Our 20Th Anniversary Issue

SUMMER ’14

A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT THE FOREST

Our 20th Anniversary Issue A Look Back at Two Decades of Change A Primer on Spiders A Sawmill Goes Retail Brooding Over Cowbirds, Bark-Peeling Black Bears, a Superweed for Dinner, and much more

$5.95 on the web WWW.NORTHERNWOODLANDS.ORG

THE OUTSIDE STORY EDITOR’S BLOG WHAT IN THE WOODS IS THAT? Each week we publish a new nature If summer were We show you a photo; if you guess story on topics ranging from skunk a weeklong what it is, you’ll be eligible to win cabbage respiration to clams in the vacation, mid- a prize. This recent photo showed woods. August would be black walnuts eaten by red squirrel. Friday afternoon. You’re not packing your bags to come home yet, but there’s an awareness that there’s more behind you than in front of you. (From “The Peak.”)

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Cover Photo by Zack Clothier A man gazes up at the evening sky as the glow of sunset fades over Lake Durant, located in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.

VOLUME 21 I NUMBER 2 REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS CENTER FOR NORTHERN WOODLANDS EDUCATION, INC. SUMMER 2014 Virginia Barlow Copyright 2014 Jim Block Northern Woodlands Magazine (ISSN 1525-7932) is published Elise Tillinghast Madeline Bodin quarterly by the Center for Northern Woodlands Education, Inc., magazine Executive Director/Publisher Marian Cawley Tovar Cerulli 1776 Center Road, P.O. Box 471, Corinth, VT 05039-0471 Dave Mance III Andrew Crosier Tel (802) 439-6292 Editor Steve Faccio Fax (802) 368-1053 Patrick White Giom [email protected] Assistant Editor Bernd Heinrich www.northernwoodlands.org Robert Kimber Amy Peberdy Subscription rates are $23 for one year, $42 for two years, and $59 for three years. Stephen Long Operations Manager Canadian and foreign subscriptions by surface mail are $30.50 US for one year. Todd McLeish POSTMASTER: Send address corrections to Northern Woodlands Magazine, P.O. Emily Rowe Brett McLeod Box 471, Corinth, VT 05039-0471 or to [email protected]. Periodical Operations Coordinator/ Susan C. Morse postage paid at Corinth, Vermont, and at additional mailing offices. Web Manager Bryan Pfeiffer Published on the first day of March, June, September, and December. Joe Rankin All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written Jim Schley consent of the publisher is prohibited. The editors assume no responsibility Poetry Editor Michael Snyder Adelaide Tyrol for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. Return postage should accompany all submissions. Printed in USA. Chuck Wooster For subscription information call (800) 290-5232. DESIGN Northern Woodlands is printed on paper with 10 percent post-consumer

SFI-00665 Liquid Studio / Lisa Cadieux recycled content.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 1 Center for Northern from the enter Woodlands Education C

BOARD OF DIRECTORS A frequently cited study (circa 2002) states that 70 percent of magazines never President make it past their first issue, and approximately 50 percent fail in the first year. Julia Emlen In other words, new magazines have roughly the same mortality rate as the Julia S. Emlen Associates common meadow vole. Seekonk, MA The outlook doesn’t improve much after that. Although reliable figures Vice President are elusive, a rule of thumb is that about 90 percent of magazines (and 100 Marcia McKeague percent of meadow voles) perish in the first decade. Katahdin Timberlands This issue marks the twentieth anniversary of Northern Woodlands. Millinocket, ME That’s remarkable. The magazine’s durability speaks to a continuing forest-stewardship Treasurer/Secretary ethic in the Northeast and the devotion of many people. It’s also a testament to the hard work Tom Ciardelli and gumption of the magazine’s founders, Virginia Barlow and Stephen Long. Biochemist, Outdoorsman Their partnership began with a conversation at Long’s fortieth birthday party. At the time, Hanover, NH he was a freelance journalist who wrote a hunting and fishing column for a local newspaper. Si Balch Barlow, a forester and casual acquaintance, approached him with an idea. She was dismayed Consulting Forester that a state publication, The Vermont Forest Quarterly, was ending its run due to lack of funding. Brooklin, ME She proposed putting together a newsletter to take its place. Sarah R. Bogdanovitch Their conversation continued over the next several weeks. Soon, Long remembered, “we Paul Smith’s College started to get grandiose ideas.” They would create a quarterly magazine. It would be moderate Paul Smiths, NY in tone and combine an attractive presentation with quality information about Vermont forests. Richard G. Carbonetti Subscribers would be “readers who were really interested in a big picture of the woods but didn’t LandVest, Inc. know it yet.” Newport, VT As for the business plan – there was no business plan. According to Long, the whole enter- Starling Childs MFS prise was “seat of the pants.” It went forward because “we didn’t know any better.” Ecological and Environmental In December 1993, the partners began promoting their idea at Vermont forestry meetings. Consulting Services Norfolk, CT They recruited their first subscriber, Elwin Leysath, at one of these events. Did he think they would make it? “Virginia Barlow thought they would,” recalled Leysath. “And I thought, ‘I hope Esther Cowles they do.’” (Leysath remains a subscriber.) Fernwood Consulting, LLC Hopkinton, NH Over the next several months, Long and Barlow cobbled together a list of 300 subscribers, secured advertising (they reached out to every sawmill in the state of Vermont), and developed Dicken Crane a mock-up with a faux article entitled, “Barlow Fells State’s Largest Pine.” Holiday Brook Farm Dalton, MA They decided to name their magazine Vermont Woodlands. They wrote and edited most of the first issue themselves, drawing on the talents of a small group of friends, including Long’s Timothy Fritzinger wife, author Mary Hays. Alta Advisors London, UK The first issue was 28 pages, printed in black and white. Because they intended to use it as a marketing piece, Barlow and Long screwed up their courage and ordered a whopping 10,000 Sydney Lea copies. They sent the magazine to every landowner enrolled in Vermont’s current use program. Writer, Vermont Poet Laureate Newbury, VT The response “wasn’t terrible,” said Barlow. But the first years were a hard slog. She described her typical magazine work day, which started after she finished her full time forestry job. “I would Bob Saul come home, shovel in some horrible supper, and start entering subscriber information.” Wood Creek Capital Management Amherst, MA She emphasized that the magazine would have been doomed without Long’s total dedication. “I really credit Steve. He picked it up and ran with it.” Although neither partner took any pay Peter Silberfarb from Vermont Woodlands in the first year, Long quit his freelance work and devoted himself Dartmouth Medical School Lebanon, NH to the magazine full time. When did they know they would succeed? There’s no clear answer to the question – maybe Ed Wright from the start, maybe much later. “We lived with uncertainty for a long time,” said Barlow. W.J. Cox Associates Clarence, NY The arrival of staff member Chuck Wooster in 1998 was a turning point, as was the decision to broaden coverage to all of the Northeast in 1999, and to establish the Center for Northern The Center for Northern Woodlands Woodlands Education in 2003. Another critical moment came in 2010, with the successful Education, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) public transfer of editorial responsibilities from Long to Dave Mance III. benefit educational organization. Both Barlow and Long emphasized that the magazine would never have worked without the Programs include Northern Woodlands strength of their partnership. “It took incredible trust,” said Long, “when we hardly knew each magazine, Northern Woodlands Goes other.” Barlow agreed. From the start, there was “some sort of bond ... we would have done any- to School, The Outside Story, The Place You Call Home series, and thing to make it work.” www.northernwoodlands.org. Elise Tillinghast, Executive Director, Publisher in this ISSUE

features 24 By the Numbers: 20 Years of Change 30 When the Trees Took Over JUDY CHAVES

24 38 The Best of “What in the Woods is That?” 42 Exotic Larch 46 DAVID MAASS 46 The Nulhegan We Knew PATRICK HACKLEY 54 The Story of Stumpage Prices PAUL E. SENDAK AND THOM J. MCEVOY 58 Predators with Personality RACHEL SARGENT 64 Frozen in Time 30 PATRICK WHITE 66 An Industrial Place Turned Green TONY DONOVAN departments 2 From the Center 4 Calendar 5 Editor’s Note 6 Letters to the Editors 9 Birds in Focus: Parasitic Parenting BRYAN PFEIFFER 11 Woods Whys: What is a Forest Stand? MICHAEL SNYDER 13 Tracking Tips: The Ap-peel of Cambium SUSAN C. MORSE 14 Knots and Bolts 23 1,000 Words 52 The Overstory: Hophornbeam 58 VIRGINIA BARLOW 42 66 70 Field Work: At Work Chipping Trees with the Hardwick Family JACK RODOLICO 73 Upcountry ROBERT KIMBER 74 Discoveries TODD MCLEISH 78 WoodLit 81 Tricks of the Trade: Peavey Proficiency BRETT R. MCLEOD 83 Outdoor Palette ADELAIDE TYROL 84 A Place in Mind MARTHA LEB MOLNAR

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 3 CALENDAR

A Look at the Season’s Main Events

By Virginia Barlow June July August FIRST WEEK Some emerald ash borer adults appear Ebony jewelwings are flying along streams. Wood turtles are foraging for slugs, in May but peak emergence is in June. These big, iridescent damselflies are weak mushrooms, and berries, often quite a Keep an eye out from here on through flyers and you can get close to them if distance from streams / By now great blue the summer / Star-nosed moles are you move slowly / Green lacewing eggs heron nestlings are large and easier to see giving birth to three to seven young. These are laid at the ends of stalks on the under- as they poke their heads out of the nest / wetland creatures will soon be eating sides of leaves and they look like very The large white flower heads of boneset worms, insects, leeches, crustaceans, tiny balloons on a string. The larvae are can be seen at the edges of wetlands. Its and mollusks / First European skipper sometimes called “aphid lions,” but they opposite leaves are fused to each other adults emerge. Introduced to Ontario in eat many other insects and mites in across the stem, a feature that may have 1910, these butterflies are now abundant addition to aphids / The sky blue flowers given rise to the name / Grasshoppers are in much of the U.S. The caterpillars eat of chicory are blooming at the edges of sizing up enough to attract the interest of grasses and overwinter as eggs highways kestrels

SECOND WEEK Gypsy moth caterpillars are now feeding Horse flies begin; deer flies continue / The 2014: August 12, 13 The Perseids meteor and growing rapidly. If there is any bushes are full of novice, short-tailed fliers shower is one of the best. This year there defoliation, it should be evident by now / that have just left the nest / Red-backed will be some interference from the moon, One good thing about blackflies is that salamanders are laying eggs. The female but often the meteors are so bright that they go to bed early; not true of mosquitos will protect the eggs until they hatch six they still can put on a good show / Dead or no-see-ums / Vireos, warblers, and to nine weeks later. These are entirely terminal shoots of white pines killed by tanagers are all likely to be using birch terrestrial salamanders and the larvae the white pine weevil are now evident / bark in their nests / The wood thrush’s complete metamorphosis while still in the The yields of timber-producing trees such diet features small snails, millipedes, egg / Ruffed grouse mothers will make as ash and poplar increase when they and centipedes, which is why these birds strange noises and pretend to be injured grow with speckled alder and can share in are often seen scratching around in the to lure predators away from their young the nitrogen fixed by the alder’s bacterial leaf litter partner

THIRD WEEK Red-shouldered hawk eggs are hatching. Insects such as June beetles, large moths, August 18: Venus and Jupiter will be less The chicks will stay in the nest for five and katydids are an important part of a than one-quarter of a degree apart, the or six weeks, then they’ll climb around screech owl’s summer diet. Leave the closest conjunction of two naked-eye on nearby branches for a while before porch light on / Brown snakes have planets in 2014 / Katydids begin singing fledging / Gray treefrogs are hard to see adapted to city life and often live in parks, and will continue until the first hard frost / as they look very much like the lichen- yards, and vacant lots. They are rarely Praise the red-bellied snake, for slugs are covered bark they perch on. The bright seen because of their nocturnal lifestyle / a big part of its diet. These snakes are yellowish orange on the groin and inner Wild brook trout can be seen hovering now giving birth to up to 21 live snakelets / surface of their legs only shows when beneath stream riffles, robotically feeding Timber rattlesnakes are moving back to they leap / Cow vetch – pretty in on the insects that float overhead / Antlers the ledges / Baltimore orioles, swallows, abandoned fields and a nuisance in on whitetail bucks have grown almost and spotted sandpipers are migrating the garden – begins to bloom full-sized south

FOURTH WEEK Hatching turkey vultures will spend most of July 28-29: A good year for the Delta Snapping turtle eggs begin to hatch. At the next three months as nestlings / Now Aquarids meteor shower because the moon just over an inch long, the hatchlings may that summer fruits like strawberries and will set early, leaving dark skies for what head for water after digging up to the raspberries are ripening, bears will begin to should be a good show / Monarch surface, or they might stay put until spring / gain weight / Silk-plumed seeds of black butterflies were alarmingly scarce in 2013. The meadow jumping mouse lives where willow are being blown on the wind. The tiny Let’s all wish them better luck in 2014 / grasses are tall or near patches of jewel- seeds will die if they dry out / Hummingbirds The positive side of the earwig: the female weed. It eats jewelweed and other seeds, get protein from eating insects trapped in lays about 30 eggs and stays with them for along with subterranean fungi / Nighthawks sap or nectar and have been known to pilfer a few days after they hatch. They eat mites are migrating in large, loose flocks, best them from spider webs / Young ovenbirds and insects as well as your flowers. The found near rivers at dusk / Silverrod, the are just out of the nest nasty-looking pincers are used in defense only goldenrod that isn’t yellow, is blooming

These listings are from observations and reports in our home territory at about 1,000 feet in elevation in central Vermont and are approximate. Events may occur earlier or later, depending on your latitude, elevation – and the weather.

4 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 EDITOR’S note

By Dave Mance III

The theme of this issue is time passing, and I used creative financing schemes and philanthropic capital to want to open things by telling you about a big fund multi-million dollar land purchases. Timber investment story that never happened. management organizations and real estate investment trusts Beginning in the late eighties, just before used the pooled resources of investors to purchase the lion’s share this magazine was founded, tens of millions of of the acreage, ensuring that it would remain working forestland. acres of forestland in northern New York and Instead of an era of unchecked development, the last two decades New England – the core of what makes the have been an era of conservation on a scale we’ve never seen. North Woods the North Woods – were put on the market. The To paraphrase writer Ted Williams, the whole thing serves land had been owned by paper and timber companies for as long as an example of what advocates of wildness can do when as anyone could remember; local economies were built around sufficiently frightened. And besides keeping the forest intact, managing, harvesting, and processing the wood that grew there, the process set the stage for the progressive brand of envi- and on the outdoors-minded people who recreated on the land. ronmentalism that you see featured in Northern Woodlands But property values were rising, and the company bean today. Virginia Barlow tells a funny story about dropping off counters realized that their $10/acre forestland was worth a lot one of our magazines at an environmental bookstore in the more than they’d paid for it. Plus, a vertically integrated business early 1990s, and being told later, in a reproachful tone, that model was becoming unnecessary in a global economy where the magazine had been removed because it was about cutting pulp and timber could be purchased for less money than it cost trees down and not saving them. (Yes, a book store.) Back then, to grow it. In many cases, it just stopped making economic sense the remnants of sixties-style culture wars still had tree hugging to own forestland, and the corporations started looking for ways environmentalists at odds with timber beast loggers. to cash out. But northern New England, for the most part, isn’t like that The first shoe dropped in 1988, when Diamond International today. There’s a shared sense of purpose between environ- put nearly a million acres of forestland on the market, and mentalists and those in forest industry, and a lot more trust. sure enough, a developer bought 100,000 of those acres and People take it for granted that even industrial owners will promptly tried to flip the land in what was dubbed “The consider water quality and wildlife in their harvest plans, and Great North Country Land Auction,” promoted as “a unique most recognize the importance of forest products and the roles opportunity for those looking to purchase part of a vanishing that logging and wood manufacturing play in rural life. The commodity – unspoiled rural wilderness within a reasonable magazine’s message of environmentalism without enemies was commute to metropolitan areas.” Locals winced at the thought sort of punk rock and countercultural in 1994; today, at least of locked gates and posted signs and the loss of independence around here, it’s pretty mainstream. and self-respect that comes when a forest economy is replaced Of course, some things did change in the enormous land by a seasonal tourist-based economy; conservationists cringed transfer. On page 46, Patrick Hackley takes a nostalgic look back at the idea of these huge, unfragmented blocks of forest being at his days as a dirt forester on the former Champion Lands in crisscrossed by roads and dotted with vacation homes boasting northern Vermont; it’s a piece that’ll give you a firsthand look at Scotts Turf Builder® lawns. Understand that this land had been the last days of that industrial parcel and a glimpse at how the worked for generations but never settled. Its forest history landscape and culture are different there today. And, of course, stretched back to the last ice age. things are still changing. We’ll continue to discuss – sometimes Over the next 20 years, the land ownership structure of the argue about – the fate of this former industrial forestland, Northern Forest did indeed crumble. After Diamond, millions because there’s still a lot at stake. of acres of timberland went on the market. In Maine alone, an But 20 years on, it’s worth raising a glass to the fact that area roughly the size of the state of New Hampshire was sold. the sky never fell. We should reflect on the human part of this But what’s astounding is that, unless you were paying atten- triumph – the hard work that a lot of people put into guiding tion, you might not know this huge land transfer even happened. the transfer – but also the business point that most of this land Anticipating what might come next, politicians spearheaded stayed intact because it stayed working, and it stayed working bipartisan efforts to reinforce traditional patterns of land use. because the new owners could generate a return by selling Land trusts transitioned from brokering conservation easements timber. It’s in the absence of a healthy wood market that the next on 100-acre lots to 100,000-acre parcels. Conservation groups Great North County Land Auction will take place.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 5 letters to the EDITORS

A Fateful Find No Monkeying Around Honey Locust Don’t Care To the Editors: To the Editors: To the Editors: Today I happened to come across your magazine In the Autumn 2013 edition, there were two I can tell a little more about honey locust [Letters at a Barnes & Noble in Massachusetts. The maga- photos that glaringly portrayed a major chainsaw to the Editors, Spring 2014]. I regard it as a pest zine combines so many of my interests that I think safety violation. As a two-time graduate of the tree on my farm because the huge thorns have my discovery was fateful in a couple ways. First, Game of Logging and a “C” level sawyer certified a reputation for puncturing tractor tires. The I am a huge proponent of nature conservation, an by the U.S. Forest Service, it pained me to see trees can grow quite large, to the point where I artist and photographer of nature, and huge lover these in the magazine. The problem is what’s milled a log once. The wood is attractive and can of trees – especially old craggy ones. called a “monkey grip,” which occurs when the be mistaken for red oak, except it is a bit more Second, I flipped to the “Letters to the Editors” thumb is on top of the chainsaw handle and not orange. Not very practical though, since it splits section and read about a familiar-looking antique wrapped all the way around the handle. This is a very easily. There was one large tree I had felled chair that was made from trees felled in the New very weak grip, and a slight push or kick could in an old hog enclosure and, when I was limbing England hurricane of 1938. I saw the inscription dislodge your hand. Operator’s manuals instruct it, a large branch somehow fell on my head. Ouch, and the factory stamp on the bottom of the chair, you to have your fingers encircle the handle with of course, and a little bump and bloody spot. My and then the letter from a reader who thought the your thumb on the underside, also called a “wrap- wife could see nothing so we let it go. For a month chair was probably made in Connecticut. I thought, around grip.” If you are holding the saw using the or two after that my hand would wander to that “No, I think it was made in Gardner, Massachusetts, monkey grip and you get a kickback, your abil- spot and then one evening, as dinner guests at by Nichols and Stone.” So I searched on the ity to control the saw will be greatly diminished, a friend’s house, my wandering hand produced Internet and, sure enough, I was correct. which will substantially increase the potential for a little blood. My wife impatiently said, “Leave Gardner used to be the largest chair manufac- very severe injury or death. it be. I’ll look at it when we get home.” At home turing area in the world. Nichols & Stone was here Years ago, when I commercially logged, I had she extracted an inch-long thorn that had gone until the 2000s and was bought out by Stickley in a bad habit of using the monkey grip. One day on straight in through my skull! So, tractor tires and North Carolina. This was only one of many factories the log landing, one of my fellow loggers, who skulls. here. Chair and furniture builders were a huge was carrying a Biltmore stick, came over and Russ Seaman, Rougemont, North Carolina source of employment for immigrants. One of my whacked me on the left thumb with that stick of grandfathers worked for Heywood Wakefield for rock maple. He then said, “There. Now you’ll think a short time and the other worked for Nichols & twice before ever using the monkey grip again!” It Dash of Wisdom Stone most of his life. worked; to this day, I always use the wraparound To the Editors: Thank you for your work. I love your magazine grip, and I’m always on the lookout to try to make There’s a way to clarify confusing plant names, and hope to subscribe soon. sure no one else uses the monkey grip. such as those that misled a reader recently Brigitte Flick, Gardner, Massachusetts Bill Guenther, Newfane, Vermont [Letters to the Editors, Spring 2014]. Let’s consider the explanatory power of the simple hyphen. When written as honey-locust, it becomes clear that Gleditsia triacanthos is in a different genus from black locust, Robinia pseudoacacia. Douglas-fir’s hyphen shows that it is not a fir at all, and including the hyphen in yellow-poplar (also tulip-poplar or tuliptree) frees it from confu- sion with the poplars. Having this key information right there in the names themselves is elegantly simple and instructive. Your readers already know that osage-orange is not a citrus tree, but the hyphen makes it clear to everybody. It also says mountain-holly is not a holly, bush-honeysuckle is not a honeysuckle, and the hellacious tree-of-heaven may have originated somewhere else entirely. Stephen E. Jaquith, Muncy, Pennsylvania

Left: Monkey grip with extended thumb, bad. Right: Wraparound grip, good.

