The main difference is that their trees were bigger obviously, but the quality is the same.

As far as no being able to build a decent bat, that is silly. You will have to provide a source.

It's cool that you are interested in trees and wood in general, but don't confuse science with old wives tales. The biggest threat to forests is mismanagement and going for short term gains. It takes a truly unselfish person to plant a thousand acres of white oak trees that will not produce timber for 150 years, which is why so much of our land is planted with fast growing species. But, then again, we have the advantage of engineered wood technology now.

[Kingspoint]

Yes, it is conjecture. There is no evidence that second growth wood is significantly weaker. In fact, there is no such thing as "first growth" unless you go back to prehistoric times. Whenever a forest is decimated (either through a natural catastrophe like fire, flood, or disease or by a clear cut), the next growth will be a new generation of trees. The quality of those tress depends on the growing conditions. I have cut literally thousands of oak on my woodlot, and the characteristics of the trees are all over the map. If the trees were on the edge of a field, the rings will be wide on one side and narrow on the other (good enough for pallets, lobster traps, or things like spools or clothes pins). If the tree was alone in the middle of a field, it will be very symmetrical with rather wide rings, but still with a nice look. This would be good for turning balusters or something like that. Trees that grew up close together on good soil where their only competition was the tree next to it are the best, but it takes a long time to grow them. It's funny that this thread just came up, because I was squaring up the butts on some trees I cut last winter, and several of them have rings so close I can barely count them (about 15-20 per inch, which is very dense for red oak). These trees started growing in the 1870's, probably after a farmer cut off all the softwood for a barn or something. These trees are veneer grade and can be used for just about anything, and would stand up in quality to any virgin forest the original settlers found. The main difference is that their trees were bigger obviously, but the quality is the same.

As far as no being able to build a decent bat, that is silly. You will have to provide a source.

It's cool that you are interested in trees and wood in general, but don't confuse science with old wives tales. The biggest threat to forests is mismanagement and going for short term gains. It takes a truly unselfish person to plant a thousand acres of white oak trees that will not produce timber for 150 years, which is why so much of our land is planted with fast growing species. But, then again, we have the advantage of engineered wood technology now.

Now you are coming up with the ridiculous statements.

First growth always refers to forests that haven't been clear-cut by man. Forests regrown naturally over the milleniums are always first growth. The entire process of it happening naturally provides the conditions that makes the wood stronger. Denying this is similar logic to denying climate change. There are literally millions of supporting data that proves without a shadow of a doubt that first growth is significantly stronger than second growth. It's common knowledge that isn't debatable, and that second growth is stronger than third growth. It's common knowlegde and isn't debatable. Five minutes of simple research will get you dozens of articles supporting this.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, it is conjecture. There is no evidence that second growth wood is significantly weaker. In fact, there is no such thing as "first growth" unless you go back to prehistoric times. Whenever a forest is decimated (either through a natural catastrophe like fire, flood, or disease or by a clear cut), the next growth will be a new generation of trees. The quality of those tress depends on the growing conditions. I have cut literally thousands of oak on my woodlot, and the characteristics of the trees are all over the map. If the trees were on the edge of a field, the rings will be wide on one side and narrow on the other (good enough for pallets, lobster traps, or things like spools or clothes pins). If the tree was alone in the middle of a field, it will be very symmetrical with rather wide rings, but still with a nice look. This would be good for turning balusters or something like that. Trees that grew up close together on good soil where their only competition was the tree next to it are the best, but it takes a long time to grow them. It's funny that this thread just came up, because I was squaring up the butts on some trees I cut last winter, and several of them have rings so close I can barely count them (about 15-20 per inch, which is very dense for red oak). These trees started growing in the 1870's, probably after a farmer cut off all the softwood for a barn or something. These trees are veneer grade and can be used for just about anything, and would stand up in quality to any virgin forest the original settlers found. The main difference is that their trees were bigger obviously, but the quality is the same.

As far as no being able to build a decent bat, that is silly. You will have to provide a source.

It's cool that you are interested in trees and wood in general, but don't confuse science with old wives tales. The biggest threat to forests is mismanagement and going for short term gains. It takes a truly unselfish person to plant a thousand acres of white oak trees that will not produce timber for 150 years, which is why so much of our land is planted with fast growing species. But, then again, we have the advantage of engineered wood technology now.

Excellent post, btw. Seriously.