6 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Considering Carbon proactivity, discourage rural employment, impacts of quarantines and match the pain of To the Editors: enhance the status quo (fossil energy depen- compliance to the risk the product presents.” Concerning the article dence), deny stable funding of forest mainte- “Conflicting Carbon nance, support urban compensation systems Creature Casting Call Conclusion” in your that cause people to work at jobs they hate in Northern Woodlands has done it again. Too fre- Spring issue [page 67], I am skeptical of Dartmouth order to survive, and encourage global trade. quently your articles prompt me to pick up pen College Professor Andrew Friedland’s conclusion In reality, forests are natural, temporary, self- and comment or add to a provocative piece. The that logging enhances soil carbon release up to replacing carbon uptake systems. When managed latest is Rachel Sargent’s “Fantastic Creatures,” 50 years after the event. Since disturbance is the responsibly, they can provide humans with wood which I truly enjoyed. I had written an article back norm in New England forests, from one factor or products (an effective way to store carbon) and in 1962 with the title “Strange Creatures of our another (be it logging, hurricane, etc.), it is hard fuel, allowing us to be self-sufficient. There is no Woodlands” that was published in the February- to believe that logging disturbance would be dif- other facet of our society that has the potential for March issue of The Conservationist (the journal of ferent from natural ones. Perhaps if Mr. Friedland carbon negativity by doing things a little better! the New York State Conservation Department). Let visited his unlogged sites after a major natural As global emissions rise, models suggest that me add two creatures from that piece that may disturbance he would see the same carbon we can expect stand-altering disturbances like interest readers. release he saw on the logged ones. Additionally, storm “Sandy” on a regular basis. We’re avoiding Splinter Cats feed on raccoons for a main New England sites that have not been logged in activities that might actually help the planet. course and honey for dessert. They have learned the last 50 years are fairly rare, and his unlogged Alan Page, Belchertown, MA that both of these are to be found in hollow or sites might not be representative of anything. His defective trees. This food preference has led to data might not help us reach conclusions about their having very hard, almost armored foreheads carbon release from biomass harvests. Most of Burning Question that they use effectively by taking swift, headlong our forests would be logged anyway and biomass To the Editors: leaps at suspected trees, until a hollow one is is merely a byproduct. In response to the “Wood Movement” article by found. Though spending most of their time in Art Krueger, Shrewsbury, Vermont Joe Rankin, I’m wondering how all this shuttling seclusion (hence being rarely seen, even by Susan back and forth of sawlogs affects insect spread. Morse of Keeping Track), they come out on unusu- To the Editors: For years, there’s been a campaign in New ally stormy nights and their tree-shattering search Your coverage of the conundrum of decreasing England against hauling one’s firewood around for food leaves devastation behind. This damage soil carbon storage and the view that forests are (between campsites, etc.). What’s the point of is typically attributed to wind, ice, or lightning, strong carbon storage vehicles defies my experi- obeying that dictum if the industry is moving but those in the know recognize the work of the ence [Carbon Conclusions, Spring 2014]. Trees vast quantities of lumber between states, across arboreal Splinter Cat. are impermanent; the 1938 hurricane blew down regions, and over the border? Even more fierce is the Sylvopelter. It has a Harvard’s old growth Pisgah forest and the unre- Carolyn Haley, East Wallingford, Vermont slender wiry body, almost human, with a hideous covered carbon was released. Foresters at Yale face and long whiplike arms. A seldom seen have observed that rotting trees hold 80,000 times Editors’ Reply: Here’s what Kyle Lombard, Forest canopy-dweller with a mean temper against the atmospheric methane content. All high carbon Health Program coordinator with the State of those who cut trees or even walk in the woods, it sources that are wet – trees, swamps, permafrost New Hampshire, had to say: “All green wood delights in breaking off dead limbs and branches – will become significant methane sources. is a concern, but we need to be careful about and, with its whiplike arms, hurling them at bullet The soil carbon study presents one side of an balancing the cost of regulation against the risk speed upon the unwary visitor below. The victim often distorted facet of soil carbon. No mention the commodity presents. There is a very big dif- is usually found stunned or pinned beneath a was made of the difference in stability of soil ference between the risk of infestation from logs dead branch and the incident reported as an acci- carbon sources or stabilizing soil carbon levels going to a mill and that from split firewood being dent. It is getting increasingly malevolent from with locally produced recalcitrant carbon. The transported to a homeowner. Logs are generally frustration due to the increasing use of hard hats combination of local and Arctic methane releases, debarked and milled shortly after transportation among woods workers. Sargent is right when she and the likely impact of 5-7°F average global and the bark waste is consumed in some manner. notes that nature has conjured up some pretty warming, will result in ecological changes that Firewood is often piled for months or years with bizarre animals. Black panthers in our northern these articles do not acknowledge. bark attached. Every stick of firewood I’ve “bor- forests need not apply, though there are reports! The science seems clear that forests are good rowed” from out-of-state campers and placed Larry Hamilton, Charlotte, Vermont carbon uptake points, not stable carbon sinks, and into rearing barrels has produced an average of yet these studies are being used to suggest other- 30 insects emerging from each piece of wood. We love to hear from our readers. Letters intended wise. Our society has chosen regulatory vehicles This just isn’t going to happen with commercial for publication in the Autumn 2014 issue should be that don’t mitigate climatic consequences, damage logs or pulp as the product is processed quickly. sent in by July 1. Please limit letters to 400 words. those bearing the cost of compliance, deny rural Regulatory agencies try very hard to minimize Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 7 Allard Lumber Company Tel: (802) 254-4939 Fax: (802) 254-8492 www.allardlumber.com [email protected]

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8 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 BIRDS in focus

Story by Bryan Pfeiffer Pawning off Parenting

Even devoted birdwatchers find it tough to love ALAN VERNON the brown-headed cowbird. Black body. Fat head. Grating voice. And the female is a homely gray. Not exactly a glamor couple. But appearance is only part of the cowbird’s PR problem. What most disturbs some birders is cowbird breeding behavior, which biologists call “brood parasitism.” Cowbirds build no nests of their own. After having indiscriminate sex, females wander the landscape laying eggs in the nests of other songbirds, leaving the unwitting foster parents to raise the cowbird chicks. This doesn’t always turn out so well for the GALAWEBDESIGN.COM/CREATIVE COMMONS host family. Cowbird chicks exercise brutal sibling rivalry. They tend to grow faster and larger than their adoptive siblings, gaining an edge in gobbling the food delivered by parents. During the melee at feeding time, cowbird chicks might stomp on and smother nestmates. They sometimes even push eggs or chicks out of the nest. The most poignant evidence of all this comes after the cowbird fledges. Birders occasionally encounter Cowbirds are reported to have parasitized more than 220 an elegant songbird – a northern cardinal, a chipping sparrow, bird species, with yellow warbler, song sparrow, red-eyed vireo, or a yellow warbler, for example – feeding a hulking cowbird chipping sparrow, eastern phoebe, and red-winged blackbird chick out of the nest (see photo). It’s like a human mom with among the most common victims. Their brood parasitism triplets feeding a fourth who happens to be an NFL linebacker. presents particular risks to certain bird populations, notably the But let’s give cowbirds their due. After all, cowbirds are rare Kirtland’s warbler, which nests in jack pine stands, mostly simply being cowbirds. Like the rest of us they’ve adapted to in Michigan. Cowbirds have been trapped and removed from changes in the landscape. breeding grounds as part of the Kirtland’s recovery plan. We suspect that cowbirds originally ranged across the Great But other species do battle with cowbirds. American robins, Plains, where they fed on insects kicked up by herds of bison gray catbirds, and northern orioles, for example, sometimes or other ungulates grazing on native prairie grasses. Seems like recognize cowbird eggs and push them out of their nests. Red- it would have been a nice life. But because their food source winged blackbirds and clay-colored sparrows are known to roamed the plains, cowbirds could not anchor their nests in abandon their nests upon finding a cowbird egg. a particular territory and continue to feed young. So they put Yellow warblers, probably unable to remove a cowbird egg, their eggs up for adoption and then headed out to feed with employ another strategy: avian condominiums. If she encounters the herd. a cowbird egg in her nest, a yellow warbler might choose to cut In the Northeast, settlers (literally) opened the landscape her losses by building a new nest on top of the old one. She may to cowbird immigration. By clearing forests for farms and be more likely to add another layer if the cowbird beats her to towns, people set the table for brown-headed cowbirds, whose the drop with the nest’s first egg, and less likely to do so when subsequent eastward expansion subjected our forest birds, more of her own eggs are in the nest. particularly those nesting near edges, to cowbird tactics. A yellow warbler might stack her nests five or six high, At least that’s the standard hypothesis. Another way to look although two or three stories is more common. In any event, it’s at it would be that cowbirds have exchanged the normal risks a rare example of how rampant housing development can help and energy demands of reproduction – courtship, defending a songbird survive. territory, and raising young – for the ability to produce lots of eggs; a female cowbird might lay dozens of eggs during the Bryan Pfeiffer is an author, wildlife photographer, guide, and consulting naturalist who breeding season, a feat accomplished by few other birds. specializes in birds and insects. He lives in Montpelier, Vermont.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 9 10 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 woods WHYS

By Michael Snyder

What is a Forest Stand (and Why do Foresters Seem so Stuck on Them)?

In assaying wooded land, foresters observe, measure, describe, stand boundaries be fixed in space and unchanging over time? and map the forest, delineating it into smaller areas – or man- These are good questions to be sure, and they help us test agement units – known as stands. In this way, a forest is seen our understanding of some important forestry concepts. But as a collection of distinct areas, typically ranging in size from like forest stands themselves, the answers to these questions a few acres to several hundred. In each stand, the trees share will need to go beyond the conceptual to include the pragmatic. certain characteristics, usually species, age, size, arrangement, The notion that foresters would want to break larger forest areas condition, or location – or some combination of these. A sugar into smaller management units is still very sound. It makes maple stand, for example, would have a preponderance of sugar good, practical, administrative sense. But our understanding of maple trees and is defined on the basis of species dominance. A what a stand represents and how it is used in silviculture should northern hardwood pole-stand, on the other hand, is defined evolve just as our understanding of forests and our silvicultural by a combination of attributes: species and size class. Another approaches and goals have changed. stand might be delineated based on the fertility and tree-growth With modern advances in GPS and ever easier to use digital potential of its soils, while yet another might be mapped based mapping tools, foresters are better equipped than ever to char- on its value as a particular habitat for wildlife. acterize, map, and analyze the many important features of a There are endless such possibilities for stand delineation. forest. We no longer have to paint a picture of the forest and our Whatever the basis, once delineated, stands are usually numbered silviculture plans for it with the same old broad brush. Instead, or named to help keep track of inventory, planned and completed we can, and should, embrace the variety and change that define activities, and measures of expenses, productivity, and revenue. forests and strive to understand the richest details possible, For each stand, the forester prescribes a particular set of while integrating them into the greater, changing whole. silvicultural techniques to be applied in pursuit of the owner’s management objectives. This entire approach to delineating Michael Snyder, a forester, is Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Forests, stands as uniform operational units was designed to make forest Parks and Recreation. management more efficient, especially for timber production. This has been a foundation of our entire history of forestry. But more recently, its relevance has come into question. Nowadays, for many, if not most, landowners, timber production is only a part – and sometimes a small part – of their forestland goals. Creating better wildlife habitat often comes first, but enhancing biological diversity, promoting forest health, providing for recreational use, and preserving the natural beauty of the land sometimes rank high as well. At least partly in response to these expanding interests, new silvicultural approaches that encourage diversity and complexity are becoming more common, such as those designed to maintain two or more age classes of trees, and harvesting practices that include keeping scattered individuals or groups of trees to retain important functions like fruit and seed production, partial shade, and a variety of habitat attributes. This new emphasis on variability has caused some to ask whether forest stands – for which uniformity is a guiding principle – should be the basic subunits in silviculture. What’s more, they say, given the natural dyna- mism and inherent variability in forests, why would we expect – let alone demand – that

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 11 12 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 TRACKING tips

Story and photos by Susan C. Morse

The Ap-peel of Cambium

Nearly 40 years ago, I discovered some curious bear feeding sign Mountains than in our Northeast. In the Cascades of on a mid-elevation ridgeline in northern Vermont. A pole-sized Washington, bears may scar as many as 40 trees per day; bigtooth aspen had been peeled to its roots like a banana. Strips such “peeling binges” get black bears in trouble with indus- of bark lay in tatters on the ground, and the exposed wood was trial forest owners. Native peoples, from British Columbia scored with vertical groupings of parallel scrape marks caused south to the Cascades and Rockies, also ate cambium from a by a black bear’s incisor teeth. Since then, I have observed this number of tree species, scraping ribbons of pulpy cambium feeding behavior on balsam fir, young sugar maple, red pine, from the underside of peeled bark slabs. Ironically, scrapers and red spruce. were frequently made from the shoulder blades of black bears. Claw marks and bite wounds show how a bear tore into and grasped the bark in order to peel it. The pattern of incisor teeth Susan C. Morse is founder and program director of Keeping Track in Huntington, Vermont. marks all over the stem provides us more than a hint of the reason: when the sap of selected trees is available, bears peel them in order to consume the slimy cambium and secondary phloem tissues. In order to get at all the exposed vascular tissues’ nutrients, a bear will feed upon the entire trunk’s surface, from the root flare to as high as it can reach. Cambium feeding is apparently a more fre- quent behavior in the Northwest and Rocky

Clockwise from top left: A bear skull may be used to visualize how the incisors remove the cambium. When fresh, the incisor grooves are easily seen because their bright color has not yet faded and is full of dried sap. Protrusive lips enable a bear to fully expose the edges of its incisor teeth to scrape cambium. Note the bear claw scars on the underside of this fir’s bark peelings (lower right corner where fingers are pointing). This shows that the bear pulled the bark down with its paws in order to peel it to the ground.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 13 KNOTS & BOLTS

Lamb’s-quarters Ricotta Pie 1 pound fresh lamb’s-quarters leaves (about 6 cups), rinsed and chopped 2 tablespoons olive oil 3 eggs 1 pound ricotta cheese 1 cup grated cheddar cheese salt and pepper The author’s daughter, Eva Grace Lord, picks lamb’s-quarters. 1 pie crust [ FORAGING ] Preheat oven to 375°. Sauté lamb’s-quarters in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until wilted – just a few minutes. Beat eggs in a large mixing bowl. Add lamb’s-quarters, remaining Wild Superfood: Lamb’s-quarters olive oil, ricotta cheese, and cheddar. Mix Four thousand years ago, the native people the highest ever tested, leaving more commonly well. Add salt and pepper as desired. Pour of North America’s eastern woodlands culti- cultivated greens in the dust. It is an especially into the prepared pie crust. Bake until the vated a protein-rich superfood. Variously called excellent source of riboflavin, calcium, zinc, and top is browned and a knife comes out lamb’s-quarters, goosefoot, or pigweed, the plant manganese. And because this plant is so easy to clean (about 1 hour). (Chenopodium album) has been all but forgotten find, these health benefits are available to even by the modern food system. (Though you may be the least experienced foragers. familiar with its widely cultivated South American Lamb’s-quarters are everywhere. They read- relative quinoa, Chenopodium quinoa.) While this ily colonize disturbed soils and grow widely in mildly flavored and nutritious vegetable is not for gardens and on roadsides. I’d challenge you not sale at the grocery store, its benefits can still be to find some in your local community garden enjoyed by modern foragers. or between the crop rows of a nearby organic Ancient farmers grew lamb’s-quarters for its farm. The waxy-feeling, diamond-shaped leaves grain-like seeds, but this article will focus on are easy to identify. And while two members of lamb’s-quarter leaves, which are the easiest part the genus are not edible, they can be readily of the plant to gather and prepare. As a leafy distinguished by their strong odor. Some toxic green, its vitamin and mineral content is among nightshades (Solanum spp.) may have leaves

14 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 that look similar, but they are hairy and lack the quarters, you will notice an unusual mealy pow- of their volume and firmness. lamb’s-quarters waxy feeling. der on the leaves and stems. To remove this The flavor of lamb’s-quarters greens is subtle As with most garden greens, there is no more powder takes some rubbing, so I usually don’t and mild. Their firm texture is a pleasant change to processing lamb’s-quarters than picking and bother. It is not harmful and disappears when from cultivated greens that wilt under heat. They washing. There is no need to remove the leaves cooked. Once washed, I like to chop the greens are not quite as flavorful as some other favored wild from the stems, as long as you are mindful to before cooking to ensure mouthful-sized bites in greens like stinging nettles, but unlike stinging nettle, pick only the tender tips from the ends of each the finished dish. lamb’s-quarters have the advantage of being avail- branch. I like to reserve a patch in our garden for The best way to begin cooking with lamb’s- able for nearly the entire summer. This long season, the lamb’s-quarters that grow there as weeds. quarters is to substitute it in your favorite recipes ready availability, and unparalleled nutrition make Each week or so, I trim off a generous serving that call for spinach. The cooking instructions will lamb’s-quarters one of my favorite wild greens. with kitchen shears. When you wash lamb’s- be similar, though lamb’s-quarters maintain more Benjamin Lord

[ THE OUTSIDE STORY ]

Listening to Trickster

As the sunset colors fade from purple to black, the forest is dimly illuminated get technical) to tell individuals apart. If, as I suspect, coyotes can distinguish by a first-quarter moon. An eerie sound breaks the calm. It is not the long, each other by their song, it would not be analogous to the animals constantly low, slow howling of wolves that can be heard further north, but the group shouting their own names; it would be more akin to our ability to recognize yip-howl of coyotes – short howls that often rise and fall in pitch, punctuated Marlon Brando because of the distinctive timbre and cadence of his voice. with staccato yips, yaps, and barks. Characteristics including dominant pitch, duration, how quickly howls rise and When people hear coyote howls, they often mistakenly assume that they’re fall in pitch, and tendency to warble all distinguish one coyote from another. hearing a large pack of animals, all raising their voices at once. But this is an For howls, this individual distinctiveness does not fade with distance. I was auditory illusion called the Beau Geste effect. Because of the variety of sounds able to record and identify individual coyotes over a distance of greater than produced by each coyote and the way sound is distorted as it passes through one mile. Given their keen hearing, it is likely coyotes can discern individual the environment, two of these tricksters can sound like seven or eight animals. howls at much greater distances – three miles or more on a calm night. Group yip-howls are produced by a mated and territorial pair of alpha Barks, on the other hand, degrade quickly over distance, with the higher coyotes, with the male howling while the female intersperses her yips, barks, frequencies fading first. This makes it theoretically possible for coyotes and short howls. Beta coyotes (the children of the alpha pair from previous familiar with an individual (say, a mate or family group member) to determine years) and current-year pups may join in if they are nearby, or respond with roughly how far away that individual is, based on the proportion of high howls of their own. And once one group of coyotes starts howling, chances frequencies in the barks. are that any other alpha pairs nearby will respond in kind, with chorus after Imagine a scenario where a lone coyote is patrolling the territory boundary chorus of group yip-howls rippling across the miles. and comes across an intruder. He starts barking and howling, and his mate I spent seven years studying coyote vocal communication during my disser- and beta children come running to the right place because his howls indicate tation research at the University of California, Berkeley. While eastern coyotes how agitated he is, and his barks allow his family to pinpoint the direction are a larger and distinct subspecies from the western coyotes that I worked and distance to his location. Although I was with, the basic findings of my research and the work done by others applies to not able to prove that coyotes can do all coyotes. Coyotes have sometimes been called “song dogs,” and their long- this, the information needed is distance songs come in two basic types. present in their calls and The first, the group yip-howl, is thought to have the dual purpose of there are strong evolu- promoting bonding within the family group, while also serving as a territorial tionary advantages to display. In other words, the coyotes are saying “we’re a happy family, and we learning how to use it. own this turf so you better keep out.” In a sense, the group howls create an We still have much to auditory fence around a territory, supplementing their physical scent marks. learn about coyote vocal Coyotes will also howl and bark separately. This second type of song is vir- communication. Even tually always an indication of disturbance or agitation and, in my experience, after years of study- the higher the proportion of howls, the more agitated the coyote is. Coyotes ing coyote calls, I was will howl and bark at neighbors who intrude on their territory and at dogs, barely able to scratch people, and other large animals that they perceive as a potential threat. the surface. These My research documented that coyote barks and howls are individually tricksters hold their specific. Much as we can tell people apart by their voices, there is enough secrets tightly. information in coyote vocalizations for me (OK, my computer if you want to Brian R. Mitchell

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 15 KNOTS & BOLTS

[ STEWARDSHIP STORY ]

Revisiting a Black Walnut Plantation

Twenty years ago, I planted 1,600 black walnut ed and I culled about 350 trees, which had no real seedlings on a site a few miles outside of Barre, commercial value beyond being really expensive in central Vermont. Four years later, I planted firewood. Unhappily, yellow-bellied sapsuckers another 700. A dairy farm had operated on the site have also become involved in thinning the stand. for many years before the cows made way for a Their tapping activities have maimed or killed ginseng grower in the 1970s. When I acquired the dozens of trees, and they seem to have a knack property, I felt an historical pull to keep at least for targeting trees based on their potential timber part of the land working. When I began building quality; they have eliminated some excellent trees my home, the excavator operator’s enthusiastic and I’ve yet to find a way to thwart their activities. reaction to the quality and depth of the soil firmed My plantation has come a long way since my resolve. Vermont Woodlands ran a short piece about it in So, without any previous silvicultural experi- the Autumn 1994 issue. The trees are now firmly ence, I decided to become a tree farmer. Veneer established, timber form is generally good, and quality black walnut timber would be my crop. I copious nuts are being produced. The local squir- wasn’t the first person to try to grow walnut in rels love me. Vermont, but I couldn’t find evidence that it had The key factors that have led to success, been previously attempted on this large a scale. beyond hard work, include a good site (crucial), Our county forester helped me to obtain a $3,000 cold tolerant seedlings, early control of competing cost-share stipend from the U.S. Department of vegetation, and prevention of animal predation. Agriculture, and I was committed. I bought one-, It is likely that the moderating effect of climate two- and three-year-old bareroot seedlings from change has favored the vitality of these trees. I New York, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. consider myself, for better or worse, an agent of The seedlings were planted 12 feet apart on a five- tree migration. However, any pride I take in this acre rectangle, each within five-foot-tall plastic project is frequently tempered by the realization tree shelters secured to wooden stakes. I applied that it won’t be completed until the trees are glyphosate herbicide around the base of each mature…in about 50 years. tree annually for the first six growing seasons, Mark Heitzman as I had gleaned from my readings that fledgling black walnut plantations frequently fail without the This series is underwritten by the Plum Creek Foundation, elimination of competing vegetation. in keeping with the foundation’s focus on promoting Mortality was less than 15 percent over the first environmental stewardship and place-based education 10 years, occurred mainly over the winter, and was in the communities it serves. highest in the Pennsylvania-sourced cohort. Non- fatal winter dieback and late spring frost damage were common. Bud destruction caused by insects was ubiquitous and remains so, which makes cor- rective pruning to maintain timber form essential. During the first few years, the plastic tree shelters regularly toppled over in strong winds. In dismay, I spent long hours replacing snapped stakes and setting things aright. Less tipsy were the shorter, four-foot shelters I used in subsequent plantings. Although the shelters eventually ended up in the landfill, they provided invaluable protection from deer and rodents and made herbicide applications quite straightforward. The trees have grown vigorously and some are almost 50 feet tall. I still assiduously prune them in the late fall and over the winter. Two years ago, it became apparent that a major thinning was need-