[Kingspoint]

Thank you, BernieCarbo. You have very interesting things to say about trees and wood with extensive experience to support it.

But, do you really beleive that the same type of trees grown in the same acreage (various locations notwithstanding as you accurately pointed out) after that acreage has been clear-cut have a chance to grow as strongly as their predecessors if they were given a roughly similar 150 years of climate to grow from (also, notwithstanding pollution and people foraging through its forest)?

If so, then I am ready to change how I feel about that because everything else you say supports everything else I have read and I would certainly consider you an expert in wood and trees. I'll then have to find more articles and books that support your thinking on this as I am certain they are out there, and I would like to continue to learn and correct things I have learned in error, as that's what learning is...correcting things I've learned in error.

[BernieCarbo]

Now you are coming up with the ridiculous statements.

First growth always refers to forests that haven't been clear-cut by man. Forests regrown naturally over the milleniums are always first growth. The entire process of it happening naturally provides the conditions that makes the wood stronger. Denying this is similar logic to denying climate change. There are literally millions of supporting data that proves without a shadow of a doubt that first growth is significantly stronger than second growth. It's common knowledge that isn't debatable, and that second growth is stronger than third growth. It's common knowlegde and isn't debatable. Five minutes of simple research will get you dozens of articles supporting this.

Yes, it is debatable. There isn't even real definitions of what all those terms are. Let's dissect it and use forests in the north as an example.

After a forest is decimated (and it has happened many times since the ice age), a very predictable cycle of growth starts. First, you have grasslands. This gives way to low bushes like raspberries and elderberries. Them comes soft-lived trees like alder. Next is poplar, birch, and ash, in that order. Last comes the dominant long-lived trees that will hang around for hundreds of years, which in my area will be either rock maple or red oak. These start out as tall, thin, straight trees because they were protected by the previous generation of trees, so they have the beginnings of a perfect log for lumber in the future. But even these trees don't live forever, and after 300 years or so, they die and younger ones take their place. It isn't perfectly neat and organized as I describe, and there will be a few of another species included too, but maple and oak will definitely dominate for a very long time until something happens to start the process over. So, when the settlers came, these are the trees that they found.

"Second growth" can mean a lot of different things. If the forest was wiped out by fire and the entire process started over, then it technically is second growth because it wasn't first, but its still starting from nothing. This is where woodland management come in. If I clear-cut my woodlot and left it barren, it would definitely repopulate with oak and maple. It is also second growth, but the problem is that all of the trees will be the same age, they will not have protection, they will be in the form of suckers from the stump instead of from seed. When that happens, infections from the rotting stump work its way up through the trunk over the following decades. The ring pattern is very irregular because the tree got too much sunlight. The logs will be curved and twisted because of the lack of competition to keep them straight. The timber will be full of knots because the tree grew branches low to the ground. That is why the Versailles oak that they started growing in 1840 will be suitable for the ND reconstruction- they mimicked the conditions to grow a perfect tree.

My forest is a mix of good and bad. Some of it was logged in the 50's and the trees today are sprouts from the stumps, and other than a few random lucky trees, the most value I can get from them is for railroad ties or something like that. The good part is that they seeded new trees around them, and there are thousands of young oak that stand tall and straight around them, and even after 50 years they are only six inches in diameter, so they are very much like first growth wood. I also have some areas of wetland that were never cut off, and there are some oak in there that are almost four feet in diameter and are probably 200 years old, but I'll let them be and let them seed the area around them. From my perspective, I could make some pretty big bucks if I just cut everything right now. I know some of those large oaks are worth as much as ten grand each. I have a few hundred smaller trees that are very straight and would turn out some nice veneer logs that would return a few thousand dollars each. There is endless firewood (figure 10 cord per acre) and boltwood (used as pulp and pallets). But I don't need the money, and just pull out enough to encourage new growth and pay for the taxes and expenses.

But at the end of the day, it is definitely possible to create a "first growth" forest if it is maintained. It will not be possible to maximize profits for the people managing it today anymore than the people who planted the Versailles oak, but it is still possible to make a decent return. You really have to be a big picture guy. Sometimes I cut a big 16" oak that looks perfectly fine, but it was at the expense of several younger threes that will be majestic in 100 years, but I'll never see it.