16 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 17 KNOTS & BOLTS

[ MANUFACTURING ]

Reinventing the Mill

“We had an old Corley semi-automatic carriage Early in the downturn, things were especially this “keep it simple, stupid” business model, until mill in a little 40-by-80-foot building when we dire. Buyers weren’t just dialing back on quantity, the economic downturn quickly made running the started,” said Dave Buxton, who founded New they were canceling orders. NEFP was forced to business anything but simple. England Forest Products (NEFP) with his wife, lower its prices just to move product, despite being “Everything changed in 2007 and 2008,” said Deborah, in 1993. Today, the NEFP facility in saddled with expensive stumpage contracts it had Buxton. The housing market collapse in the U.S., Greenfield, New Hampshire, features a greatly signed based on anticipated demand and pre- coupled with the end of a favorable exchange rate expanded mill building (one that was rebuilt recession prices. “There was a point in time when that had allowed Canadian producers a competi- after a 1997 tornado leveled the original) with a the average log price delivered to this yard was tive advantage, plus a surge of import competition computer-controlled sawmill, an office, two huge very close to the average lumber value leaving, from China, caused the Canadian lumber market kilns, and a retail store. There’s little left that which left us no margin to operate,” said Buxton. to suddenly evaporate. recalls the early days of the company, which is The story was the same at other mills. “Anybody “We went from sawing 50 hours a week at the reason it’s still in business. who didn’t have some financial strength left over the beginning of 2008 – and that was the short- The ability to evolve has been the key to from 2005 and 2006 couldn’t sustain it,” he recalled. est we had ever run – to where we had to shut survival since “The Great Recession,” which for- Buxton said that when he got into the business down completely for four weeks by May,” recalled ever altered the sawmill industry in the Northeast. there were 16 hardwood sawmills operating in the Buxton. “We couldn’t get rid of the lumber.” “The wood products business has changed so state of New Hampshire; now there are three. While many mill owners decided to liquidate drastically since then – probably more so than and get out of the business, the Buxtons made at any time in history, or my history at least,” Green to Brown a conscious decision to stay open and diver- said Buxton. “Pretty much anybody who’s around In the beginning, NEFP was producing exclusively sify. The couple secured a 50 percent matching today to benefit from the upswing in business has green lumber, most of which went to flooring and grant through the New England Trade Adjustment had to be innovative just to stay alive.” other wood products manufacturers in Canada. Assistance Center (NETAAC), a federal program In past economic dips, things would be down More than one-third went to a single architectural designed to aid companies negatively affected for a year or two before there were signs of millwork customer north of the border for pro- by imports, and used the funds in part to conduct demand returning. That wasn’t the case this time duction of stair treads and hand rails. In the late market research. They learned that there was around. While economists say the recession that 1990s, NEFP added a double-cut bandmill that growth potential in kiln-dried lumber, but they’d hit in 2008 lasted only about 19 months, Buxton doubled production, but the business structure need a way to make it. This meant not only drying has a different perspective. From early 2007 to went largely unchanged for more than a decade. but basic finishing – surfacing two sides of the summer of 2013, NEFP faced declining demand “Right up to the recession, logs would come lumber and straight-line ripping. and lower pricing for its products, he said. “In our in, we’d process them, and everything went They also had to figure out a way to sell it. They industry, that’s how we define recession. So we out green. It was a pretty easy business,” said hired a part-time employee, based on the West were in it for about seven years.” Buxton, who had no intention of messing with Coast, to drum up sales and then contracted with

18 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 a lumber facility in Brattleboro, Vermont, for drying the blanks and a contractor does the molding and biomass harvesting. So I have two or three and planing. When it became clear that shipping work) and ship them to individual customers logging operators who are from the old school: lumber back and forth to Brattleboro was not a around the country. The floors that NEFP manu- they are very productive with chainsaws and practical long-term solution, they created their factures include species such as hickory, birch, red skidders,” said Buxton, emphasizing his desire to own drying and planing operation. (The kilns were and white oak, cherry, hard maple, and beech. support these hard-working local loggers. formerly used at an Ethan Allen mill in Maine and Custom timbers are another niche that NEFP Even as NEFP’s products find their way around purchased at auction.) As part of the new venture, got into and they’ve found solid demand from the world, Buxton emphasizes that it all starts they opened a new retail building on site and also municipalities and contractors doing bridge and in the local woods. “Oftentimes people live here completed a major overhaul of their branding and construction work, as well as for post and beam because they want to live in a rural community; marketing efforts with special grants from UNH barns. “Nobody really makes timbers anymore,” they like the rural environment with the trees and the Northern Forest Center. Buxton notes. and the forests. Well, one reason those trees and One thing that hasn’t changed is NEFP’s reliance forests are here is because the landowners are Local wood, worldwide market on local wood. Part of the reason Buxton chose able to hold onto the land because they benefit By 2009, New England Forest Products had trans- a site on Route 31 in Greenfield was to ensure from the value of the timber,” he said. “The timber formed itself from a wholesaler of green lumber to easy access to log trucks rolling in from southern that’s being produced here not only supports a multifaceted company that also sold dry lumber New Hampshire and central Massachusetts. That the company you’re buying it from, but also the to both retail and wholesale markets around the continues to this day and the company recently loggers and the truckers and the landowners. world. “One day last week, we were loading trac- purchased two of its own log trucks in order to People connect that very quickly if you tell them, tor trailers with green lumber going to Canada, ensure more timely deliveries. but you have to tell them.” we were loading a container that was going to “We try to make people aware that they are Patrick White China, we had another container waiting to go to buying a local product that’s sustainably harvest- southern California, we had a flooring company ed, said Buxton, who’s also a licensed forester. This article series is underwritten by the Northern that was picking up flooring, and we had two “When you’re buying a stair tread from [one of Forest Center, a non-profit organization. The Northern customers in pick-up trucks that we were loading the big box home products retailers], chances are Forest Center creates economic opportunity and with lumber,” said Buxton. the wood came from either Russia or the southern community vitality from healthy working forests While some new equipment and infrastructure U.S., and it was shipped to China, where it was in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. was required, it wasn’t a mass infusion of cash made into a product, and finally shipped back www.northernforest.org that transformed the business, but rather strategic here to be distributed at the lowest price pos- decisions to tap into new markets that have sible.” He added that NEFP is often lower on price proven successful. than the national chain retailers. “The retail business did very well its first year, To bring in local wood, NEFP works with a and for the next three or four years it doubled every handful of independent logging contractors, some From left to right: Planing and edging the lumber. This year,” said Buxton. The mix of customers is largely mechanized, but others still working tradition- locally grown lumber is shipped around the world, local contractors and homeowners, with some ally. “Mechanized logging, unfortunately, doesn’t but also sold retail to homeowners and contractors in driving two or three hours for flooring. In some address a lot of the work I do – I work with a lot the area. Dave and Deborah Buxton in NEFP’s flooring cases, they produce custom floors (NEFP makes of landowners who don’t want two-acre landings showroom. CREDITS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: NEFP, PATRICK WHITE, NEFP NEFP

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 19 KNOTS & BOLTS

[ SKILLS ]

The Passive Solar Firewood Dryer

My greenhouse has had a lot of jobs over the 2x4.) The whole thing is covered in six millimeter, years. Originally, it was intended to grow greens UV-treated greenhouse plastic. I’ve learned the in winter and start seedlings in spring. Later, it hard way that the stuff you get from the hardware served as a barn for sheep and goats. Now, it has store won’t last a year before crumbling to bits. found its true calling – as our passive solar fire- The whole setup cost me about $400. Of course, wood drying kiln, a.k.a. a greenhouse woodshed. that was about 15 years or more ago. It’s 14 feet We still had livestock when I had my ah-ha wide and 32 feet long and will hold eight to ten moment. I stopped, looked at that greenhouse, cords of firewood, a two-year supply for us. then glanced over at our haphazardly covered The greenhouse woodshed dries wood quickly. woodpile. Later I told my wife that, if we ever In late winter, the temperature on a sunny day can got rid of the animals, I had great plans for that get into the 80s in there. By May, it’ll be nudging structure. 100; in early summer it turns into a sauna. On A greenhouse makes a perfect woodshed. It a sunny, windless early February day I went out keeps rain and snow off the valuable product of about noon. Ambient temperature was 20°, but my hard labor. Adding (free) sunlight turns it into a inside our woodshed it was 64. The humidity was kiln. Louvered vents in the endwalls (and gaps in 20 percent. A moisture meter showed that the I had to do it over, I’d simply buy one with metal the end boards, which aren’t covered by battens) wood we’re using this winter, mostly red oak and hoops. They’re affordable, fairly easy to erect, and facilitate natural airflow. sugar maple cut in the summer of 2012, is in the sturdier. (I have two to grow food in.) I’d recom- I built my passive solar firewood dryer out of range of 6 to 8 percent moisture. The wood cut last mend a gothic style at least 16 feet wide – I wish I 14-foot-long, four-inch-wide green cedar boards, October for the winter of 2014-15 – mostly birch had a little more room to spread out the stacks and shaped into bows on my workshop floor. (The two and red maple – ranges from 12 to 17 percent. improve airflow. I’ve got landscape fabric on the boards in each bow are separated by blocks of While my homemade greenhouse works well, if ground to limit the weeds. It sort of works. But if I were starting from scratch, I’d dig out a little dirt, lay down a plastic moisture barrier, and spread a few inches of gravel on top. My real fantasy greenhouse woodshed would involve a concrete slab. Still, what I have works well. I get firewood that’s matchstick dry. And there are other benefits. On a sunny day, it’s a pleasure to load up the firewood cart in a warm place out of the wind, without having to wrestle with a frozen tarp covered with ice and snow. Sometimes I like to play the part of a connoisseur at a firewood buffet. “Hmm, what’ll we have tonight?,” I’ll ask, in my best faux British accent. “Not going to be too cold for the next few days, I think we’ll just load up on this nicely dried aspen with a moisture content approximating that of fine furniture.” Or, “Gosh, we’ve got some below-zero weather coming, time to bring in some of this lovely dried sugar maple and ash.” I tap the chunks together to hear that nice ringing thunk you get from dry wood. I’m not the only one who likes it out there. My passive solar firewood drying kiln is also home to a few deer mice and meadow voles, who undoubtedly feel like they’re on a tropical vacation. And though I’ve never actually seen them, I know the garter snakes like it, too. In the early spring, I can find half-a-dozen snakeskins. Joe Rankin

20 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 21 Maine TREE Foundation TIMBER RESEARCH & ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

The Maine TREE Foundation is a private non-profit independent foundation that provides environmental education using the forest as a focus.

Maine TREE sponsors: ■ Long-Term Education About Forests (LEAF) Program includes Forests of Maine Teachers Tours, Outdoor Classrooms and Small Woodlot Owners projects. ■ Project Learning Tree, an award- winning national environmental curriculum for grades PK-12 ■ Maine Tree Farm Committee, comprising some 1,800 Maine large and small woodlot owners ■ Certified Logging Professional Program, responsible for training more than 6,000 Maine loggers since 1989.

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22 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 1,000 words

Photo by Stephen Long Northern Woodlands co-founder and former editor Steve Long found this design in the heartwood of a maple tree he was bucking for firewood. People in Orange County, Vermont, are justly proud of their fine sugar maple; this tree seems proud, too.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 23 Time Marching On The past two decades in numbers

here’s a theory that, long ago, some distant relative a toll on lakes and streams in the 1970s and 1980s, with the of ours who was still mostly monkey was sitting on Adirondacks being particularly hard hit, but since 1994 water a cliff watching the sun set (or a leaf fall, or a storm quality has improved in many places. Lynx were missing from the front blowing in) when the concept of time dawned on northern fringes of our region in 1994, but are now starting to reap- him. And that was the exact moment when we lost our pear. Moose populations rose dramatically in places, even if today animal innocence. All of human society has its origins they’re starting to fall back in Vermont and New Hampshire. in that realization. Afterwards, we understood our There are 2,414,083 more people in New England and New own mortality, and so sought to build societies that could sustain York today than there were in 1994, so you’re definitely seeing us. Written records were made, and art and religion developed to more humans than you used to. No word from biologists yet on chronicle, preserve, and make sense of time. how this jives with the carrying capacity of the land, or whether This may help explain why, some three million years later, it a hunting or trapping season is imminent. seems important to mark anniversaries. Among boots-on-the-ground naturalists, the proliferation Northern Woodlands turns 20 this summer, and we couldn’t of invasive plants and insects has been a major story over the help but look back and reflect. In the big picture, two decades past 20 years. Unless you’re treating the plants, it’s probably a doesn’t seem like much time at all. The television show The safe bet that there are more today on your land than there were Simpsons was running on Sunday nights in 1994 and is still – in some places, alarmingly more. It’s difficult to fathom that running today. The Rolling Stones were on tour in 1994, and in 1994 we’d never heard of the Asian longhorned beetle, which they’re on the road again this year (and probably will be again was first discovered in the U.S. in 1996, or the emerald ash borer, in another 20 years). There’s even talk of another Clinton/Bush discovered in 2002. We’ve heard of these bugs now and learned race for the White House in 2016. to fear them. But in other ways, the world has changed dramatically. In Climate change has been the big story in the national envi- 1994, you probably didn’t own a cell phone, have a clue what ronmental media. In 1994, it was just emerging as a political GPS was, or think anyone could improve on the Discman. In issue; today, about 58% of Americans worry about it. According 1994, September 11 was just another day, Apple was an ordinary to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the computer company, and, for at least half of the year, O.J. Simpson average yearly mean temperature in the continental U.S. has was an actor and a former running back. The entire Internet con- been above the long-term mean every year for the past two sisted of 623 web pages. Gas cost less than a dollar a gallon. decades. Locally, weather is as unpredictable as weather has Globalization has changed the work we do and the way we do always been. In our inaugural issue we ran a story called “One it. Loggers have probably not shrunken (studies show Americans Tough Winter,” which detailed the deep snow and cold that have grown taller and wider over time), but their numbers have; occurred in the winter of 1993-1994. We could have run the mechanization has meant more volume with fewer employees. same story about this past winter. The same trend is true in primary and secondary wood products If the weather has become hotter, so have we. Anecdotally, manufacturing. More people have gotten into maple sugaring in anyway, it seems like we’ve become an angrier people in the last 20 the past 20 years, and technological advances have doubled the years; quicker to offend and more righteous in our beliefs. Theories annual output of some state-of-the-art operations. abound as to why – maybe it’s the anonymity of Internet message Nature may seem timeless compared to the relentless churn boards, or cable television, or stagnant wages, or the breakdown of of human society, but there have been plenty of changes in the the family. Maybe it’s just not enough time in the woods. woods over the last 20 years, as well. Things have become a little Anyway, we got a little carried away comparing and contrast- quieter in our forests and fields. There were more songbirds in ing numbers, and so we figured we’d share some more with you 1994 (and even more back in 1984). And more buzzing bees. On here. If a picture is worth a thousand words, some of these facts summer evenings you used to see more bats. and figures have to be worth at least $1,594.42 (based on the But not all the change has been for the worse. Acid rain took cumulative rate of inflation). The Editors

24 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Northern Woodlands by the Numbers

1. APPROXIMATE MAGAZINE PAGES PRINTED SINCE 1994

3. ANIMALS FEATURED ON OUR COVER

Barred Owl, Beaver, Bittern, Black Bear (twice), Blue Heron (twice), Bobcat, Frog (bull frog, graytree frog, peeper), Cardinals, 51,2 million Cedar Waxwing, Chickadees (twice), Chipmunk, Crab Spider, Dog (a companion in a canoe), Draft Horse (twice), Eastern Blue Darner, Fisher (track, 2: DIFFERENT COUNTRIES WITH SUBSCRIBERS embarrassingly misidentified as mink), Human (fourteen Canada Denmark Greece Norway Australia times) Mink, Moose (three times, plus one antler), Nashville U.K. Germany Mexico Switzerland Turkey Warbler, Pileated Woodpeckers, Raccoon, Red Eft, Red Fox (twice), Red Squirrel, Rosy Maple Moth, Scarlet Tanager, Snowshoe Hare, White-Tailed Deer (twice, once as a fawn), Wood Ducks (twice, once as wood ducklings)

4. Percent of magazines launched between 1985 and 2002 that are no longer in business: 90% 5. DEFUNCT COLUMNS BY DURATION 6. TOP INTERNET ARTICLES BY PAGEVIEW Long Beards & Short Tails Another View Avoiding Rash Decisions: Guide to Plants You Notes from the Puckerbrush 1 Shouldn’t Touch (Summer 2009) Mill Prices Cleaning the Air: Outdoor Wood Boilers Face Species in the Spotlight Regulation (Spring 2008) Under the Microscope 2 What Is the Difference Between Sapwood and ’94 ’95 ’96 ’97 ’98 ’99 ’00 ’01 ’02 ’03 ’04 ’05 ’06 ’07 ’08 ’09 ’10 ’11 ’12 ’13 3 Heartwood? (Autumn 2007) 7. CURRENT PERCENTAGE OF SUBSCRIBERS BY STATE Which Bird Made That Nest? Subscribers in every state except South Dakota. 4 (Winter 2009) 1% New Jersey Felling Trees Against the Lean 1% Rhode Island 5 (Autumn 2005) 2% Pennsylvania 5% Other States 8. LANDSCAPE PICTURED ON COVER 5% Connecticut 10% Maine Stream 5 12% New Hampshire Pond 8 18% New York Swamp 3 18% Massachusetts 28% Vermont Meadow 2 Northern Hardwood Forest 6

9. Number of articles read on www.northernwoodlands.org since 2008. 2 million SOURCES: 1. TWO MATH-CHALLENGED EDITORS WITH A CALCULATOR AND LOTS OF SCRAP PAPER. 4. WWW.MRMAGAZINE.COM.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 25 Conservation

1. FOREST CERTIFICATION

Increase in acres certified by SFI and FSC in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York between 15 Million 1994 and 2013. 2. ACRES CONSERVED BY LAND TRUSTS IN THE U.S. 3. NEW ENGLAND FOREST COVER AND POPULATION

18 million Approximate population and percent forest cover 16 of New England in 1894: 14 12 % 10 60 8 9,600,000 Approximate population and percent forest cover 6 of New England in 2000: 4 2 0 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 % Total Acres Protected Acres Under Easement Acres Owned 14,00,000 78 4. UNDERGRADUATE ENROLLMENT TRENDS, 1990–2009 % % 9.8 Decline in undergraduates who are studying forestry. 13.7 Increase in undergraduates who are studying Environmental Science.

5. CURRENT USE FIGURES 6. MAINE FOREST OWNERS BY TYPE (in acres)

2,300,488 NEW YORK (480-a “Taxation of Forest Land” enrollment): 7,908,723 5,590,691 1994: 340,000 certified acres 2014: 1.2 million certified acres 1,011,877 2012 538,833 3,865,592 Forest Industry VERMONT (Forestland): 6,302,971 5,705,685 Private Investor 1994: 893,547 acres 2013: 1,814,585 acres 771,236 Family Forests 2006 504,061 Public Land 5,470,094 Misc. Large Private NEW HAMPSHIRE (Forestland): 4,865,170 5,648,088 743,542 1993: 104,288 acres 2012: 1,573,035 acres 2003 475,208 7,446,258 MAINE (“Tree Growth” tax program): 2,702,735 5,935,261 627,957 1998: 11,234,117 acres 2012: 11,241,240 acres 1995 100,399 7. AVERAGE PRICE OF FORESTLAND IN VERMONT $ $ The median per acre sales price in 1994: 641, so far in 2014: 1,786 SOURCES: 1. FSC/SFI/USFS FIA DATABASE. 2. LANDTRUST ALLIANCE. 3. WILDLANDS AND WOODLANDS. 4. ROBERT LILIEHOLM 5. NEW YORK DEC, VERMONT DEPARTMENT OF TAXES, NEW YORK DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE ADMINISTRATION, MAINE REVENUE SERVICES. 6. MAINE FOREST PRODUCTS COUNCIL. 7. VERMONT DEPARTMENT OF TAXES, PROPERTY TRANSFER RETURN.

26 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Environment | Nature

1. MOOSE POPULATION 2. WETLAND DECLINE NATIONWIDE

NEW HAMPSHIRE Estimated average annual wetland loss 1994: 1996 7,600 2013 4,400 VERMONT acres 1997 2,100 117,900 2005 5,000 Estimated average annual wetland loss 2009: 2013 2,500 MAINE 1999 29,000 2013 65,000 41,200acres 3. SONGBIRD DECLINE

The Vermont Forest Bird Monitoring Program analyzed populations of 36 songbird species from 1989 to 2010 and found that: % % 39 of species increased in numbers 61 of species decreased in numbers % % + – 9.7 greatest increase – Common Yellow-Throat 7 greatest decline – Blue-headed Vireo 4. ICE OUT 5. DEER HARVEST

Fewer days of ice on Mirror Deer taken in Vermont in 1994: Deer taken in Vermont in 2013: Lake in New Hampshire, when the 1994-2011 average is compared to the average from the previous -7.2 19 years. 12,903 14,116

6. PAID HUNTING LICENSE HOLDERS BY STATE Connecticut Massachusetts Maine New Hampshire New York Rhode Island Vermont 1994 2013 1994 2013 1994 2013 1994 2013 1994 2013 1994 2013 1994 2013 67,013 44,178 100,762 57,641 206,801 189,120 81,827 59,301 750,062 581,401 13,329 8,605 103,942 80,650

SOURCES: 1. NH FISH AND GAME DEPARTMENT; VT FISH AND WILDLIFE; ME INLAND FISHERIES AND WILDLIFE. 2. U.S. EPA. 3. VERMONT FOREST BIRD MONITORING PROGRAM. 4. HUBBARD BROOK ECOSYSTEM STUDY. 5. VT FISH AND WILDLIFE. 6. U.S FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 27 Industry

1. MAINE PULP & PAPER MANUFACTURING JOBS 2. DECLINE IN FIREWOOD USE FROM 1994-2011

1990 17,424 1991 16,555 1992 15,576 1993 15,224 1994 14,649 -11,Cords of firewood burned055,556 annually by U.S. homeowners 1995 13,936 3. WOOD HARVESTED — NEW HAMPSHIRE (in 1,000 cords) 1996 13,857 1997 14,097 1998 13,682 1999 13,276 2,000 2000 12,918 2001 12,285 1,500 2002 11,707 2003 10,263 2004 9,859 1,000 2005 9,177 2006 8,743

2007 8,523 500 2008 8,305 2009 7,511 2010 7,393 2011 7,308 1997 2000 2004 2007 2012

4. U.S. WOOD IMPORTS

Log imports 1994:110.4 million feet Log imports 2005:704million feet Log imports 2011:187.7 million feet 5. Growth rate of Vermont schools being heated with wood 1994-2010: 900% 6. TOP COUNTRIES WE EXPORTED WOOD TO IN 1994 7. TOP COUNTRIES WE EXPORTED WOOD TO IN 2010 Canada Japan Taiwan China/Hong Kong Canada Vietnam 31.9% 10.1% 6.9% 31% 27.7% 9.7% market share market share market share market share market share market share

SOURCES: 1. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE/NEFA. 2. USDA ENERGY ADMINISTRATION. 3. NEFA. 4. USDA. 5. BIOMASS ENERGY RESOURCE CENTER. 6. & 7. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.

28 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 29 When the Trees Took Retracing reforestation on an old carriage road.

30 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 By Judy Chaves

or years, the sign “Old Carriage Road” marked an overgrown length of abandoned roadbed half- way up the road to the summit of Mount Philo Over State Park. It’s an evocative spot, triggering visions of Victorian-era carriages where there are now maple and beech. But two years ago, without explanation, the sign was relocated to a footpath a half-mile farther up the road. Had new evidence been found? Was I no longer to consider the abandoned roadbed part of the old carriage road? I walk the summit road almost daily and (full disclosure) am fairly besotted with the park. So before confronting park staff with emotion-laden questions, I decided to do some research. Thus began my obsession with tracing the route – the entire route, from the bottom of the mountain to the top – of the old carriage road. Mt. Philo is one of a series of klippes, erosional remnants of the leading edge of the Champlain thrust fault, that run north-south along Vermont’s Champlain Valley. At 968 feet, it is more hill than mount, and its forested slopes rise out of what was once entirely agricultural land but is now – 15 miles south of Burlington – increasingly developed. The one-way loop road, open to cars in summer and fall, is 1.5 miles up and one mile down. Vast and rugged wilderness it is not. But the summit rocks offer unequaled views of the Champlain Valley, Lake Champlain, and the Adirondack Mountains. Sunsets are spectacular. During hawk migration, birders crowd the overlooks; in winter, the unplowed road teems with kids and sleds. Year-round, there are many, like me, who ascend the road regularly, seeking exercise amid the quiet woods. Small (just 237 acres) and tame as the park may be, it is a place that instills deep feelings. I began my search for the old carriage road, nearly two years ago, by scouring the park’s detailed National Register for Historic Places nomination papers. The bibliography sent me to the state archives, the University of Vermont’s Special Collections, local libraries, town clerks’ offices, historical societies, and the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation files. The clues I found – some by serendipity – were in old maps, early picture postcards, Vermont State Forester reports, tourist brochures, the nomination papers themselves, and – sweetest of all – a poem, “Mt. Philo Picnic,” narrating in rhyme an early twentieth century ascent.

UVM LANDSCAPE CHANGE PROGRAM / SPECIAL COLLECTIONS A grander path one seldom finds With trees and ferns on either side. Western View is a wonderful spot When once you’ve reached it the climb’s forgot. Each new clue sent me tearing up the mountain with text, map, or photo in hand to search the woods or take a new look at some boulder or tree, hoping to match what was on paper with what is there now, despite the effects of 100 years of reforestation, park construction, and storms. It was a treasure hunt, and like all good treasure hunts it became addictive.

From the top of Mt. Philo: the view remains, but it’s different.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 31 The old maple: deforestation “sheep fever,” there were 1.7 million sheep grazing in Vermont and over 600,000 in New Hampshire. A postcard from the early twentieth century, found in a collec- These are difficult numbers to fathom. Yet, standing tion at UVM, shows the mountain’s west flank soon after the in the woods with the old photo, seeing the maple in carriage road was built. The lower half of the road is entirely vis- both its young and old guises, I could envision that slope ible, switchbacking through open fields that today are completely as field; I could envision the 200 sheep owned by James forested. Seeing that much of the road exposed was exciting, but Palmer, the 74 owned by John Palmer, the 60 owned by over time the photo proved remarkably frustrating. Without Jones-Smith – listings in an 1843 tax book for the farms discernible landmarks connecting the cleared slope in the photo that then comprised Mt. Philo – grazing there. with today’s forested one, I had no way of knowing how – or even whether – the old road’s switchbacks matched those of today. The iron railing: field and forest Until, during one of my daily walks, I stopped about a quarter of a mile up the park road to consider a tree, a magnificent, Another postcard, captioned, “New Road, Mount wide-spreading maple tucked within the woods. I looked at the Philo Inn...F.A. Lewis, Proprietor,” shows a stretch old photograph – at one particular isolated tree within a bit of of dirt road passing by a high, distant view of Lake fencing in the field – and I looked at the tree in front of me. Champlain before heading into the woods. At first Everything matched: the old maple’s size made it the right age; glance, it resembled other photos taken from the car- its shape spoke of time in the open; its distance from the road riage road, all maddeningly impossible to locate. But was right, as was its relationship to a line of equally spaced trees in the lower left corner of this shot, below the view, that were saplings in the photo. was a length of iron railing that I thought I recognized. Suddenly the maple, which I’d walked past hundreds of I was pretty sure it was the railing at the southern times, became a bearing, a point by which to determine the car- outlook, a secluded viewpoint off a footpath along the riage road’s lower route. With a few other clues, it enabled me to summit ridge – a favorite spot of mine for its quiet trace the old road’s path (much of it coinciding with the current and the air of elegance lent by the railing. If the railing road) from its start to midway up the mountain – to where the in the photo proved to be that at the outlook, then I’d length of abandoned (and now unsigned) roadbed begins. have a sure location for at least some of the old road’s But the tree did something else: it enabled me to see today’s route at the top. wooded slope as pasture, not only as it was in the early twentieth Crouched within the trees that now crowd the out- century, when the photo was taken, but 70 years prior, in the look, I angled the photo this way and that, determined mid-1800s, when the entire mountain was cleared, the “noble to make its railing, road bed, and lake view line up pines converted into boards and shingles,” as described in a with those before me, fully aware of just how much I 1910 Vermonter article by Samuel Bassett. needed things to match. And eventually, miraculously, There are astounding statistics from this part of New even objectively, they did. The “New Road” in the England’s history: the land cleared by European settlers for photo and the footpath to my right were one and the same. The building material, potash, and firewood in the late 1700s and railing at the southern outlook, installed by F.A. Lewis along early 1800s, the rise of sheep farming in the mid-1800s, and the with the carriage road, provided evidence of at least this small resulting deforestation of 75 percent of New England. According stretch of the summit route. to Ellen Stroud, in Nature Next Door, in 1840, at the height of And, like the old maple, it took me back in time. Frank A. Lewis bought the Jones-Smith farm on the west side of Mt. Philo in 1887, a good 40 years after sheep fever had ended and farms in Vermont were struggling to survive. Frank and his wife Clara farmed the land, but also turned the farm into a summer tourist destination, offering, as advertised in their brochure, “a delightful retreat from the heat and turmoil of the city,” promoting the healthful benefits of “the best of fresh country fare, butter, eggs, milk, and vegetables fresh from our own farm.” They razed the farmhouse, built an inn, and established a colony of canvas tents for guests wanting a more rustic experience. Inn guests James and Frances Humphreys, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, first came in 1900 and grew so enamored of

JUDY CHAVES the place that they began buying much of the farmland on the mountain, built a summer home at its base, and urged the Lewises to build a carriage road for guests. In 1902, the road was complete, as were roadside gazebos, foot trails, benches, The relocated sign overlooks, and a summit observation tower. “The mountain

32 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 road,” reads the inn brochure, “threading its way through open fields and woods affords a variety and intensity of scenic beauty seldom equaled in New England.” The mountain, which 50 years prior had been cleared of trees and grazed by sheep, was now pasture on much of its lower half and forest on its upper: the epitome of the bucolic landscape being encouraged state- COLLECTIONS SPECIAL UVM wide as a lure for tourists. While other northern states were wooing urban vaca- tioners with rugged wilderness, Vermont was offering the pastoral life, with easy access to nature. “Everything possible is done to make the way safe as well as agreeable,” Bassett quotes James Humphreys as saying about the An old postcard shows how open the lower elevations of Mt. Philo once were. carriage road. “All precipitous places are boarded by neatly painted Top: Today, the rows of evenly spaced maples (seen along the roadside in the iron railings, and at short intervals resting places are provided.” postcard) have grown and are surrounded by competitors. Trees had been allowed to return to the upper half of Mt. Philo, and many other places in the Northeast, not only because sheep farming had ended, but because the effects of near-total deforestation of the mid-nineteenth century had triggered a regionwide (in fact, nationwide) conservation movement. Soil,

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 33 water quality, and scenery had all suffered as a result of what hend. For the “sense of close companionship with the forest” Vermont Governor Woodbury called in 1894, “the wanton that James Humphreys sought on Mt. Philo every summer was destruction of our forests.” In response to this burgeoning aware- exactly what I came for every day; the view he sought most ness, forestry commissions were established at both federal and mornings (according to a contemporary, “the sunrise often state levels (New Hampshire, 1881; Maine, 1892; Vermont, 1892; finds him on the summit”) was the very same view I sought and the USDA’s Division of Forestry, 1881), as were forestry most afternoons. Standing at the outlook, iron railing in my schools (Cornell, 1898; Yale, 1900). Conservation legislation hands, I didn’t so much understand this aspect of the past as such as the Weeks Act of 1911 was passed on both federal and make direct contact with it. state levels, enabling the government to purchase and set aside land for preservation, management, and public use. The concrete block: reforestation It was a movement not lost on Frances Humphreys. When asked in 1918, a few years after her husband died, when she And what about the stretch of abandoned roadbed that had planned to cut the trees that had regrown on Mt. Philo, she said started my search? Was there evidence of it being part of the old she would cut, “not a stick of it.... I dislike to see the mountain carriage road, a middle section that would connect the lower changed. There is something in the world besides money, good half with the bit I found near the summit? as that may be.” And in 1924, again acting in concert with the On the other side of the paved road from the abandoned times, she donated nearly of all her land to the state, “for the roadbed, easily missed for the surrounding trees, is a crumbling health, recreation, and pleasure of the public,” establishing concrete block – roughly four feet square with a round, shallow Vermont’s first state park. depression in its top – whose age and purpose had long mysti- The important role Northeastern urbanites played in the fied me. There’s no mention of it in the National Register papers. early conservation movement is well documented in Stroud’s There’s nothing else like it in the park. Its only apparent connec- Nature Next Door: how they came north in the summer to tion to anything else is that one end of the abandoned roadbed escape the city, saw the vital need for undeveloped, forested points directly at it. But that could well have been coincidence; land, and acted to preserve it, lobbying for conservation legisla- the block might have been a modern artifact having nothing to tion, sometimes buying and donating large tracts themselves. do with my search. The swaths of Northeastern land conserved during this period Yet, staring for the umpteenth time at an old postcard of one – areas that eventually became the White Mountain and Green of the roadside gazebos, I suddenly realized I was looking at the Mountain National Forests, as well as the Adirondack Park – are concrete block. It was inside the gazebo. Zooming in, I saw that on a scale difficult to fathom today. the block was encircled by benches. Running up its east side was Yet it wasn’t regional conservation that motivated James a pipe that turned 90-degrees to overhang the top depression and and Frances Humphreys, it was simple love for one very small fill it with water. The concrete block must have been a basin, fed mountain – something I could well compre- by a nearby spring. I wondered if I’d found the site of Well Spring Shelter, one of several roadside gazebos named, in ascending order, by Frances Humphreys in her poem, “Mt. Philo Picnic.”

CHARLOTTE PUBLIC LIBRARY

A crumbling concrete block [right] sits beside the road, crowded by – and even sprouting – trees. Its location hasn’t changed, but the same block – actually, a water basin – originally sat inside an open gazebo and enjoyed JUDY CHAVES distant views, as seen in this historic Mt. Philo postcard.

34 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 We now arrive at Well Spring Shelter, the beauty of the State’s scenery is not to be overlooked, and this A better name t’would be hard to venture. will undoubtedly be more of a commercial asset of the State in For here is water for man and beast, the future than it has been in the past.” And all the surroundings are most complete. So it was for a variety of reasons – economic, ecological, and aesthetic – that plantings such as those on Mt. Philo in the 1920s If it was Well Spring, then I had evidence (concrete evidence) and 1930s were being conducted on both private and newly that the abandoned roadbed was indeed part of the old carriage acquired public lands through the Northeast. “The return of for- road, for in the photo, the road swings right by Well Spring est,” Stroud writes, “....is not merely the result of benign neglect, Shelter. It points, in fact, directly at it. allowing forests to establish themselves wherever they were no Poem and photo in hand, I examined the concrete block like longer beaten back to make space for fields. Trees came back never before. Running up the center of its east side was a stain because time and ecology gave them favor, but they were also – ghostly faint – the width of a narrow pipe, and on the south encouraged and protected by choice.” side of the depression, so deeply embedded I had to lean over to In his introduction to Stroud’s book, William Cronon makes see it – was a piece of pipe that ran through the block, turned, it clear why understanding this is so important. “It would be and led away at ground level. This must have been the outflow. foolish indeed to believe that if we simply adopted a hands-off Standing on the abandoned roadbed facing the concrete block, I attitude toward such matters, nonhuman nature on its own saw, through the maples and beeches, how it had once continued would yield the results we desire .... The [American Northeast] on its path to swing by the site of the shelter. It all made sense. has forests today because people made choices about them and Yet it also didn’t make any sense. In the photo, the view from then did the hard practical and political work of making those the gazebo was wide open to the lake and Adirondacks; today, choices real. Such things do not happen by accident. They hap- there is no view whatsoever. The landscape in the photo and pen because people make them happen. That is as true today as the existing site were so absurdly different, I couldn’t believe it it was a hundred years ago.” – even after checking and rechecking the photo’s evidence. If The reforestation of 75 percent of New England over the past ever there were a place to underscore the dramatic changes of 100 years is another of those statistics I can barely fathom. But reforestation, this was it. I can see, in an abandoned concrete basin, one woman’s choice Looking more closely, I noticed that the species immediately to donate much-cherished land to the state for its preservation; surrounding the concrete block and growing in the old roadbed I can see, in the maples and beeches that have taken over an were native, but those a bit farther away – in fact, most of the old roadbed, the effects of “time and ecology;” and I can see, trees blocking the view – were Norway spruce, non-natives that in a grove of view-obscuring Norway spruce, the choices and wouldn’t have simply sprung up. They had been planted. I real- investments made by the state of Vermont and its foresters, as ized I was looking at 78-year-old survivors from the spring of well as the efforts of a band of young men wielding shovels and 1935, when 3,000 three-year-old Norway spruces were planted seedlings. Every day I walk by these things, I am reminded that by the Civilian Conservation Corps, along with 3,000 white this small pocket of forest I love is not here by accident. pines, and 2,000 red pines, as listed in the 1936 biennial report In the end, I’m almost certain that the route of the old road of the State Forester. There were earlier plantings done by ran from the bottom of the mountain, past the grand old maple, the state, as well: 42,000 Scotch pines and 5,000 jack pines in alongside Well Spring Shelter, to the old iron railing. Beyond 1925 (soon after Mrs. Humphreys made her gift), and 16,200 this point, repeated construction over the past 80 plus years at European larch in 1929, many of which are still alive, despite the top of the mountain and a dearth of photographic evidence severe damage to the stands during the ’98 ice storm. make the route around the summit no more than conjecture. Plantations such as these were being established all over I’m not disappointed, though, for in my search I gained invalu- the Northeast in the first decades of the twentieth century as able lessons in history on a visceral level. Indeed, if there’s one part of the attempt to make up for – and prevent repetition of thing I learned in my search for the old carriage road (aside – the devastating effects of the previous century’s deforestation. from most of its route) it’s that reading about the past and Ellen Stroud writes, “while Vermont was behind other states in understanding it actually happened are two different things. replanting efforts and forestry expenditures – New York led the I brought my findings to the Vermont Department of Forests region, and Connecticut and New Hampshire both distributed and Parks, with a request that the Old Carriage Road sign far more trees as well – the challenge was the same throughout – relocated by mistake, it turns out, by an all-new staff that year the Northeast.” Erosion and flood control, protection of water – be returned to its original spot. The information was received quality, and the managed production of timber were the primary enthusiastically and spurred talk of doing some historic preser- goals. Stroud quotes Vermont’s first state forester, Austin Hawes, vation in the park. And though my obsession with the old road who, in 1910, wanted “Vermonters to ‘consider the forest as an has abated considerably, I suspect that my walks on Mt. Philo agricultural crop to be harvested, reseeded, improved, and reaped will forever be haunted. again; instead of a mine to be exploited and abandoned.’” Hawes predicted that while water quality and timber produc- Judy Chaves lives in North Ferrisburgh, a stone’s throw from Mt. Philo, where she tion were the impetus for reforestation, “its value in preserving walks or skis nearly every day.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 35 CLASSIFIED

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Classified Ads are available at $62 per column inch, with a one-inch minimum. Only $198 for the whole year. All ads must be prepaid. Mail your ad to Northern Woodlands, P.O. Box 471, Corinth, VT 05039, fax it to (802) 368-1053, or email to [email protected]. The Autumn 2014 issue deadline is June 23, 2014.

36 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 37 Do We Have You Stumped Yet? The Best of WITWIT

For the past five years, Northern Woodlands has enjoyed a friendly rivalry with readers, attempting to stump them with our bi-weekly guessing game, “What in The Woods is That?” So far you’re winning 132 to 2 (or something like that). Anyway, the premise is simple: we show you a photo, you tell us what it is. Over the years, we’ve featured everything from leaves and cones and jelly fungus to tracks, pelts, insects, antlers, and scat. As part of our anniversary issue, we’ve assembled some of our favorite WITWITs (and some of the most popular, based on number of entries). For new readers, it’s a chance to take a first crack at these puzzles; for those who’ve seen them before, it’s an opportunity to test your memory. Answers are on page 40. To play “What in the Woods is That?”, sign up for our free bi-weekly newsletter at www.northernwoodlands.org.

1. More Than a Wood Truck (Holds the record as the most-played WITWIT.) Top to bottom: Which is the load of pulp? Which is the load of sawlogs? Which is the load of firewood?

5.2. Who Lives Here?Here Naturalist Mary Holland shared this photo of an animal den site. But what kind of animal?

38 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014

3. These Leaves are Made for Walkin’ We found this odd-looking plant growing on a moss- covered boulder in a Vermont sugarbush. What is it?

4. Swamp Car OK, antique car buffs, what is it? We’re after make and model.

5. Baculum Matching Game Many mammals have a bone in their penis, called a baculum. From an evolutionary perspective, this can make copulation more effective. From an etymological perspective, it may explain the term “boner,” a keystone word in the vocabularies of middle school males everywhere. Here’s a picture (by Mary Holland) of penis bones from a mink, a raccoon, a porcupine, a fisher, and a coyote. Left to right, match the animal with the baculum.

6. Maple Family Reunion These seeds are all from members of the maple family. Clockwise from top, which species are they?

7. Snowcapped Stems Bryan Pfeiffer pulled this branch out of the water for a closer look. What are those whitish bumps?

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 39

1234

8. Dendro at 50 Forestry students might call this “Dendrology at 50 mph.” Name the tree species, from left.

10. Maple Mushroom (This was our very first WITWIT.) This mushroom seems to ooze out of a dead maple. What is the mushroom?

9. Mystifying Maple

What’s so special about this maple log?

up after the tree is already dead or dying. or dead already is tree the after up

, which means it’s a decomposer that shows shows that decomposer a it’s means which , saprobe a is it however, elm, American the of case the In maple. sugar as such hardwoods on parasite deadly a is and Northeast,

For those who prefer ornithological references, the mushroom is sometimes called pheasant’s back mushroom, for obvious reasons. It’s a mushroom found throughout the the throughout found mushroom a It’s reasons. obvious for mushroom, back pheasant’s called sometimes is mushroom the references, ornithological prefer who those For

It’s commonly known as the Dryad’s Saddle (In Greek mythology, a dryad is a tree-dwelling nymph.) nymph.) tree-dwelling a is dryad a mythology, Greek (In Saddle Dryad’s the as known commonly It’s squamosus. Polyporus is here pictured mushroom The 10. Answer

this occurs in some trees. some in occurs this

nswer as to why why to as nswer a definitive no is there but rings, growth the in distortions tiny by caused is grain wood the in figure valuable and rare This maple. birdseye It’s 9. Answer

Answer 8. Balsam fir, red spruce, white pine, hemlock. pine, white spruce, red fir, Balsam 8. Answer

deposits fertilized eggs on submerged vegetation. submerged on eggs fertilized deposits

spermatophores. The females then show up and a slithery mating ritual, called a congress, ensues. The female takes up the spermatophore through her cloaca, then later later then cloaca, her through spermatophore the up takes female The ensues. congress, a called ritual, mating slithery a and up show then females The spermatophores.