I'm not an expert. I just grew up around trees and the logging industry. My great grandfather used to ride the river on those big log drives from Canada, and my grandfather spent every winter in woods camps before the drives in the spring. And, they unwittingly managed the forest in a good way. See, back in 1880-1930, there was little mechanization, and if all you had was a saw and ax to cut a tree, you didn't cut any tree unless it was necessary. Consequently, they cut mature trees and left younger trees behind, which produced a constant supply. But then with huge demand of newsprint and cardboard, it became profitable to clear-cut everything, and the forest dynamics changed drastically. This was already evident in populated areas where the forests were already clear-cut for fuel.

I'll be on my woodlot for a couple more days, and I'll post a couple of pics if I see some good representative examples.

[Kingspoint]

Yes, it is debatable. There isn't even real definitions of what all those terms are. Let's dissect it and use forests in the north as an example.

After a forest is decimated (and it has happened many times since the ice age), a very predictable cycle of growth starts. First, you have grasslands. This gives way to low bushes like raspberries and elderberries. Them comes soft-lived trees like alder. Next is poplar, birch, and ash, in that order. Last comes the dominant long-lived trees that will hang around for hundreds of years, which in my area will be either rock maple or red oak. These start out as tall, thin, straight trees because they were protected by the previous generation of trees, so they have the beginnings of a perfect log for lumber in the future. But even these trees don't live forever, and after 300 years or so, they die and younger ones take their place. It isn't perfectly neat and organized as I describe, and there will be a few of another species included too, but maple and oak will definitely dominate for a very long time until something happens to start the process over. So, when the settlers came, these are the trees that they found.

"Second growth" can mean a lot of different things. If the forest was wiped out by fire and the entire process started over, then it technically is second growth because it wasn't first, but its still starting from nothing. This is where woodland management come in. If I clear-cut my woodlot and left it barren, it would definitely repopulate with oak and maple. It is also second growth, but the problem is that all of the trees will be the same age, they will not have protection, they will be in the form of suckers from the stump instead of from seed. When that happens, infections from the rotting stump work its way up through the trunk over the following decades. The ring pattern is very irregular because the tree got too much sunlight. The logs will be curved and twisted because of the lack of competition to keep them straight. The timber will be full of knots because the tree grew branches low to the ground. That is why the Versailles oak that they started growing in 1840 will be suitable for the ND reconstruction- they mimicked the conditions to grow a perfect tree.

My forest is a mix of good and bad. Some of it was logged in the 50's and the trees today are sprouts from the stumps, and other than a few random lucky trees, the most value I can get from them is for railroad ties or something like that. The good part is that they seeded new trees around them, and there are thousands of young oak that stand tall and straight around them, and even after 50 years they are only six inches in diameter, so they are very much like first growth wood. I also have some areas of wetland that were never cut off, and there are some oak in there that are almost four feet in diameter and are probably 200 years old, but I'll let them be and let them seed the area around them. From my perspective, I could make some pretty big bucks if I just cut everything right now. I know some of those large oaks are worth as much as ten grand each. I have a few hundred smaller trees that are very straight and would turn out some nice veneer logs that would return a few thousand dollars each. There is endless firewood (figure 10 cord per acre) and boltwood (used as pulp and pallets). But I don't need the money, and just pull out enough to encourage new growth and pay for the taxes and expenses.

But at the end of the day, it is definitely possible to create a "first growth" forest if it is maintained. It will not be possible to maximize profits for the people managing it today anymore than the people who planted the Versailles oak, but it is still possible to make a decent return. You really have to be a big picture guy. Sometimes I cut a big 16" oak that looks perfectly fine, but it was at the expense of several younger threes that will be majestic in 100 years, but I'll never see it.

I'm not an expert. I just grew up around trees and the logging industry. My great grandfather used to ride the river on those big log drives from Canada, and my grandfather spent every winter in woods camps before the drives in the spring. And, they unwittingly managed the forest in a good way. See, back in 1880-1930, there was little mechanization, and if all you had was a saw and ax to cut a tree, you didn't cut any tree unless it was necessary. Consequently, they cut mature trees and left younger trees behind, which produced a constant supply. But then with huge demand of newsprint and cardboard, it became profitable to clear-cut everything, and the forest dynamics changed drastically. This was already evident in populated areas where the forests were already clear-cut for fuel.

I'll be on my woodlot for a couple more days, and I'll post a couple of pics if I see some good representative examples.