These tiny gelatinous packages contain salamander sperm. In the springtime, males migrate to vernal pools and deposit deposit and pools vernal to migrate males springtime, the In sperm. salamander contain packages gelatinous tiny These spermatophores. Salamander 7. Answer

Answer 6. Mountain maple, box elder, striped maple, sugar maple. sugar maple, striped elder, box maple, Mountain 6. Answer

As one contestant pointed out, this was a hard one. (Sorry, we’ll stop.) we’ll (Sorry, one. hard a was this out, pointed contestant one As porcupine. mink, coyote, fisher, Raccoon, 5. Answer

the angle of the photograph whether the car had rear doors or not, but Wing confirmed that it is actually a Tudor. (Two-door, get it?) get (Two-door, Tudor. a actually is it that confirmed Wing but not, or doors rear had car the whether photograph the of angle the

f the split rear window. It’s very hard to tell from from tell to hard very It’s window. rear split the f o style the and hood missing the for cowl the in recess the of style the was clue Another carburetor. the to pedal gas the from

tle linkage linkage tle throt the of style the and plate name aluminum the of location the by Ford a is it that confirmed photo, the took who Wing, Dan Tudor. Ford 1938 or 1937 A 4. Answer

when the frond tips touch moist ground, a new fern can grow, so the plant seems to be moving. moving. be to seems plant the so grow, can fern new a ground, moist touch tips frond the when

) – known in some areas as walking spleenwort – got its name from its ability to “walk” across the ground: ground: the across “walk” to ability its from name its got – spleenwort walking as areas some in known – ) rhizophyllum Asplenium ( fern walking The Fern. Walking 3. Answer

by water and thus safe from most predators, although sometimes ambitious nature photographers find a way in. way a find photographers nature ambitious sometimes although predators, most from safe thus and water by

ll often build a freestanding lodge that’s surrounded surrounded that’s lodge freestanding a build often ll they’ site, given a at established Once home. starter a as it of think – lodge bank a into burrow the turn they’ll hole, the of

When colonizing a new site, beaver create bank holes that serve as rudimentary burrows. By piling sticks around the entrance entrance the around sticks piling By burrows. rudimentary as serve that holes bank create beaver site, new a colonizing When lodge. beaver a of inside the is This 2. Answer

to the pulp mill. pulp the to

d, but their poor form indicates that they’re headed headed they’re that indicates form poor their but d, firewoo than logs of load a like more look photo bottom the in logs 8-foot The firewood. of cords 10 about with loaded is truck

In the top photo, the truck contains a load of hardwood sawlogs totaling 6,600 board feet. In the middle photo, the same same the photo, middle the In feet. board 6,600 totaling sawlogs hardwood of load a contains truck the photo, top the In pulp. firewood, sawlogs, bottom: to Top 1. Answer

40 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 41 Exotic Larch

Inset: A 22-year-old hybrid larch in Maine.

42 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Not Your Grandfather’s Hackmatack

By David Maass Last fall, I accompanied Dr. Michael Greenwood and Dr. Brian Roth from the University of Maine to a controlled-cross n the 1980s, in the midst of the last spruce budworm larch plantation that Dr. Greenwood had established in 1992 outbreak, the pulp and paper industry in Maine and near Parlin Pond, Maine. Greenwood was optimistic about the eastern Canada faced an unprecedented softwood short- results we might observe, and we weren’t disappointed. The best fall. The insect was killing millions of cords of spruce control-pollinated hybrid families averaged 10 inches in diam- and balsam fir, and paper companies were scratching eter and were 66 feet tall – 23 percent taller than the adjacent their heads over the big picture. I was conducting open-pollinated hybrid larch plantation. research with the Scott Paper Company at the time, There’s not much of a larch market in the Northeast because and much of our work involved coming up with strategies to our native larch, the tamarack, doesn’t grow in sufficient overcome the “budworm gap” set to occur in the early 2000s. quantity. However, the exotic larch that was planted in the late One of the more novel ideas was planting exotic larch, which 1980s and early 1990s will be coming on-line in the next five grows much more quickly than native softwoods. David Cook, to ten years. At present, there might be 25,000 acres of larch the owner and manager of Cooxrox Forest, in Rensselaer County, plantation in Maine and Michigan; estimates suggest as much New York, published a series of articles in the 1960s indicating that as 11,000 acres in Quebec and another 20,000-30,000 acres both European (Larix decidua) and Japanese larch (Larix kaemp- in the Maritimes. This amount of acreage offers opportunities feri) grew 1.5 to 2.0 cords per acre per year on old fields, three to for niche marketing of larch lumber. Otherwise, much of the four times faster than our native stands. At the U.S. Forest Service volume will likely be used for pulp and paper products. Coulee Experimental Forest in Wisconsin, 19-year-old European All species in the larch family have long fibers, which make larch had produced 29 percent more volume than the white pine them suitable for pulp and paper, and the lumber is famously planted as a control, achieving 2,621 cubic feet per acre. (That’s 30 resistant to rot, making it a good candidate for ship building, cords, or 76 tons per acre.) And one Canadian study at the time house siding, and other outdoor applications. European larch reported that, on average, exotic larches produced 57 tons per acre has been used in bridge construction in Europe – a testament to at age 18, while native confers produced 33 tons per acre. its strength and durability. As impressive as these numbers were, evidence from Europe Because exotic larches are shade-intolerant and attain their suggested that crossing a European larch with a Japanese larch greatest growth on the best forest soils, competition control is nec- could produce an even faster-growing tree. (Hybrid plants, essary to get the plantation established. Larger land management

DAVID MAASS resulting from a cross between parents of different species, can companies use herbicides two years after clear-cutting a hardwood outgrow their parents – geneticists call this “hybrid vigor.”) stand, then plant seedlings on an eight-foot spacing. In Quebec, as Starting in the 1980s, Scott Paper Company joined the Institute in Europe, the recommendation is for ten-foot spacing to increase of Paper Chemistry’s Aspen and Larch Genetics Cooperative the number of commercial-sized stems during the first thinning. and sought to establish plantations of these hybrid trees. All plantations have their vulnerability and exotic larches Scott Paper established a seed orchard in Unity, Maine, by are no different. Exotic larches can be damaged by heavy wet surrounding Japanese larches with European larches. Once the snow in the fall when the needles are still on the trees. Larch trees reached reproductive age, workers collected the female is also vulnerable to the larch casebearer and to larch canker. cones of the Japanese larch and used them to establish hybrid In fact, my understanding is that exotic larches are no longer plantations. (These seeds were considered to be open-pollinated, planted in Ireland for fear of the larch canker. However, isolated since it was assumed they’d been pollinated by European larches, plantations are less likely to be vulnerable. but only one parent was definitely known.) They also developed Exotic larches will sometimes regenerate naturally; however, controlled crosses, where the pollen from the European larch the seedlings don’t like competition, so without good weed was manually collected and used to pollinate female Japanese control it seems unlikely that these feral individuals will become larch cones. These controlled crosses were set out in test plots to invasive and dominate a site. compare families. Similar larch breeding programs were developed Foresters are fond of pointing out that they won’t be around in the Great Lakes region, Quebec, and the Maritimes. to see the fruits of their labor, but these hybrid larch trials can The early results were encouraging. A study conducted by the make even an older forester feel young. Thirty years have passed University of Maine 15 years after planting found that the open- since these hybrids were planted, and the trees have performed pollinated hybrid larch had a total merchantable volume of 28 as well as, or better than, expected. If you’re a landowner look- cords/acre, compared to 13.7 cords/acre for Japanese larch and 8.7 ing for a short-rotation softwood species, hybrid or exotic cords/acre for native tamarack (Larix larcina). Now, 20 to 30 years larches might be worth a try. after planting, we are finding that open-pollinated exotic larches can be grown to 10 inches in diameter or better – given the right David Maass is a retired chain-of-custody and forest management certification auditor site and good control of competition – at less than 25 years of age. and served as research forester for Scott Paper Company until 1988.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 43 44 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 45 The Nulhegan We Knew: Recounting the Last Years of a Working Forest

By Patrick Hackley

hen the calendar says it’s the first day of spring, no one is Nulhegan Basin fooled in the North Country. Those first, yellowish daffodil leaves at the edge of a melting snow bank? Best to ignore them. The next day those tender, hopeful shoots may be buried under a foot of snow. Perhaps the best gauge of spring’s true arrival is mud season, when gravel roads lose their frost and turn gelatinous and nearly impassable. New Hampshire has a wonderful 24-year tradition called the “mud season breakfast,” hosted by the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension Coös County office in Lancaster. This annual rite of spring offers respite and camaraderie to a diverse group of winter-weary foresters, loggers, biologists, and other natural resource professionals who gather to enjoy one another’s company and discuss issues, all while commiserating over many cups of coffee about how they can’t get back out in the woods fast enough. At the conclusion of one recent breakfast, we were released into a sun-drenched afternoon – the kind that gives one pause at the idea of being trapped in a car for a two- hour ride. I decided work could live without me for an afternoon, and followed my inner compass up Route 3, across the Connecticut River, and into Vermont’s Nulhegan Basin. This was the place where, as a young forester, I conducted my very first timber harvest some 25 years ago. The sinuous stretch of road between the villages of Bloomfield and Island Pond, Vermont, was part of my daily commute as an operations forester for Champion International Corporation. If you’ve never been to the area, it’s mostly woods; with the exception of a scattering of modest residences along the road, the entire area north of Route 105 is uninhabited. Unlike most of New England, this land was never cleared for farming. For centuries, its vast forests of high-quality spruce, fir, and northern hardwoods have been managed as a wood supply for New England and points beyond. In order to find the Nulhegan, you have to know where to look. There is no dramatic natural feature that entices a person to pull over, no spectacular waterfall, mountain peak, or granite monolith commanding you to stop and absorb a breath-taking view. The Nulhegan Basin, at least on its front doorstep, is more subtle than that. There are only a few vantage points along the road where you can look across a flat expanse, roughly 12 miles in diameter, that’s covered in a blanket of balsam fir, red spruce, and a lesser mix of aspen, birch, and red maple. Distinct hardwood ridges hem the expanse, defining a geological “basin” that’s suspected to be an ancient volcanic crater formed by a major eruption that subsequently collapsed into its circular form. Beneath the U.S.FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE U.S.FISH AND WILDLIFE tree canopy are myriad wetlands and streams. The place has a rich logging history and roads with names like the Peanut Dam, Stone Dam, Tin Shack, and Eagle’s Nest. The name Nulhegan – a Native American word used to describe a place that’s difficult to navigate because of log traps and deadfalls – is a nod to an even earlier history. The word remains apt, as the forest is dominated by short-lived balsam fir that blow over easily after they reach 60 to 80 years of age.

46 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 47 Logging legacy Paul was relatively new to large-scale logging, having been a In 1984, Champion purchased approximately 132,000 acres of small timber-stand-improvement contractor previously. He was land in Essex County, Vermont, and another 190,000 acres in eager to please, inquisitive, and wanted to earn the company’s northern New Hampshire from the St. Regis Paper Company. business. At the turn of the twentieth century, most of these same lands Already two months into his contract on Lewis Pond Road were owned by the Connecticut Valley Lumber Company, a log- when I arrived, Tree Chop was conducting a clearcut of mostly ging empire started by George Van Dyke, the river driving tim- red spruce with a crew of five chainsaw operators (mechanized ber baron chronicled in Robert Pike’s classic Tall Trees, Tough feller bunchers were not yet widely used). There had been a fair Men. Champion’s Vermont holdings stretched from the town of amount of rain that summer, and despite brushing in their trails Averill near the Canadian border south to Granby. as much as possible, water was pooling like chocolate milk in The Nulhegan Basin constituted about half of the company’s their tire ruts. Luckily, the terrain was flat and there were no property in the state, and contains a network of rivers that brooks nearby being threatened by sedimentation. Still, being allowed for driving logs to the Connecticut River. The red new to the business of logging, the appearance of so much mud spruce and balsam fir were prized for their fiber; the pulp ended had me concerned. Quick to see the worry in my face, both Paul up at Champion’s mill in Deferiet, New York. and Brendan Prusik, the company forester assigned to “break When I arrived in the late 1980s, much of the mature balsam fir had been recently devastated by the spruce budworm. Still, significant stands of spruce (ironically, the softwood species more resistant to the budworm) remained, and the company focused on harvesting those stands while they were healthy and economically mature. Fresh out of forestry school, with a new hardhat, pickup truck, and toolbox full of marking paint, I was assigned to my first logging job, alongside the access road of the Vermont Electric Transmission Company’s powerline. That’s the line that brings power from Hydro-Quebec to U.S. consumers. Champion enjoyed a right-of-way on the Powerline Road, which ran north- south along the eastern ridge of the basin, providing convenient access to some of the best-quality northern hardwoods in the region. My second operation was on Lewis Pond Road, on the west side of the basin. Both jobs were in Lewis, one of several townships owned entirely Left to right: Champion foresters, circa 1991, John Steward, the author, Tim Woods, Will Staats, Paul Mulcahey, Brendan Prusik by Champion. Lewis was a forester’s dream – 40 square miles of forests, wetlands, streams, rivers, me in,” allayed my fears, “The mud’s not moving anywhere. This and no residents (human anyway), except during deer season, is a temporary situation once the weather turns. And besides, when the lights came on in dozens of camps scattered through- look at all the frogs; they’re loving it!” they offered half-jok- out the town. ingly. Unexplainably, there were frogs leaping in some of the rut pools. I was skeptical and suspect of their light-hearted predic- Life with The Woodsmen tion, but sure enough, later that summer, the trails and the site Recognizing my youth, the company assigned me to moni- healed over, much to my relief. My real world learning curve tor operations conducted by two of the most congenial and had begun: logging is a disruptive process by its very nature, and cooperative loggers any tenderfoot forester could have wished understanding the difference between temporary and long-term for – Paul Tessier, owner of Tree Chop from Columbia, New impacts of a harvest, and knowing when to intervene, would Hampshire, and brothers Roland and Leander Audet, otherwise only come with experience. known as The Woodsmen, from Coaticook, Quebec. Roland and Leander were more seasoned loggers. Roland

48 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 was the ambassador, with a ready smile and wry observations; steel-sided structure with a low peaked roof and a few windows. he loved to show off veneer logs he had cut, or how he had man- It had all the comforts of home, with a small kitchen, sitting aged to climb a steep ridge by winching his skidder up to the area, gas heater, and two bunks. I recall the pungent aroma of top. Leander was gregarious like his brother, also proud, but less chainsaw exhaust mixed with balsam pitch, which emanated inclined to talk about his work. from the wool clothes hung near the door. Roland prepared With so much to learn, I showed up on The Woodsmen’s job a couple of fat steaks and asked what I like to drink, pointing nearly every day for two weeks. One day, while having lunch to the nice selection of liquor he had stored over the sink. We with one of the cutters, I learned that Leander was growing enjoyed dinner together, and after a few gin and tonics, were weary of my daily visits, announcing, “If that Champion forester settling in nicely for the evening. shows up on my job one more time, I’m going to build him his Sometime just before midnight a knock came on the door, own trailer and he can stay the night!” and the party was over. I’d forgotten that, because we worked Whether by premonition or coincidence, the necessity to in such a remote area, every forester was required to call in spend the night did occur before that season was over. One late his plans each morning and check back in again after return- winter afternoon, the front tire of my pickup caught the soft ing from the wilderness. Now Brendan Prusik was at the door, shoulder of a logging road and my truck was sucked into the informing me that the company staff had mobilized, complete

The Nulhegan Basin once supplied loggers with a way of life, and a region with wood. Right: A Youth Conservation Corps crew at work in the basin today. ditch. I quickly dropped it in reverse and gave it some gas, only with radio command center and emergency crews standing by, to hear the sound of the left rear tire chain cutting into an ice to begin my rescue operation. sheet. The other rear tire spun futilely, burrowing deeper into the soft snow. With darkness descending, and the last log trucks Shaping the future gone for the day, I climbed out over the snow bank to ponder When I worked in the Nulhegan Basin, it was one of the best sites my options. In the distance, I could hear Roland’s log loader for balsam fir and red spruce in the region. In parts of the basin, and slasher on the Black Branch. It was a crystal clear sky, so it was common to find mature fir sporting two or three 16-foot with moon and stars lighting the way, I walked the two miles to logs that were clear and sound. Some of the red spruce, and to a the log yard to ask Roland if he would pull me out. Roland said, limited extent the white spruce, could also grow to substantial size “OK, I’ll pull you out but you stay with me tonight at camp. I’ll and quality. We were contacted by log cabin builders looking for fix you dinner.” long clear logs and by specialty violin makers seeking the fine- The Woodsmen’s camp was custom-built on a trailer bed, a grained “fiddle-butt” spruce for its acoustical properties.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 49 Budworm salvage harvesting in the late seventies left large to increase the spruce-fir component in non-shelter stands; and swaths of the basin thick with newly regenerated fir and spruce to achieve a sustainable annual harvest of softwood. The result- saplings. Due to my interest in softwood silviculture and ing Nulhegan Deer Wintering Area Management plan (NDWA) Champion’s need for softwood fiber, I was directed to identify agreement was formalized in 1994 and represented a positive areas that would benefit from the investment of pre-commercial demonstration to the general public that habitat management thinning. The program took off and several hundred acres were can be compatible with commercial timber harvesting treated in the basin. One of the most gratifying sights for any forester is the new An era ends growth in a forest thinned many years earlier. In returning to My days with Champion ended in 1992, and within five short the site, I was pleased to see that the crop trees in those stands years after my departure, the company announced it would have tripled in diameter. As these trees move into larger sizes, sell its Vermont holdings. This was a seismic shift that forever they will increase in both timber value and habitat value. Some altered the dynamics of the North Country. For generations, the now support the state-endangered spruce grouse. Other changes Champion lands had provided residents with forest manage- were heartening, as well. The clearcut on the Lewis Pond Road ment jobs, and land that supported hunting, fishing, trapping, is now a thick wall of spruce and fir trees nearly 20 feet in height. and snowmobiling. Despite the criticism often leveled at large And those formerly muddy trails are now just narrow grassy pathways. Today, the Nulhegan contains 12,000 acres of critical white-tailed deer wintering habitat. More than 60 years ago, a full third of Essex County’s deer win- tered here. But by the mid-1980s, the spruce budworm epidemic and subsequent heavy harvesting had taken a toll on the deer yards, and the deer. State biologists were requesting harvesting limits until a long-range management plan could be developed. Champion agreed to discontinue cutting and col- laborate in the planning process. The initial planning group was dubbed the Nulhegan Deer Wintering Area (NDWA) management team and consisted of Champion forester Paul Mulcahey, Champion wildlife biologist Will Staats, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department biologists Cedric Alexander and Charlie Willey, and Vermont Forest, Parks and Recreation forester Dave Willard. Company staff changes over time would see new par- ticipants, including Champion forest- Now and then: A decades-old pre-commercial thinning has tripled the diameter of crop trees. ers Brendan Prusik, Jeff Meserve, Bud Delano, and Tim Woods. corporate landowners, many in the area did not want to see it At the outset, the NDWA management team seemed destined replaced with a large presence of public land and the strings that for conflict, with Champion focused on harvesting and the state come attached. wanting to protect the last remnants of their largest deer winter- When the political dust finally settled, The National Fish ing area. I had been transferred to Champion’s New Hampshire & Wildlife Service purchased 26,000 acres of the basin, which District but I kept in contact with my colleagues who were became a division of the Silvio O. Conte National Wildlife deeply engaged in the discussions. The process took nearly four Refuge; the state acquired an adjacent 22,000 acres to form the years, and involved sometimes tense meetings, but eventually, West Mountain Wildlife Management Area; and the remaining with patience, trust, and compromise, both sides reached some 84,000 acres of Champion’s Vermont holdings was purchased by common goals. The objectives were relatively straight forward: to a private timberland investor and managed under a conservation achieve 50 percent cover (5,505 acres) by the year 2035; to pro- easement held by the Vermont Land Trust. Despite the owner- vide for deer mobility to all treatment units within the NDWA; ship diversity, or maybe because of it, a balance of habitat protec-

50 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 tion, traditional uses, and timber management was maintained. sawmills, and furniture plants. Today, the Nulhegan Basin is marked by a large sign along On the bright side, Burgess BioPower recently constructed Route 105 that announces the Silvio O. Conte National Wildlife a modern wood energy plant on the site of the former Fraser Refuge. The refuge headquarters, a newly built red building that Paper mill in Berlin, New Hampshire. That new facility became resembles a farmhouse, is on the former site of the Bear Mountain operational this past winter and is expected to consume about Motel, which had served more as a honky-tonk for locals with 750,000 tons of wood annually. But it will employ only about 40 cabin fever than as a place to stay. The recently paved parking lot, people, whereas the former paper mill employed hundreds. Still, cement curbing, and manicured grounds are in stark contrast to the new wood market is welcomed by area landowners and the my memory of the simple gravel entrance to the motel. forest industry workers who now have a new market to supply. Basin Refuge Manager Mark Maghini told me that a breeding The Ethan Allen plant in Beecher Falls, Vermont, which closed pair of Canada lynx was recently confirmed on the property. A in 2009 and put 238 people out of work, re-opened a few years robust snowshoe hare population is also supported by the young ago, but it, too, supports less than half the jobs it once did. trees that provide cover and food. And there are many on- The Nulhegan Basin and the surrounding former Champion going habitat enhancement projects, including efforts by Trout lands represent a microcosm of the changes that have swept Unlimited and the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department to across the Northern Forest Region over the past 20 years, from

Activity at Nulhegan is now dominated by habitat enhancement projects, such as those to restore deadfalls for brook trout. restore log traps and deadfalls for brook trout habitat. the Adirondacks to Downeast, Maine. Large changes in land Although Mark was aware of the NDWA deer/timber man- ownership affect land uses, which ultimately affect the welfare agement plan, the refuge management mission is understand- of area residents, both human and animal. Some changes are ably differentnow, and timber harvesting is only done when a welcome, like the return of the lynx and enhanced habitat for specific habitat feature will benefit. other species; some are regretted, like the loss of good-paying Wood still flows from the land outside the refuge, but at industry jobs and local control of private land. Change is inevi- much more infrequent, modest amounts than during the table, of course, and it’s always worth allowing that inner com- Champion heydays. The number of forest-related jobs in the pass to take you back to see how your actions played a positive area is down dramatically over the past two decades. Aging role in shaping the future. mill technology, including at the Berlin and Groveton, New Hampshire, paper mills, and inexpensive labor in other coun- Patrick Hackley lives in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. Special thanks to Brendan Prusik, tries have forced the closure of many of the region’s paper mills, UNH Forestry Extension Specialist, Coös County, for his contributions.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 51 THE OVERSTORY

Story by Virginia Barlow Illustrations by Adelaide Tyrol

Hophornbeam Ostrya virginiana

“Everything about this little tree is at once serviceable and self-effacing. Such members of any society are easily overlooked, but well worth knowing.” This description of hophornbeam is typical of Donald Culross Peattie, my favorite tree book author and a man who sometimes seems hardly able to tell the difference between a society of trees and a society of his fellow humans. However, it isn’t always easy to get to know the self-effacing, whether they’re animal or vegetable, especially when at first meeting it’s hard to distinguish them from others of their kind. At the sapling stage, eastern hophornbeam is easily confused with American hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana). Each is a small, slow-growing tree of the eastern hardwood forest, and it doesn’t help that both hornbeams are called ironwood. Even the leaves look somewhat alike, and as saplings either can be mistaken for birches, as well. Note that hophornbeam leaves have nice straight, evenly spaced parallel veins that fork near the margin – as well as the saw-toothed edges it shares with these other species. Fortunately, when the two hornbeams grow out of their sapling skins and develop proper bark, you can easily tell them apart. The smooth, gray, tight bark of American hornbeam couldn’t be more unlike the loose, shedding bark of eastern hophornbeam. And birches – paper, yellow, and gray – when they grow out of the sapling stage, are neither gray nor shreddy and each is quite distinctive. Hophornbeam grows throughout the eastern United States, except on the coastal plain, and can be found on a wide variety of soils – dry, clayey, sandy, sweet, or sour. Wet soils are low on its list but often hophornbeam will be abundant in very dry soils if they are fertile. In mature stands it is usually in the understory, but can be more assertive when invading abandoned fields. It’s shade tolerant and can reproduce in the shade of a dense overstory. Deer are not fond of hophornbeam. Like beech, it is browsed only incidentally or when all else fails. Consequently, the proportion of beech and hophornbeam often increases in areas of heavy deer use. When managing for timber, foresters and loggers shun it as well, and in the southern U.S. some foresters consider hophornbeam to be the number one weed species. Nowadays, it is not considered politically correct to call a tree that is a natural part of a forested ecosystem a weed. Still, in some places, intense browsing by deer and past cutting patterns may have helped cause unnaturally high levels of hophornbeam at the expense of other species. This is a small tree, normally growing only to about 40 feet and less than 12 inches in diameter, and reaching sawlog size only occasionally. Add to this a tendency to be branchy and crooked and you can see why silviculturalists are more interested in eradicating it than improving its growth. The smallest branches are strong, thin, and wiry, more slender than all of the other hardwoods that grow with it, and perhaps this helps explain why hophornbeams are rarely damaged by wind, snow, or ice. They are, however, sensitive to pollutants, including salt, which is why you’re not likely to see them from the road. Chaga, the big, weird, black fungus that is widely used medicinally (Inonotus obliquus), often appears on hophornbeam as well as on other members of the birch family, and by the time you see it, interior decay has taken a toll. The charred looking excrescence seems to have burst from the tree, usually at an old branch stub. Oddly

52 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 enough, it bears no spores – they come much later, after the tree has died – and its reason for being is not known. Other butt and trunk rotting fungi often invade hophornbeams as well, especially in older trees. A 150- year-old hophornbeam is a lucky one and its luck is probably running out. During outbreaks of the saddled prominent caterpillar (Heterocampa guttivitta), hophornbeams can be totally defoliated, but generally this tree seems to be fairly free of destructive insects. Some sphinx moth caterpillars (the walnut sphinx and, more commonly, the blinded sphinx) feed on hophornbeam; these striking caterpillars may be nearly three inches long and they have a conspicuously granulose surface. Though the wood is extremely heavy, hard, and tough, it is rarely used commercially. The trees are usually so small, misshapen, and branchy that you’d be hard pressed to find anything resembling a sawlog. However, hophornbeam makes excellent tool handles, especially for tools that get high impacts, such as axes, splitting mauls, and hammers. The heaviness of “ironwood” brings better balance to a tool like a sledge- hammer. Back when farmers made their own sled runners, truck beds, wagon tongues, and axles, they often chose this species. The heartwood is reported to have little resistance to decay and should not be used in the damp conditions that promote fungi. In addition, attempts to plane or saw hophornbeam, even with carbide-tipped blades, usually result in clouds of blue smoke and blunt tools. It is advised that pilot holes be drilled before trying any nailing or screwing. Air-dried, it weighs in at 49 pounds per cubic foot, the heaviest of common local woods. If it were easier to split and didn’t shed messy bits of bark all over the rug, it would be everyone’s favorite firewood. If you have an overabundance of hophornbeam in your woodlot, and wish to discourage its proliferation, note that it sprouts frequently from stumps if they are left high, but much less often from stumps when they are cut off at ground level. Male and female flowers are on the same tree; they open as the leaves are unfurling, and are pollinated by the wind. The fruits are little nuts enclosed in papery sacs, which hang in clusters and resemble hops – completely unlike the fruits of any other tree. Just as the wood is not as famous as ash or hickory, the fruits don’t have the good reputation of acorns or beechnuts. But Peattie’s word, serviceable, is again appropri- ate. Though the fruits are ripe by late summer or early fall, they drop from the trees over a period of several months and often land on top of deep winter snow, providing a welcome handout for turkeys and grouse at a time when they can’t scratch for seeds on the forest floor. Red and gray squirrels, purple finches, rose-breasted grosbeaks, and downy woodpeckers eat the nuts, as well. The buds and catkins are an important food for grouse during the winter. The bark is a preferred food for beavers.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 53 The Story of Stumpage

By Paul E. Sendak and Thom J. McEvoy

n assessment of the last 20 years wouldn’t be complete without some examination of changing timber prices. The first issue of Vermont Woodlands included a chart of stumpage prices, a survey of the prices being paid for standing timber in the state. It would seem natural to simply compare those prices with a similar report from today. Unfortunately, the University of Vermont Extension, where the original data came from, stopped reporting stumpage prices in 2007.

HARDWOOD SAWTIMBER: Sugar maple and red oak are predominantly used in housing interiors, including furniture, cabinets, trim, paneling, and flooring. As such, their value is tied to changing consumer preferences. According to research conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, red oak enjoyed its 15 minutes of fame from the mid-1970s to the early-1990s, appreciating in value at a real rate of 3.2 percent. This growth came at the expense of maple, which lost value over this time. Fortunes changed, though, in the 1990s, with more consumers preferring maple to oak: from 1992 to 2007, red oak lost 2.2 percent of its value annually and maple gained 5.3 percent. Ash, similar in appearance to red oak, did not enjoy a period of price appreciation and followed red oak prices downward after 1992 – perhaps as a result of the lack of high-quality ash timber in Vermont and the loss of traditional markets such as sporting goods and tool handles. Yellow birch price trends followed those of sugar maple. They are similar in appearance and Vermont has ample high-quality yellow birch inventory.

SOFTWOOD SAWTIMBER: Softwoods are predominately used in structural and exterior applications where appearance is secondary to physical properties. White pine, the most versatile of the softwoods, is used in millwork, furniture, and cabinets, as well as dimensional lumber and timber house framing. Spruce and fir are used to produce dimensional lumber and other construction products. Both species appreciated over the 25-year timeframe. (While both were among the hardest hit when the housing bubble burst in 2008, as evident in stumpage prices reported in adjacent states, we’ll keep things positive and appreciate our modest victories.) Hemlock has various uses in rough construction, shipping pallets, wooden bridge planking, and timber house framing. But it’s perceived as inferior to other softwoods in many applications, so the decline is not a big surprise. There always seems to be more hemlock available than the market calls for.

PULPWOOD: Pulpwood prices depend on the global demand for paper products and the general state of the global economy. In 1992-93, prices for softwood pulpwood in Vermont (mostly spruce and fir, with lesser amounts of hemlock and pine) rose abruptly and stabilized for about 10 years before dropping in the early 2000s. A number of factors were at play, but perhaps the most important was that a significant backhaul market developed whereby Canadian truckers transporting spruce-fir construction lumber into the United States hauled spruce-fir pulpwood back to Canada. At about the same time, Canadian sawmills began using spruce-fir logs as small as four inches in diameter for structural lumber. A third factor, perhaps not as significant, was the end of the salvage of spruce-fir harmed by the last spruce budworm infestation in the region. These factors, in turn, put pressure on the spruce-fir supply across northern New England and New York, resulting in increased stumpage prices. The sudden drop in prices resulted from the shutdown of a major pulp and paper mill in New York.

FIREWOOD: Demand for firewood in New England depends on the price of fossil fuels, particularly No. 2 fuel oil. (The price of firewood rises as fuel oil prices increase relative to firewood.) Fuel oil prices were low from about 1989 to 1999 and increased from 2000 to 2009, with corresponding trends in firewood prices.

54 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 In some ways, though, it’s useful to end there. Lumber markets crashed along with the housing markets in 2008, radically altering the long-term curve. Prices are still recovering from this hopefully once-in-a-generation event, and the preceding decades probably offer a more accurate look at long-term trends. For this we turned to Paul Sendak, research forester emeritus with the U.S. Forest Service, and Thom McEvoy, extension professor emeritus with the University of Vermont, who collected and reviewed data on a quarter-century of stumpage prices in Vermont. The table below shows the nominal (adjusted for inflation) and real annual percentage rate change (APR) in Vermont stumpage prices from 1981 to 2007 (some categories are broken into two sub-periods – the “Q” means quarter). The authors’ notes and analysis help shed light on some of the changes that have taken place in wood markets in Vermont since 1994.

SPECIES PERIOD NOMINAL APR (%) REAL APR (%)

Hardwood Sawtimber Sugar maple 81Q3-92Q2 -0.3 -2.2

92Q3-07Q1 7.6 5.3

Yellow birch 81Q3-92Q2 -1.4 -3.2

92Q3-07Q1 3.5 0.0 As the economy continues to improve, demand for new White ash 81Q3-92Q2 NA -0.4 and existing homes should raise stumpage values. However, we likely won’t see a rapid recovery. While 81Q3-07Q1 0.0 NA the housing market has improved, it’s still sputtering. The economic problems in Europe and China don’t help. 92Q3-07Q1 NA -3.4 When markets do return, they might be different, with increasing demand for engineered wood products such Red oak 81Q3-92Q2 5.1 3.2 as wooden I-beams, laminated wood products, and structural building panels. 92Q3-07Q1 0.0 -2.2 There are bright spots, however, in the development of new Softwood Sawtimber White pine 81Q3-07Q1 3.1 1.2 markets, such as bioenergy (chips, pellets, and torrefied wood) and chemical feedstock. The pulp and paper indus- Spruce-fir 81Q3-07Q1 4.8 2.8 try will continue to evolve as it divests itself of timberlands and relies, instead, on contracts with new timberland Hemlock 81Q3-07Q1 0.0 -1.4 owners, wood purchased on the open market, and market pulp. How all this will affect stumpage prices is not easy to Pulpwood Hardwood 81Q3-92Q2 -2.1 -4.0 determine, but it is likely that there will be an expanding market for low quality timber. 92Q3-07Q1 3.0 0.0 The economy’s slow recovery will eventually expand Softwood 81Q3-92Q2 NA -1.2 the market for Vermont sawtimber, returning stumpage prices to their previous levels. Some analysts project 81Q3-07Q1 0.0 NA this could happen in the next five years. While we wait, there’s solace in the fact that timber does not have to 92Q3-07Q1 NA -4.65 be harvested when market prices are low. It continues to grow, adding volume and quality, waiting for markets Firewood 81Q3-92Q2 -1.8 -3.4 to improve. Two old clichés apply here: “Time heals all wounds” and “This, too, shall pass.” 92Q3-07Q1 2.3 0.0

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Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 57 Predators with Personality Story and Illustrations by Rachel Sargent

A living jewel hangs suspended A closer look at spiders – and since most are smaller than beneath the microscope. An emerald sheen shifts with its every half a centimeter, a closer look is required – reveals an amazing pulsing breath over iridescent silver, gold, and bronze swirls. array of forms and behaviors. There are almost 4,000 known Aquamarine legs hang poised, deftly manipulating invisible species north of Mexico. While there are no official estimates threads. The creature under magnification is an orchard orb for the number of spider species in the Northeast, a recent stu- weaver: a member of the spider family Araneidae and an animal dent collecting trip in the Burlington, Vermont, area found over not normally celebrated for its beauty, or indeed, celebrated at all. 100 species in each of two locations. Spiders come in a range of For many, the appearance of a spider occasions a scream sizes and shapes, from fat gray orb-weaving barn spiders to fast of “Spider!” (and maybe a reach for a shoe) with little further and tiny iridescent jumping spiders. They pursue a variety of examination. They are symbols of evil or bad luck, assumed to life strategies, from ambushing to active hunting, orb webs to be dangerous. In truth, spiders are shy and retiring creatures. cobwebs to no webs. As skilled predators, they are significant consumers of insects. What follows is an introduction to seven commonly seen Indeed, spiders can make up half the predator biomass on the spider families; the idea is to showcase important differences forest floor. And while all spiders have a venomous bite, it is between each and, hopefully, squash the casual perception that used on prey, and only rarely in self-defense. a spider is just a spider.

58 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Longbodied Cellar Spider Pholcus phalangioides

Pholcidae Cellar Spiders If your housekeeping is like mine, you’ve seen a cellar spider. The most common ones are skinny gray-brown spiders, with disturbingly long legs, that hang in the corners of houses and other man- made structures. They can be confused with other long-legged arachnids like the harvestmen (daddy- long-legs), but most cellar spiders have a distinctive front section and an elongated abdomen, while a harvestman, which is not technically a spider, has FRANK KACZMAREK just one spherical body part.

Pholcidae is a large family, distributed across the world. Several pholcid species, most notably the long-bodied cellar spider (Pholcus phalangioides) Brownish-Grey Fishing Spider (Dolomedes tenebrosus) have closely associated themselves with humans and now live worldwide.

Cellar spiders make tangled webs, which look messy to human eyes, but are effective at snaring prey even without the sticky properties of orb webs. These spiders are opportunistic feeders and will eat anything small enough to catch; they’re not above cannibalism and often invade neighboring webs and eat the neighbor. A disturbed spider will hang from its web and vibrate so quickly that it becomes a blur, making it difficult for a predator to catch. Female cellar spiders care for their spiderlings by carrying them around or guarding them on their web.

WIKIPEDIA

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 59 WIKIPEDIA WIKIPEDIA SIMONE ROSS

Araneidae Salticidae Thomisidae Orb Weavers Jumping Spiders Crab Spiders Orb weavers are perhaps the most famous family of Jumping spiders are the teddy bears of the spider “I found a dimpled spider, fat and white / on a white spiders, thanks largely to their classic spiral webs. world. With their small, compact, fuzzy bodies, heal-all, holding up a moth / Like a piece of rigid While these spiders typically use the same web gigantic, round primary eyes, and habit of turning to satin cloth--” strategy, they vary radically in size, shape, and color. face whoever is looking at them, it is hard to resist In his poem “Design,” Robert Frost must have been Orb weavers are frequently nocturnal, so when you their charm. describing the goldenrod crab spider, Misumena vatia, see one hanging in its web, don’t disturb it – it’s get- This family is larger than the orb weaver family, but a common crab spider in the Northeast that sits on a ting a good day’s sleep. jumping spiders are less frequently seen because flower and ambushes pollinating insects. (They can While you’ll see many different orb weavers in the they’re smaller and don’t usually hunt in houses. catch bees twice their size.) Goldenrod crab spiders Northeast, one of the most conspicuous and beauti- Unlike the spiders already described, they do not sit are found on yellow or white flowers because the ful is the diurnal black and yellow argiope, Argiope on a web and wait for prey; they are active hunters females can slowly change their color between white aurantia. They are commonly seen in fields, hanging and earn their name through their ability to jump and yellow to match their flower choice – they’re the in spiral webs a foot across that incorporate a bold thirty times their body length. They have excellent chameleons of the spider world. zig-zag of white silk, called a stabilimentum. The vision – hence the adorable gigantic eyes. Crab spiders are almost as numerous as orb weav- argiope female is up to one inch long, patterned in Since jumping spiders are so visual, they have ers and, like the orb weavers, are colorful and easy classy black and yellow. The plainer male is about evolved elaborate courtship dances, eye-catching to spot. They are aptly named for their resemblance a quarter-of-an-inch long. They are a gardener’s colors and patterns, and on the opposite end of the to crabs, both in shape and in their habit of scuttling friend, as they prey on pest insects. spectrum, ingenious cryptic forms. The bold jumping sideways. spider, Phidippus audax, is one of the more notice- able jumping spiders in the Northeast because it is large, has iridescent mouth parts (chelicerae), and is diurnal.

Goldenrod Crab Spider Misumena vatia

Bold Jumping Spider Phidippus audax

Black and Yellow Argiope Argiope aurantia

60 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 RICHARD MIGNEAULT JAMES REBEN PATRICK EDWIN MORAN / WIKIMEDIA

Agelenidae Pisauridae Lycosidae Funnel Weavers Nursery Web Spiders Wolf Spiders Bedecked in various shades of brown, funnel weav- I went to my stove to make tea one morning and Wolf spiders are among the most common spiders ers are not as glamorous as some spiders. (They’re found that a large brown spider had taken over a across the world and, as you might guess from the boring enough that even experts have a hard time gas burner overnight and hatched her egg sac before name, are accomplished hunters. They’re frequently telling different members of the family apart.) But expiring. The entire burner had become a nursery seen, because they come into houses to overwinter. you’ve undoubtedly seen them. This family likes to web with hundreds of pin-head-sized spiderlings A female wolf spider will carry her egg sac on her build its webs in meadows and bushes, or some- suspended by invisible threads. Every breath of air spinnerets, dragging it along behind her and taking times between window screens. On dewy mornings caused the cloud of spider siblings to shift in an eerie it into sun or shade to optimize the temperature for in late summer, look for funnel spider webs scattered choreography. the developing offspring. She assists the spiderlings in silvery patches across your lawn. These were The spinning of a nursery web is a classic charac- when they emerge and will carry them on her back. made by grass spiders, Agelenopsis spp. teristic of this family. They are dedicated mothers, The thin-legged wolf spider, Pardosa milvina, is a Funnel weavers build a sheet web with a tube-like carrying their egg sac in their jaws before spinning common sight in the Northeast. They are small for funnel at one end that acts as a refuge and a sensor a nursery web for the hatchlings and, if the mother a wolf spider, with spiny legs that help them grip – the spider responds to vibrations on the web by lives long enough, guarding the helpless spiderlings. surfaces. Most wolf spiders have stripes that run either dashing out of its funnel to grab the prey or The most commonly seen species in this group bears lengthwise on their bodies, but the stripes of thin- retreating into its hiding place. the same name as the family, the nursery web spider, legged wolf spiders are irregular. Pisaurina mira.

Nursery web spiders are common across North America and often move into houses. Some species are seen along shorelines, because they can run on the surface tension of water. They are active, hunting down their food instead of waiting on a web. These stocky, brown spiders can be confused with the wolf spiders, which also carry their egg sacs.

Thin-legged Wolf Spider Nursery Web Spider Pardosa milvina Pisaurina mira Grass Spiders Agelenopsis spp

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Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 63 Frozen in Time The ice storm of 1998 provided a lesson on the resilience of the northern forest.

By Patrick White

he precipitation started falling on January 5th, and for four days the gargantuan ice storm of 1998 pounded northern New York and New England, along with southeastern Canada. Freezing rain, ice pellets, traces of snow, back to freezing rain. Meteorologists label a storm with .25 inches of ice as “disruptive;” a .5-inch layer of ice is considered a “crippling” event. During this storm, some places got ice accumulations of three inches. High winds on the back end of the storm added to the havoc. Millions of people lost power and 40 deaths were reported region-wide. Damage estimates were pegged at three billion dollars. For many, though, it was the sight of towering trees bowed low, many splintered by the weight of the ice, which created the most powerful images of the storm. Aerial surveys revealed that some 25 million acres of forestland had been damaged throughout the Northeast. A silver lining in all this destruction was the wealth of data that emerged on how ice storms affect the woods. Topography, forest conditions, and micro- climates were all shown to have influenced the amount and severity of damage. And, even within largely uniform sites, “different degrees of damage occurred in a mosaic pattern, with patches of intense damage imbedded within larger, less damaged areas,” according to a U.S. Forest Service report. While damage extended to virtually all tree species in the northern forests, American beech was perhaps hardest hit, a fact researchers attribute to the weakening effects of beech bark disease. Soft, brittle hardwoods, including aspen, ash, basswood, and black cherry, sustained the most damage. Softwoods had considerably less damage than hardwoods. Not surprisingly, larger-diameter trees and those in the overstory saw more damage than smaller, understory trees. Many of the damaged stands proved remarkably resilient. Kevin Smith and Walter Shortle at the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Research Station have been monitoring 584 northern hardwood trees across the

The ice storm of 1998 left a path of destruction across the Northeast, but provided a wealth of research data on how forests have responded.