Excellent.

[BernieCarbo]

Excellent.

Well, it rained for four days and it was terrible muddy, so I didn't do much. But I walked around and found some examples of what I mean.

In the first pic, you can see a tall, straight tree in the foreground with a clump of trees to the right in the background that go up at an angle. This land was cut off in 1955, and the clump sprouted up from the stump. It originally had about eight trunks, but half of them died and I cut them out for firewood. Either way, because the original stump is rotted, disease has started to work its way up the trees and they will not remain healthy. Also, because of the way they grew, the rings and long fibers will be irregular and the lumber will warp. The tree in the foreground was probably about 10 years old when the land was cut, and because it was sheltered, it was probably a tall thin tree with no branches at the bottom. It came from seed from the surrounding trees, so it doesn't have the problem with the rotting stump. Unfortunately on once side about 26 feet up there is the remnants of a branch, but it will still produce a very nice 24 foot log if I decide to harvest it. There is a very good chance it will be free of knots and will have a beautiful ring pattern.

In the second photo, although it is hard to see, there is a clump of trees just like in the first photo that finally broke and collapsed last fall. Again, the stump rotted, the trees grew out an angle, and the weight was too much. They grew for 65 years and are worth nothing except for firewood. I'll just leave them there for a few years and then pull them out. The bark will fall off and the wood will be well-seasoned. But it's a shame, because if someone back in 1955 had some forethought, they would have protected a seedling in the area that could have produced a very nice tree in the same place during this time.

Also, you can see that it is a very mixed forest. The fir that you see is stunted and actually very old, but it provides a lot of protection and food for wildlife. For the most part I just leave it there, although I'll clean up areas where I need to move around equipment or stack wood. If I do cut some down, I make sure to push it in a pile and then cut a large junk tree like birch to fall on it and squash it so it rots faster. I just don't want to take the chance of leaving behind a lot of fuel for a fire. An acre of forest contains between 50 and 150 tons of biomass, and if a fire ever started in dry dead undergrowth, it would be devastating.

Anyway, it's fun. I don't have much time to spend there, and my original plan was to build a home in the middle of it when I retire, but since my son in law is interested in maintaining it long term, we're coming up with some interesting plans for it. I'm working on plans for a very low-impact machine to yard the wood out, and we're trying a experiment with mound-farming on a few acres where it isn't suitable even for growing trees.

Also, for whatever reason, this site rotated the images and I don’t have time to figure out why. Sorry.

[Kingspoint]

What do you pull your logs out with?

That second photo looks like it's at the bottom of a slope.

I wish everyone managed forests the way you do. I certainly appreciate it. Back in '81 when I was 22 my girlfriend inherited some land from her father who built homes and he always managed his forest the same way. It looked as good in '82 as when he first started using it in '52.

[BernieCarbo]

What do you pull your logs out with?

That second photo looks like it's at the bottom of a slope.

I wish everyone managed forests the way you do. I certainly appreciate it. Back in '81 when I was 22 my girlfriend inherited some land from her father who built homes and he always managed his forest the same way. It looked as good in '82 as when he first started using it in '52.

I use an old narrow front Model B John Deere tractor. These are perfect in rough terrain because the narrow front can navigate easily around stumps and rocks. And, the big tires don't damage the ground. They are also very high torque, and can full out a 30 foot trunk with ease. I also have a mid-size Kubota that has over twice the HP rating, but John can pull it right off the map.

But one thing we are working on is a very compact unmanned device that can pull trees out remotely via drone technology. It would be slower of course than a skidder or tractor, but on the other hand it can work 24 hours a day in the rain or dark and it never gets injured.

The land is somewhat hilly. In a 300 acre plot, the elevation deviates about 350 feet. But most of it is accessible except in one area where I have to use winches.

The whole thing really is kind of an exercise in humility. If you do it right, you will never receive the benefit because it takes several lifetimes for a forest to reach its potential. For instance, when a tree doubles in diameter, it produces about six times as much wood for same effort to harvest it. But, when we are talking about large trees, it could take 100 years to double in diameter. Before I die, I'll talk to a lawyer about putting the land in a trust with restrictions so it can't be divided and sold but can still provide enough income for upkeep. The whole thing goes so strongly against the grain of realizing short term gains though, that I don't even know what's possible.

[Kingspoint]

We haven't even scratched the surface.