64 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 region that had sustained various levels of crown loss in the ice storm. At the 15-year mark, 84 percent of these trees were still alive. Interestingly, the researchers found that the number of trees killed by the ice storm was about the same as the number of dead trees you would expect to find in a normal forest over that time span, because as a forest ages and the trees get larger, there are fewer trees per acre. Of course, if your favorite shade tree is broken, your sugarbush devastated, or your lovingly maintained woodlot pounded by an ice storm, that’s no consolation. “I have a lot of sympathy for people who get hit hard and have an economic loss from ice storms. It does happen,” Smith said. “But in the bigger picture this is a natural part of the ecology. It’s life and death in the forest. This is how it plays out.” Measurements taken with increment borers showed that trees that had been healthy and growing quickly before the storm were more likely to have survived, while slow-growing trees fared less well. Trees that lost more than half their crowns were five times more likely to die than trees that lost less than half. “During the early years after the storm, trees that lost more than half their crowns due to ice breakage were expending photosynthetic energy to sprout and replace lost crown, leaving less for adding new wood and protect- ing wood exposed by wounds to the base of the tree and to roots below ground,” explained Shortle. Tests were conducted by sawing cross-sections of eight maples with severely damaged crowns and measuring the staining. “Our observers were all surprised to see lots of white wood after a decade of exposure by a large broken top,” he noted. But while crowns were reforming, wood-decay fungi were spreading elsewhere in the trees, in some cases producing large columns of discolored and decayed wood that reduced wood quality in the butt log, said Shortle. Trees that had healthy root systems and no basal wounds at the time of the ice storm fared the best in subsequent years. Shortle says future research will help us understand even longer-term impacts of the storm. In fall of 2014, additional cores will be taken from damaged trees, with some trees cut and dissected in order to better understand sprouting patterns and tree response to wounding. “We hope our work will tell us something about the impact of ice storm injury on tree growth and wood quality during the second half of the second decade, as our earlier work did about the first half of the first decade after the storm,” said Shortle. The ice storm of 1998 remains historic in its propor- tions, but just 10 years later, in December of 2008, another major icing event ripped through central New York and Massachusetts, as well as southern New Hampshire and DAVE MANCE III Maine. Again, ice accumulations hit the three-inch mark in some areas. It may be that these once-in-a-lifetime ice storms are destined to become once-in-a-decade events.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 65 An Industrial Place Turned Green Story and Photos by Tony Donovan

One of our favorite recent pieces was Tony Donovan’s photo essay on Amos Congdon, which ran in the Spring 2013 issue. Amos was a woodsman from Lyme, Connecticut, who ran a sawmill in the 1970s. Donovan’s vintage photographs and prose captured the man, and the era, perfectly.

Tony went back to the mill with his camera last summer, and we asked him to write a short piece that summed up what things are like today, now that Amos is gone.

first started taking pictures at Congdons’ sawmill in Lyme, Connecticut, in 1973; I was working there as part of the mill crew. It was the image of Amos Congdon that fascinated me most. Not only did he make a perfect picture of our “ancient father,” but his character was a match, thoughtful and wise. When Amos passed away, the situation changed. The Sawyer and the other workers were wary of my camera. (Which makes the pictures in this collection of Mike “Moose” Evankow setting the “dog,” carrying slabs, all the more valuable.) Operations continue, but the sawmill has fallen into disrepair. There are many reasons: economy of scale that this small operation can’t supply is, I suppose, the most obvious. The Sawyer’s maverick spirit is another. Sawing is a young man’s work; it’s either youthful energy or automation, and they have neither. In towns like Lyme, open land where workmen can store their equipment and a toy or two is priced beyond their means. Over the years, friends’ small pleasure boats and trailers, old trucks, wrecked cars appeared in the lot where lines of wood slabs were once piled to dry for winter customers. The Sawyer has had to adapt to keep his mill. Though a few loggers, loyal friends, still bring in loads of clean logs, a lot of the wood on site is gnarled and twisted, a disorderly mess. Tree men and land- scapers drop their loads of yard trees here to avoid dump fees. Sawing trees from a dooryard is a gamble; the Sawyer wouldn’t have touched them in the past. Dangerous, sometimes, when they have lead or iron inside. Nails. The eyebolt from a clothesline. A deer slug. Recently, the Sawyer had me take a picture of a stone, little larger than a golf ball, that the saw blade hit. It was hidden far inside the wood, in the second log of the trunk, which would have been 12 to 14 feet high when the tree was standing. As a photographer, it’s been more challenging for me to figure out how to capture all that’s changed at the mill. At first I took pictures of the debris: rusting saw blades that lie around the shed, the broken tools and scrapes of wood, the oil-stained rags. But that didn’t take into account all the hard work that’s been done here, and still is done at this sawmill. The saw blade, rusting, scarred with welds, still seems majestic and strong in the right light. I take pictures of the mill carriage, the iron car that carries the log into the saw, built by The Lane Manufacturing Company in Barre, Vermont. It’s been repaired with pieces from an older Amidon, which is a Connecticut mill where Amos Congdon and his oldest son worked before the present mill was built. Both companies’ names are cast into pieces of the carriage. It has rusted to a deep red brown, with green mold growing onto that. And so it goes, the changes in this place I love. An industrial place turned green.

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Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 69 FIELD work

Story by Jack Rodolico

At Work Chipping Trees with the Hardwick Family

Donnie Hardwick Jr. is a spitting image of his father. In the picture hanging in the lobby of the family business, Donnie Sr. sports a scraggly beard, wide-rimmed glasses, and a blue crocheted hat – the kind of thing you might see on a grandmother, not a burly logger. But shave off the beard and peel off the hat and glasses and you’ve got Hardwick Jr., who, as he stands beneath the portrait, says he has heard that he looks like his father more times than he can count. The resemblance is a point of pride for Donnie Jr. and his mother, Teri. Two years ago, the family lost Donnie Hardwick Sr. to lung cancer. When he passed away at 53, Hardwick Sr. left behind two things: the logging business he built with his own sweat, and a big, sprawling family determined to cope with the loss and keep the business going. GEOFF JONES “It is not very often that such “He gave us reins and let us make mistakes,” said Donnie Jr. a big family can get along so “Not big mistakes, but our own little mistakes.” well working together,” said Teri As the boys were coming of age, Donnie Sr. found opportu- Hardwick. “Love what you do, do Don Hardwick Sr. on a job site in nities to expand his business. Knowing he could deliver wood what you love is what this family is the winter of ’83/’84. on schedule, a mill financed Donnie Sr.’s first woodlot, which lucky enough to do every day.” he leveraged over the years to expand to 7,000 acres. Buying a D.H. Hardwick and Sons, Inc. is a “stump-to-dump” logging woodlot was something of a no-brainer for a logger, but Donnie outfit in Bennington, New Hampshire. The Hardwicks not only Sr. made another investment that, in retrospect, showed his abil- cut wood, but also process it into lumber products. Donnie Sr. ity to think ahead. In the 1980s, logging jobs left behind plenty and his family have always pushed the edges of technology and of wood – treetops and scraggly trees with no timber value. But innovation, running a tight operation with a solid reputation as all those scraps had tremendous potential as biomass. In the both loggers and conservationists. 1980s, chip-burning power plants were coming online in New Hardwick Sr. started the business in 1978 with a cable skid- England, but they relied on a haphazard network of wood pro- der and a lot of ambition. He was 19 years old and lacked a high ducers to supply chips. So when a power plant offered to finance school diploma, but within a few years was expanding his client Donnie Sr.’s first chipper, he jumped. The chipper allowed his base throughout southern New Hampshire. As the business crew to process woody material right on the job site, before grew, he recruited family members: his mother kept books while delivering the chips directly to a power plant. two brothers cut and skidded wood. Teri joined in, too, in part “Once he decided to jump in and do whole tree chipping,” because there wasn’t much of a choice; the business operated out Teri said, “it took off and became a bigger business.” of the family home and her husband needed the guidance of a Not many contractors were offering both logging and thoughtful business partner. chipping services back then, so the new gear and larger crew The business grew, and so did the family. “People say the provided Donnie Sr. a competitive advantage when it came to Hardwicks breed like rabbits,” Teri said. From her descriptions securing new projects. He also expanded his fleet of trucks to of life with the young family, it sounds a bit more like a bear den. increase efficiency. Donnie Sr. and Teri had four boys in six years. The boys climbed “They are, pound for pound, horsepower for horsepower, all over the logging equipment like a pack of raucous cubs, and the most productive logging crew in New Hampshire,” said as soon as they were coordinated enough to hold a rag, Donnie Eric Johnson of the New Hampshire Timberland Owners had his boys washing and greasing trucks. Association. “And their best management practices are excep-

70 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Ben Hardwick loads freshly cut trees into a chipper, which spits the chips directly into a tractor-trailer.

to talk to customers, maintain a fleet of vehicles, and turn a profit in a business that requires spending hundreds of thou- sands of dollars on diesel. A half-mile behind their office in Bennington, Donnie walked me into a lot where his uncle and brothers have been chopping and chipping. The crew has harvested some high- value oak and white pine, and the logs lie stacked like massive matchsticks on the landing. The treetops and low-value trees have all been cleared, chipped, and trucked to plants in New Hampshire and Vermont. What’s left standing is a handful of stately, 100-year-old red oaks. The soil is roughed up a bit, as red oak needs scarified soil to regenerate well. If there’s a solid crop of acorns this autumn, the next generation of oak seedlings will soon take root. With luck, in 50 to 70 years, a new crop of Hardwicks will be here to harvest the next crop of oaks. As we survey the scene, a skidder ambles out of the woods like a mechanical praying mantis. The driver backs up about 70 feet of tree more precisely than I back my Prius into the driveway. “That’s my uncle,” says Donnie Jr. “He’s been doing that for JACK RODOLICO almost 30 years now.” Out in the woods, it’s pretty much all family. Donnie Jr.’s uncle and three brothers take care of the logging, while Donnie finds jobs and talks to clients. “I line ’em up,” he said, “and they tional. They don’t just hammer the woods.” knock ’em out.” Several other father-son teams – all family Johnson adds that the Hardwick sons have “taken it to the friends – drive trucks, and other family members have retired next level.” On a typical day, 15 to 20 tractor-trailer loads of from the business. Donnie Sr.’s mother still keeps the books, and chips leave Hardwick job sites, all en route to become electricity last fall his father (age 80) ran bulldozer on a job site. or heat. It was a shock when Donnie Sr. got sick. By the time he was Donnie Jr. is an old 31. As a teenager, he knew he wanted to diagnosed with lung cancer, the disease had spread throughout work with his dad and uncles. So, blazing a path that all three his body. Medically, the final result was a certainty, but it still of his younger brothers would follow, he finished high school a was difficult for everyone to believe that such a productive guy year early and skipped college so he could work in the woods. could be slowed down so suddenly. At the time he was busy at While others were pledging fraternities and applying for intern- work and loving his time with grandkids, inviting them out to ships, Donnie Jr. worked under his father’s wing, learning how job sites for rides on 15,000-pound vehicles. Sometimes people beat cancer. Other times cancer does what cancer wants. “He was young,” Teri said of her late husband, “but he lived a life that most people could not fit in 75 years.” The family had a tough time, but the work – the business Donnie Sr. built – was the best kind of therapy. It also helped that Donnie Sr.’s entire extended family, a collection of sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and cousins totaling over 100, all live within a few miles of one another. The Hardwick clan makes up approximately three percent of the population of Francestown and Bennington. For some families, this closeness would be claustrophobic.

JACK RODOLICO But for the Hardwicks, it’s just how they do business.

Jack Rodolico is a freelance writer and radio-maker based in Concord, New Hampshire.

Teri Hardwick (front) with her four sons (from left to right) Ben (29), Donnie Jr. (31), Wagner Forest Management, Ltd. is pleased to underwrite Northern Woodlands’ series Joe (25), and Jeb (30). on forest entrepreneurs. www.wagnerforest.com

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 71 THE A. JOHNSON CO. Bristol, VT (802) 453-4884

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72 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 up COUNTRY

By Robert Kimber

A Legacy Maple

It’s about three feet in diameter at breast height. At 80 feet tall loving care on it, but because this tree stands only seven feet or so, it towers above the standing-seam roof of our one-and-a- away from the front of our house and extends the tonnage as half story cape. This is no sugarbush maple tucked in among its well as the shade of its limbs over our roof, practicality and self- neighbors, standing straight and nearly limbless for much of its preservation call for preventive maintenance. height. It’s a yard maple that grew up with all the light and space So every once in a while, my friend Alan comes over with in the world to spread out in. Its huge lower limbs reach out for a his arborist’s gear – a lightweight chainsaw, hand saws, climbing few feet, then swoop upward in graceful arcs, looking, in winter, harnesses, and an outsized slingshot we use to fire a light throw like the arms of a huge asymmetrical candelabra. In the spring line into a treetop and then haul a heavier climbing rope after of good seed years, the abundance of yellow flowers makes the it. Soon we’re swinging about like Tarzan, pruning away any tree glow with its own soft light, an arboreal candelabra after deadwood we find, cleaning out crevices, poking and prodding all. And in October ... well, no need to tell you how brilliantly for signs of decay or weakness. it lights up then. So far, Dana’s maple seems to be holding its own. But This maple is a thing of beauty, a blessing on our lives year guardedly optimistic as I am about its being with us for several round, and if that were all it was, it would be worth its keep more years, I can’t help recalling an article in the Winter 2007 many times over. But it has its utilitarian side as well. All the issue of this very journal (“The Yard Maple”) in which Stephen neighborhood chickadees perch on its branches to wait their Morris described how maples “start breaking apart in chunks turns at our nearby bird feeders. In the summer, its far reaching when they reach a certain age, how they die from the center limbs spread a green canopy over most of our roof, keeping the out.” Just this past December, we witnessed a vivid demonstra- house blissfully cool without benefit of air conditioning. tion of Morris’s point: A heavy windstorm ripped through the For all the comfort and joy this tree has provided us we are big maple that stands in front of the Temple Historical Society’s probably indebted to Dana Hamlin, who lived and farmed on little red schoolhouse headquarters half a mile up the road from this place from 1902 to 1968. Probably, I say, because we have as us, tearing away the tree’s crown and, with it, a huge slab of the yet been unable to find any written record of when this maple inwardly decaying trunk. was planted and by whom, and though we were lucky enough to That tree could be the twin of Dana’s, so we’ll be watching know Dana, who died in 1980, we never had wits enough to ask carefully for intimations of mortality, hoping they will not whether he had planted this tree or whether it was already in its become so severe that we will have to bring this tall tree low. infancy when he and his wife bought the farm from her parents. Against that day, we planted ten years ago a young maple that Going on the testimony of Dana’s grandson, Don, who remembers will eventually succeed Dana’s. Our regret, of course, is that we it as still a young tree of perhaps fifteen or twenty didn’t plant it thirty years ago, that we’ll most likely be leaving years in the late 1930s, we give the nod to Dana both to our successors a mere stripling of a tree, not another mature because the timing seems about right and, more maple in all its glory. But then maybe Dana felt similar doubts. importantly, because we loved Dana and want to Planting a tree is an act of faith, and look how well Dana’s act believe this tree came to us from his hands. turned out, how much delight he must have taken in As Keats famously told us, “A thing of beauty this maple and how much he left to us in his legacy is a joy forever: / Its loveliness increases; it tree. We can only wish the same for ours. will never / Pass into nothingness ...” I like to think that sentiment is, in some Robert Kimber has written often for outdoor and absolute sense, true, but at the same environmental magazines. He lives in Temple, Maine. time I have to acknowledge that Dana’s maple, however beautiful it may be, is as mortal as any other living thing. Because Dana lived to be a hundred, we’re hopeful that some of his genes for longevity rubbed off on this maple, but even if they did, our tree is surely pushing a hundred itself, if not already past that mark. The piety due our elders is reason enough to lavish some

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 73 DISCOVERIES

By Todd McLeish Aerial Tricks

Satellites are commonly used to monitor large-scale environmental changes, and airplanes are often used to get a clearer

picture of the overall health of particular RACHEL ROHR forests. Now, a plant pathologist at the University of New Hampshire is working to equip low-cost drones with the technology to detect diseases in individual University of New Hampshire doctoral student Matt Wallhead (left) and assistant professor of plant pathology Kirk trees before those diseases even become Broders with the unmanned aerial vehicle they’re developing. visible to the naked eye. Kirk Broders is focusing his efforts on And it’s not just apple scab that could Chronic Wasting helping farmers detect apple scab, a fun- be detected. The UNH scientist said that gal disease he says affects 100 percent of small multispectral cameras mounted In northern states, where deep snowpack apple orchards in the Northeast. It causes onto drones could potentially be used to causes deer to spend much of the win- dark scabs on the leaves and the skin of detect water stress, nutrient deficiencies, ter under the dense canopy of evergreen apples, and while it is harmless and has and a wide variety of other problems. stands, the animals’ nitrogen-rich waste no effect on flavor, the blemishes render “We could map an entire forest in fine may be making the soil less favorable the apples unmarketable. So the disease detail to determine the percent of trees for growing the very trees that protect is the top concern of conventional apple that are affected,” he said. “Everything them. A team of researchers at Michigan growers in the region, all of whom spray you can do with satellites and planes Technological University has found that a fungicide on their crops eight to twelve can now be done with unmanned aerial increased nitrogen due to heavy winter use times per year to fight it. vehicles with higher resolution.” is hastening the transition of forests from Broders is testing the use of remote- Broders’ research is still several years eastern hemlock to hardwood species. controlled aerial vehicles – he prefers not from commercialization. He is currently According to forestry professor to call them drones, so as not to confuse working with different types of cameras Christopher Webster, deer seek out stands them with models used by the military to determine the optimal image resolu- of hemlock, white cedar, balsam fir, and – equipped with infrared technology to tion, and he is studying different comput- other evergreens during cold northern assess orchards for signs of disease. “You er programs that will process the images. winters as a refuge from deep snow, wind, and I see chlorophyll as green, but it can The Federal Aviation Administration is and predators. These deeryards can har- also be seen as red at different wave- another hurdle to implementation, since bor as many as 100 deer per square mile lengths,” he explained. “If a fungus has they require a certificate of authorization for three months or more. infected a leaf, it kills the cell and kills the for the commercial use of drones. But “I’ve been studying the interactions chlorophyll, which the camera sees as an given the pressure that various indus- between deer and hemlock for many uneven reflectance. A healthy leaf reflects tries are placing on the agency, it won’t years, and I’ve been seeing patterns I a bright bold red, but unhealthy leaves be long before drones are deployed in couldn’t explain,” said Webster. “There show a patchy image.” many settings – including over forests are more and more deer on the landscape Scouting orchards for signs of diseases and orchards – on a regular basis. spending winters in smaller and smaller and pests is a time-consuming task for orchard managers, but unmanned aerial vehicles could do the job quickly and easily. Daily surveillance could help farmers pinpoint problems, act in the early stage of an infection, and better target the use of pesticides. “It would be great if each grower had their own aerial vehicle, but a more real- SARAH MURRAY/MTU istic goal is to get them into the hands of crop consultants who could routinely visit farms to conduct orchard assess- ments,” Broders said.

74 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 pieces of habitat, and I wondered what the with the goal of sustainably managing consequences were of that, aside from the both,” said Webster. “We have to do a obvious effects on winter forage species.” better job of understanding how deer So he and his colleagues conducted use their habitat throughout the year. an experiment at Ottawa National Forest Hemlock stands are important winter in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula compar- cover for deer, so if the stands transition ing hemlock stands used as deeryards to to hardwood dominance, they will no hemlock stands where deer were fenced longer be useful as winter deer habitat.” out. He found a strong relationship between the amount of soil nitrogen from deer waste and the relative abundance of Green Building plants that grow there. “Deer are changing the patterning of nitrogen in the sys- The materials that birds use to build their tem, and plants respond to the patterning nests vary widely between species, from of resources.” twigs and grasses to mud and even their Some species benefitted from the own saliva. Hawks typically use coarse, increased nitrogen in deeryards, includ- dry branches and twigs as primary con- ing sugar maple, which Webster said cap- struction materials, and many line their tures nitrogen and stores it in its tissues. nests with bark or other finer materials. “Hemlock creates a low nitrogen con- For most bird species, hawks included, dition in its understory that prevents once construction is finished and their sugar maples from becoming dominant, eggs are laid, home-building is complete. but in hemlock deeryards we’re seeing But University of Vermont Professor an increase in maple in the understory,” Bernd Heinrich found that broad-winged Webster reported. “That increasing prev- hawks continue lining their nests with alence of maple in the understory may be green sprigs of vegetation throughout a response to hotspots of nitrogen. Maple the nestling stage, and those green fronds then produces very different leaf litter, appear to be carefully selected. which changes the composition of the Heinrich examined the contents of duff layer and creates conditions more a broad-winged hawk nest in western BERND HEINRICH suitable for maples over time.” Maine after the eggs hatched to learn Webster also found an increase in the species and purpose of the vege- other woody deciduous species, as well tation used. His paper in Northeastern as a surprisingly lush herbaceous layer. Naturalist (2013) reported that the birds turing prey. Heinrich believes the cedar He said that deer typically browse the delivered two large, green fronds to the and ferns were chosen on purpose. herbaceous layer in summer, but since nest per day, on average, for the first 18 Previous research on European star- deeryards aren’t used in summer, the her- days, and one frond per day in the suc- lings has suggested that sprigs of fern baceous plant community thrives there. ceeding 17 days, until the young birds and cedar, which contain medicinal and “My interest is in developing a bet- fledged. Twenty of the 55 sprigs came antiseptic compounds, serve to rid nests ter understanding of the interactions from northern white cedars, 14 consisted of pathogens by suppressing bacteria and between white-tails and their habitat, of five species of ferns, and another 11 boosting the young birds’ immune func- A white-cedar deeryard. were from sugar maples. Much smaller tion. They also lie flat, as do sugar maples, numbers of balsam fir, red spruce, white and Heinrich speculates that their purpose ash, and red maple were also included. is to provide a clean surface for food. “Of my nine examinations of the nest, “Hawk parents deposit the bodies of in all but the last one the nest mold was their prey directly into the nest mold,” he lined with either ferns or northern white wrote. “Providing a ‘clean plate’ should cedar,” Heinrich wrote. “On the other help store fresh meat and would be ben- hand, during the course of my observa- eficial, especially at high temperatures.… tions, the most readily available green If the parents procured a surplus of meat material was maple leaves.” In fact, the that was partially torn apart, then the closest white cedar trees were half a kilo- fresh substrate would serve as a relatively meter away, and the ferns came from the clean surface where dismembered prey ground, even though the hawks are sel- would be subjected to a reduced bacterial dom observed on the ground unless cap- load that would retard spoilage.”

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 75 76 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 Just what is SFI®?

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Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 77 wood LIT

A Feathered River Across the Sky: he estimated at 2.3 billion passenger pigeons, Running Silver: Restoring that blacked out the sky and took three days to The Passenger Pigeon’s pass overhead. Atlantic Rivers and Their Flight to Extinction The Native Americans knew it first; behind Great Fish Migrations By Joel Greenberg the deer and the turkey, this forest fowl was a By John Waldman Bloomsbury Press: New York, 2014 far greater component of Native sustenance and Lyons Press, 2013 spiritual practice than we typically realize. The The northward creep of red oaks is no secret. On passenger pigeon would also nourish three cen- Sea-run fish are often overlooked in modern life, late autumn days, their enduring crimson seems turies of non-native settlers, who flocked to the as fewer and fewer people touch or even see the to drive with us up I-91. We could point to climate continent. It wasn’t just a dish for the frontier, but many species that once clogged Atlantic seaboard change, or perhaps thank forgetful blue jays. But also a delicacy in cities. rivers. While the general modern disconnect from the biggest reason may be passenger pigeons. Greenberg also tells, as he must, how signifi- all things wild contributes to this, in this specific Yes, the extinct ones. Just over a century ago, they cant the difference between use and abuse can instance it’s mostly because runs are now either bested deer as acorn gluttons. The birds’ extinction be. The pigeons’ million-fold nesting flocks had vanished or threadbare, creating cultural voids means there are infinitely more acorns available their own vulnerabilities – their collective weight where rich seasonal rites once flourished. today, which raises the possibility that passen- was enough to collapse whole trees and destroy Running Silver: Restoring Atlantic Rivers and Their ger pigeons changed the entire character of the every promise of their single-egg nests. But it was Great Fish Migrations is John Waldman’s compel- Eastern deciduous forests they once called home. man who brought about their ultimate demise, ling – and frothy – effort to raise awareness of A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger eating them by the millions and shooting them for the plight of these fish species. While the book Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction describes the disap- sport – taking the passenger pigeon population covers rivers from Nova Scotia through Florida, pearance of billions of birds in a mere 50 years. from billions to zero in less than five decades. Northeastern watersheds receive much atten- In this centennial of their extinction (the last While we all know the fateful story ends in tion. And river conservation shares enough with passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo on the death of the species, Greenberg also tells of forestry concerns to make this intriguing subject September 1, 1914) we can be thankful a fourth- those who tried to stop the slaughter. Drawing matter for Northern Woodlands readers, particu- grade fascination with the passenger pigeon still on meticulous research that spans colonial travel larly the lengthy discussion detailing approaches animates author Joel Greenberg, a research asso- sketches and nineteenth century news clippings to modern river stewardship, which mirror current ciate at the Field Museum and Peggy Notebaert to novels and peer-reviewed science, Greenberg forest management debates. Nature Museum in Chicago. His book is not a reveals what can happen when the weaknesses Citing marine biologist Daniel Pauly’s “shifting lamentation for the lost, but rather a comple- of man and bird collide. But in our common loss, baselines syndrome,” which holds that small, mentary resource to Project Passenger Pigeon, a he finds the passenger pigeon a vital link to teach gradual changes are often overlooked, Waldman’s nationwide centenary initiative to raise awareness us the lessons we may need to restore ourselves chief anxiety is that as diadromous fish (those about extinction, explore connections with nature, and those now prone to the pigeon’s plight, such that migrate between the sea and fresh water) and inspire us all to work toward a sustainable as the bluefin tuna. no longer run in harvestable numbers, both their and diverse future. There has never been a better time than this cultural and ecological import will be forgotten. As The book engages readers with the incom- year to acknowledge the passenger pigeon and populations slowly dwindle, each human genera- parable life history of Ectopistes migratorious, a act where before we did not. These 207 pages tion will think the numbers that it grew up with species also known as “the wanderer.” No com- are not for the sentimentalists, the sportsmen, are normal. “In effect,” Waldman writes, “Pauly mon carrier pigeon, the passenger pigeon was a or the scientists alone, but for the human in us describes a ratchet, or a slippery slope where, long-distance traveler. It was a substantial bird, all. The words build a desire in the reader to be after a while, you can’t see the hilltop; later, not described by Greenberg as “a mourning dove on among those Greenberg dedicates his book to: “to even much of the grade above you. And perhaps steroids,” and it was also at one time the most those who recorded what they saw; to those who you even stop caring.” abundant bird species in North America – by collected the words; and to those whose love of Waldman’s fears are not unwarranted. The some estimates accounting for 20 to 40 percent beauty and life strive to make this story less likely cultural bonanza of New England and Hudson of all birds. In the early 1800s, ornithologist to be repeated.” Valley fish runs, after all, are now largely the Alexander Wilson observed a single flock, which Rob Rich province of museums. These fears have wood-

78 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 land precedents, too, for though the chestnut and ence, and he wrote Trackards for North American elm still have impassioned aficionados striving Mammals and their companion guide to spare The Moon to restore them, working elm wood or gathering others the same frustration. In the introduction chestnuts are traditions lost to living memory, he notes that “a tracking guide, reduced by a I don’t always pay attention to it, and without that palpable experience, even many concise format to minimal information, simply but I do notice it from time to time – people deeply smitten with forests have lost won’t be useful in the field.” What he offers in when it is especially large and bright over the lake, interest. exchange is a set of waterproof field cards and or a cold crescent through the bare trees in winter, Daunted but not defeated, Waldman works hard a companion guide that “attempts to present or when I come home late and get out of the car to point out that when it comes to fish, this circle tracks and tracking in something closer to their and it occurs to me that the driveway is not yet closed, and that with the likely exception true complexity.” And let me tell you, Brown isn’t is bathed in a glow, all the way up to the door, of Atlantic salmon there is still time to refurbish messing around. and I look up and see the moon both rivers and mindsets in such a way that the His guide covers 26 common mammals in white and silent. How strange fish can return. Dams are his chief bugaboo, and startling detail. Take, for example, an animal that that among the immensities of space and infinity chapters here provide the book’s greatest hope. continues to flummox me – the red fox. The track- our planet should happen to have Many of New England’s near countless dams no ard (or track card) provides life-sized illustrations a single rock circling it, longer serve a function, and those who would of tracks in mud, damp snow, and hard dirt. After catching the sunlight, always cool, like to remove them in an effort to restore long all, “An animal’s tracks are subject to all sorts of slipping the darkness on and off so calmly, moribund spawning grounds are meeting less distortions so that a single representation of a track slicing time and timelessness and less public resistance. Connecticut has done or trail is likely to be a misrepresentation.” The card into months, such a human span, always much here, and Waldman spends a great deal of also has a life-sized drawing of typical scat, walk- swinging its oval around us. time with Steve Gephard and Laura Wildman, the ing and trotting trails (to scale), and a ruler with As if someone had said, those human beings, two prime movers of the state’s many promising typical measurements marked for easy comparison they’d like to have a luminous orb removals. in the field. And that’s just the beginning. in the darkness of the night, The news, of course, is far from all positive. Open the companion guide and you’ll find more and while we’re at it, let’s have it change shape, Though certain localized runs have rebounded, than 10 pages of detailed information for this one slowly, but not too slowly, readers will recoil when they learn how dramatic animal. For starters, we learn that the track in so they can count out their lives with it, as well as look up now and then each species’ decline has been over time. Eels, for mud was actually “muddy sand at Brownfield, and feel a wash of beauty instance, are by some estimates down to one per- Maine, in May.” And there is another page full of tracks – of a young fox, a galloping adult with nail and what a mysterious place this is. cent of historical peaks, and descriptions of the marks, and the tracks of gray fox, domestic dog, Connecticut River’s tattered shad population elicit HOWARD NELSON bobcat, and coyote for comparison. great pathos. Waldman points out that concerns From The Nap by the Waterfall (Timberline Press). And yet, it’s when you start reading that you over diminished fish runs date back to the first Used with permission. get the juicy information. He describes the fox’s dams, and that the current state of diadromous tracks, trails, scat, scent marking, habitat, and fish has been the result of people choosing to use den in detail. We learn that the prints are sym- rivers for purposes detrimental to those species, metrical (“If you come upon the trail of a canid much as we once chose to raze forests for agri- and are not sure at first which way it is going, culture. The time, he hopes, has come to make chances are you’re looking at a red fox’s trail”); different choices that will re-establish the fish and why red foxes are known for a trail “as narrow the culture that grew up around them. and regular as sewing machine stitches” (a direct Mike Freeman register is “much more efficient in snow or other deep footing”); that they use dens only for raising pups (“red foxes are so overbuilt for cold that they rarely rely on dens for protection in winter”); Trackards for North American and that they seem to eat fibrous material to Mammals (with Companion Guide) cleanse their digestive systems (“apparently any- By David Brown thing that produces the desired effect will do”). The McDonald & Woodward Publishing The best part of each entry, though, is the com- Company, 2013 parison to similar animals. Every tidbit of information is placed in contrast to another species. So When I was a girl, my grandmother gave me a when you find that pile of scat that you’re pretty guide to the wild animals of the Rocky Mountains. sure is red fox, you’ve got descriptions of similar It was a small book, bound in green cloth, with a animals’ leavings on the same page to help you page or two for each animal. The drawings – one narrow the possibilities and solve the mystery. of the animal and one of a track – seemed com- Reading this book is like having a good friend, pletely unrelated to anything I could find in nature, wiser than yourself, close at hand, saying, “Yes, it’s and I soon gave it up. a fox. Let’s look and see what it ate for dinner.” It seems David Brown had a similar experi- Giom

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 79 80 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 TRICKS of the trade

Story and Photos by Brett R. McLeod

Peavey Proficiency

In the last installment of Tricks of the Trade, we examined the venerable peavey, and offered several modifications to make an already invaluable tool even handier. Now it’s time to head to the woodlot and put our newly modified peavey to work using several different techniques.

1. The razorback roll The series of points welded to the back of your peavey creates four push 1 points, allowing you to roll the log further with each hit. One common mistake is to try to stand up straight while striking the log. Instead, you’ll want to bend your knees and strike the log with the front-most “razor” and continue to push, striking the other three points. Quick hits will allow you to maintain momentum.

2. The three-point roll You can also use the main peavey point, secondary point, and the swing dog (hook), to create three points of contact to roll a log in a manner similar to the razorback roll. If the swing dog gets hung up, simply hold it back 2 with your front hand as you push. If you’re working alone, you’ll want to roll the log from the small end since the larger end of the log will roll faster. Hard strikes will cause the log to “jump” forward, keeping it rolling straight. If you have a partner with a second peavey, this process is made faster and more efficient since you can move from side to side as necessary.

3. The crosshaul Crosshauling is an efficient way to adjust the angle of a log, and can also be used to drag smaller logs. To crosshaul a log with a pair of peaveys, stand opposite your partner at one end of the log. The swing dogs should oppose one another, and be set as low as possible on the log. Setting the swing dog 3 low increases your mechanical advantage, allowing you and your partner to lift, swing, or drag the log.

4. The “pop” While crosshauling is an effective way to adjust the angle of the log, it can be slow since you’ll need to move and reset the peavey. An alternative method that’s often used in competitive lumberjack sports is the “pop,” where a second peavey is laid down at one end and used to lift and pry the log back to correct the rolling angle. Once you and your partner are proficient at this, you’ll be able to pop and roll the log as a single motion. However, be careful that the log 4 doesn’t roll far enough up the horizontal peavey to catch your fingers!

5. The pickaroon hold If you’re working alone, crosshauling or popping isn’t possible. Instead, you can use the pickaroon hold to lift and adjust the end of the log. The curved primary and secondary points on the peavey are essential for this maneuver, since an unmodified peavey is liable to slide off the convex surface of the log.

Brett R. McLeod is an associate professor of Forestry & Natural Resources at Paul Smith’s College. 5

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 81 A Consulting Forester can help you

Markus Bradley, Courtney Haynes, Ben Machin Paul Harwood, Leonard Miraldi Make decisions about Redstart Forestry Harwood Forestry Services, Inc. managing your forestland Juniper Chase, Corinth, VT 05039 P.O. Box 26, Tunbridge, VT 05077 (802) 439-5252 (802) 356-3079 Design a network of trails www.redstartconsulting.com [email protected] Anita Nikles Blakeman Ben Hudson Improve the wildlife Woodland Care Forest Management Hudson Forestry P.O. Box 4, N. Sutton, NH 03260 P.O. Box 83, Lyme, NH 03768 habitat on your property (603) 927-4163 (603) 795-4535 [email protected] [email protected] Negotiate a contract Herbert Boyce, ACF, CF M.D. Forestland Consulting, LLC with a logger and Deborah Boyce, CF (802) 472-6060 supervise the job Northwoods Forest Consultants, LLC David McMath 13080 NYS Route 9N, Jay, NY 12941 Cell: (802) 793-1602 (518) 946-7040 [email protected] Improve the quality of [email protected] Beth Daut, NH #388 your timber Cell: (802) 272-5547 Gary Burch [email protected] Burch Hill Forestry 1678 Burch Road, Granville, NY 12832 Scott Moreau (518) 632-5436 Greenleaf Forestry [email protected] P.O. Box 39, Westford, VT 05494 (802) 343-1566 cell Alan Calfee, Michael White (802) 849-6629 Calfee Woodland Management, LLC [email protected] P.O. Box 86, Dorset, VT 05251 (802) 231-2555 Haven Neal [email protected] Haven Neal Forestry Services www.calfeewoodland.com 137 Cates Hill Road, Berlin, NH 03570 Fountain Forestry (603) 752-7107 7 Green Mountain Drive, Suite 3 Richard Cipperly, CF [email protected] Montpelier, VT 05602-2708 North Country Forestry (802) 223-8644 ext 26 8 Stonehurst DrIve, Queensbury, NY 12804 David Senio [email protected] (518) 793-3545 P.O. Box 87, Passumpsic, VT 05861 Cell: (518) 222-0421 (802) 748-5241 LandVest Timberland [email protected] [email protected] Management and Marketing ME, NH, NY, VT Swift C. Corwin, Jr. Jeffrey Smith 5086 US Route 5, Suite 2, Newport, VT 05855 Calhoun & Corwin Forestry, LLC Butternut Hollow Forestry (802) 334-8402 41 Pine Street, Peterborough, NH 03458 1153 Tucker Hill Road www.landvest.com Swift Corwin: (603) 924-9908 Thetford Center, Vermont 05075 John Calhoun: (603) 357-1236 (802) 785-2615 Long View Forest Management Fax: (603) 924-3171 Jack Wadsworth, LPF, ME & NH Andrew Sheere [email protected] Brian Reader, LPF, ME & NH SAF Certified Forester & Daniel Cyr Jesse Duplin, LPF, ME & NH NRCS Technical Service Provider Bay State Forestry Wadsworth Woodlands, Inc. Westminster, VT 05158 P.O. Box 205, Francestown, NH 03043 35 Rock Crop Way, Hiram, ME 04041 (802) 428 4050 (603) 547-8804 (207) 625-2468 [email protected] baystateforestry.com [email protected] www.longviewforest.com www.wadsworthwoodlands.com R. Kirby Ellis Meadowsend Timberlands Ltd Ellis’ Professional Forester Services Wayne Tripp Jeremy G. Turner, NHLPF #318 P.O. Box 71, Hudson, ME 04630 F&W Forestry Services, Inc. serving NH & VT (207) 327-4674 Glens Falls & Herkimer, New York P.O. Box 966, New London, NH 03257 ellisforestry.com (315) 868-6503 (603) 526-8686 [email protected] [email protected] Charlie Hancock www.mtlforests.com North Woods Forestry Kenneth L. Williams P.O. Box 405, Montgomery Center, VT 05471 Consulting Foresters, LLC (802) 326-2093 959 Co. Hwy. 33, Cooperstown, NY 13326 New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts require foresters [email protected] (607) 547-2386 to be licensed, and Connecticut requires they be certified. Note that not all consulting foresters are licensed in each Fax: (607) 547-7497 state. If you have a question about a forester’s licensure or certification status, contact your state’s Board of Licensure.

82 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 the outdoor PALETTE

By Adelaide Tyrol

Bathers, 13” x 11”, woodcut

My visit to Thom Egan’s Hardwick, Vermont, studio this early to reflect an earlier sunset. The two abstract forms in the pocket spring came at the end of a very long, gray winter. It felt like my of water are simplified but recognizable. The water scintillates rods and cones – the retina’s receptors for light and color – had around and through them, altering our preconceived notions of begun to atrophy from lack of stimulation. Gray had predomi- human proportion. Egan says that his overall aim “is to affect a nated the landscape’s palette for months, so it was a great plea- harmonious, if uneasy, balance that is evocative of experience. sure and relief to look through Egan’s color-saturated images. This paradox approaches a resolution, such that whatever the Egan is a printmaker who specializes in handmade woodcut complexities involved, the image will become unified.” Bathers block prints. Woodcuts are an artistic relief process, produced is an expression of integration in nature, whereby the water and by gouging out an image on wood, inking the resulting raised the bathers become one event, one articulation. Egan is drawn to surface, and then pressing a piece of paper onto that inked sur- multiplicitous ideas – both conceptually and in terms of the inherent face to create an image. Egan typically uses four blocks of wood nature of printmaking – where many things become one. to produce one layered image. This multi-block approach lends his work a great sense of color depth. Thom Egan has his BFA from the University of Massachusetts and his MFA from SUNY Bathers depicts a nighttime scene of swimmers in the Albany. He is represented by Alice Perron and may be reached through his website: Connecticut River. Stars stud the sky and the mountains seem egangraphics.com

Call for entries: Send us your Outdoor Palette submissions. Contact Adelaide Tyrol at (802) 454-7841 or [email protected] for details.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014 83 A PLACE in mind

Martha Leb Molnar

Naming Names

Since my first walk in the fields and woods that became our home this alien with immense hairy leaves and roots that reach into ground, I have tried to know and name what I see. Years later, the earth’s bowels. Even when the name doesn’t suit the plant this naming of things, this taxonomic yearning, continues to at all, as in the case of vetch, an ugly name for a useful and drive me mad. delicate wildflower, I need to know its name. Sassafras, burdock, When I know the name, I can’t always retrieve it. Often it and vetch are the keys to simplifying this overwhelming green pops out of my swampy memory bank days later. When I don’t world. know it, but should, it’s defeating. When I can’t realistically be There’s more. expected to know it, there’s hope in the guidebooks. But this One moment I see a plant this way and the next time I see also often ends in frustration. Because after a protracted search, it differently. The two are the same plant, separated only by feet when I finally zero in on the very plant – the one with the same or hours. But the slant of light or the neighboring plants make rosette of leaves and furry stem, the flower with the same num- them appear different. So we name the plant to know it when ber of pale yellow petals blooming in the early spring – when we see it, wherever it is. I’m certain I’m finally deciphering the outrageously complex I have learned a little. I proudly note that these young whips key to the book … what do I find? That the plant grows only on that have sprouted around the edges of the fields are poplars, not mountain peaks or bogs or is a woodland ephemeral. Without birches. Poplars, not aspens. This ability to detach a single tree any doubt, it cannot grow in this Vermont meadow. from the green abundance is knowing the tree, and knowing Why this fixation, this mania of putting a name to every tree, the tree is integral to knowing the woods. It’s a matter of divide shrub, grass, flower that grows here? Does it make the greens and conquer. greener? Or the golds more golden? Does knowing that this is “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new a red maple and that a sugar maple matter? Must I have proof, landscapes but in having new eyes,” said Proust. with words and pictures, that the blueberries that one spring In seeking new eyes, I learn the pleasures of solitude, so magically covered the stony slope are dwarf sweet? Or, wait different from loneliness. Engulfed in this rich benevolence, I … are they low sweet? They are low and they taste sweet, and am not alone. I wander in the shimmering grasses and blowzy knowing what label botanists slapped on them will make them flowers and saplings and am as serene as the trees that rise in the neither tall nor sour. same small spot for decades, generating sustenance from their Yet people everywhere have tried to order the living world. own shed leaves, a cycle of peace. And people everywhere see the same basic order, because Will I know the world better by knowing this hill? beneath the great variety there are deep underlying principles. “The great revelation had never come,” wrote Virginia Wolf. Psychologists have found that some brain-damaged patients “Instead there were little daily miracles, illustrations, matches are unable to order and name living things; it turns out all have struck unexpectedly in the dark.” suffered damage in the same part of the brain. There must be a Loving the little daily miracles of a place is like loving a physical location where the ability to order and name the living person. After the first flush of infatuation, a maturing follows, a world resides, scientists hypothesize, making this drive a basic deepening brought about through intimacy and understanding. function of being human. It is that intimacy and understanding that I seek. Recognizing a The names, too, intrigue me. Sassafras, for instance. An plant among many others is like picking out a loved one from a unremarkable tree in every way, neither imposing nor flowery, hundred people walking away from a concert, knowing him by “Joe the Plumber” of the arboreal world. the tilt of the head, the swing of an arm. Yes, I nod. I know you. But now take its name. Sassafras. A tart and spicy word on You with the velvety leaves reaching low, asking for my touch. the tongue, a combination of exotic sounds. Does it not raise the status of this humdrum tree several notches? It lifts it right out Martha Leb Molnar is a writer and Vermont Public Radio commentator. A version of this of the abyss of tawdry commonness and makes it memorable. piece appears in Taproot: Coming Home to Prairie Hill (Verdant Books, May 2014), and Take another name, an ugly one. Burdock. It so perfectly fits available at marthalebmolnar.com. Used by permission.

84 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2014