saving the new england cottontail · 2014-02-25 · a new way of looking at the forest summer ’13...

A N E W W AY O F L O O K I N G AT T H E F O R E S T

SUMMER ’13

$5.95

Saving the New England CottontailMaine’s Pre-settlement Forest

Alpine Wildflowers: Life at the Top

Growing Trees from Seed

Forest Forensics, Cooking with Cattails, The Ways of the Woodchuck, and much more

15813_WOOD_SUM13_COVERS.indd 3 5/15/13 4:52:30 PM

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2013 1

VOLUME 20 I NUMBER 2 SUMMER 2013

Elise Tillinghast Executive Director/Publisher

Dave Mance III, Editor

Meghan Oliver Assistant Editor

Amy Peberdy, Operations Manager

Emily Rowe Operations Coordinator/ Web Manager

Jim Schley, Poetry Editor

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORSVirginia Barlow Jim Block Madeline Bodin Marian Cawley Tovar Cerulli Andrew Crosier Carl Demrow Steve Faccio Giom Bernd Heinrich Robert Kimber Stephen Long Todd McLeish Susan C. Morse Bryan Pfeiffer Joe Rankin Michael Snyder Adelaide Tyrol Chuck Wooster

DESIGNLiquid Studio / Lisa Cadieux

CENTER FOR NORTHERN WOODLANDS EDUCATION, INC.Copyright 2013

Northern Woodlands Magazine (ISSN 1525-7932) is published quarterly by the Center for Northern Woodlands Education, Inc., 1776 Center Road, P.O. Box 471, Corinth, VT 05039-0471 Tel (802) 439-6292 Fax (802) [email protected]

Subscription rates are $21.50 for one year and $39 for two years. Canadian and foreign subscriptions by surface mail are $26.50 US for one year. POSTMASTER: Send address corrections to Northern Woodlands Magazine, P.O. Box 471, Corinth, VT 05039-0471 or to [email protected]. Periodical postage paid at Corinth, Vermont, and at additional mailing offices.

Published on the first day of March, June, September, and December.All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written consent of the publisher is prohibited. The editors assume no responsibilityfor unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. Return postage should accompany all submissions. Printed in USA.

For subscription information call (800) 290-5232.

Northern Woodlands is printed on paper with 10 percent post-consumer recycled content.

magazine

on the web WWW.NORTHERNWOODLANDS.ORG

THE OUTSIDE STORYEach week we publish a new

nature story on topics ranging from

birds that break the sound barrier

to sinkholes in New England.

EDITOR’S BLOGA well-dressed stranger stopped by

the yard the other day and asked:

“Now that you’ve logged off that land,

want to sell it?” I winced as I imagined

him thinking that we were high-grading

the woods and cashing out.

WHAT IN THE WOODS IS THAT? We show you a photo; if you guess

what it is, you’ll be eligible to win a

prize. This recent photo showed an

old syrup filter designed by Colonel

Fairfax Ayers in the 1940s.

Sign up on the website to get our bi-weekly

newsletter delivered free to your inbox.

For daily news and information,

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK

Cover Photo by Ben HudsonForester Ben Hudson captured this image of a friend fishing on a remote pond, “somewhere in

the Northern forest.” “I wanted to capture a moment of solitude that one can only find in nature,”

said Hudson.

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2 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2013

Recently, I have been hiking with my infant son. It’s hard to know what, if

anything, he takes from these forays. At two months, it’s a safe bet he’s not

counting the chickadees, but he seems to enjoy being outdoors.

As for me, I find this time together deeply satisfying. As a typical self-

referential human, I cherish the landscape around my home not just for its

own sake, but as a place made special by personal associations. Walking old

trails with my still astonishingly new child, I have the sense of re-reading a

favorite story and finding fresh meaning tucked in the pages.

There is a bald patch in the old sheep pasture above our house where each summer the

turkey hens de-bug their feathers by rinsing in plumes of dust. On this same spot, our daugh-

ter embarked on her very first sled ride and, four years ago, a bobcat thrilled us all by posing

for a moment before slipping back into the tree line. Now the site has taken on yet another

distinction, as the place where I first saw my son smile.

Northern Woodlands is also a home territory of sorts. Since this spring, I’ve made a proj-

ect of reading our full magazine archive, starting all the way back with the first issue in 1994.

Then, as now, there were articles focused on tracking tips, habitat enhancements, timber

harvests. Also consistently across the years, each issue offered new learning and unexpected

perspectives.

In all of our educational efforts, the Center for Northern Woodlands Education encour-

ages people to find “new ways of looking at the forest,” and in doing so, to deepen their own

intimacy with the land. Through this sense of belonging comes an understanding of our

shared responsibility for the future of the Northeast’s wooded landscapes.

We could not do this work without your help. Subscriptions do not cover the cost of this

magazine, nor do they pay for materials we provide to schools and other educational groups.

As you read this, our nonprofit is just rounding the corner into the last quarter of our fiscal

year. If you haven’t supported us yet, would you please consider a donation?

Now is a great time to contribute. Thanks to a generous supporter, between now and June

30th, donors will have a chance to win a Helios2 Orvis Fly Rod Outfit. You can also buy

extra tickets on our website (see page 47 for details), a great way to start the summer while

helping a good cause.

Elise Tillinghast, Executive Director, Publisher

Center for Northern Woodlands Education

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

President Julia Emlen Julia S. Emlen Associates Seekonk, MA

Vice President Marcia McKeague Katahdin Timberlands Millinocket, ME

Treasurer/Secretary Tom Ciardelli Biochemist, Outdoorsman Hanover, NH

Si Balch Consulting Forester Brooklin, ME

Sarah R. Bogdanovitch Paul Smith’s College Paul Smiths, NY

Esther Cowles Fernwood Consulting, LLC Hopkinton, NH

Dicken Crane Holiday Brook Farm Dalton, MA

Timothy Fritzinger Alta Advisors London, UK

Sydney Lea Writer, Vermont Poet Laureate Newbury, VT

Bob Saul Wood Creek Capital Management Amherst, MA

Peter Silberfarb Dartmouth Medical School Lebanon, NH

Ed Wright W.J. Cox Associates Clarence, NY

The Center for Northern Woodlands

Education, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) public

benefit educational organization.

Programs include Northern Woodlands

magazine, Northern Woodlands Goes

to School, The Outside Story, The

Place You Call Home series, and

www.northernwoodlands.org.

from the enterC

The mission of the Center for Northern

Woodlands Education is to advance

a culture of forest stewardship in the

Northeast and to increase understanding

of and appreciation for the natural

wonders, economic productivity, and

ecological integrity of the region’s forests.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 2 5/15/13 4:43:50 PM


in this ISSUE

features20 Saving a New England Native CHARLES FERGUS

32 Top Flowers: Adaptations for Living on the Alpine Edge MEGHAN OLIVER

40 Reconstructing the Past: Maine Forests Then & Now ANDREW M. BARTON, ALAN S. WHITE, & CHARLES V. COGBILL

48 Lessons in Planting Tree Seeds TAMMIS COFFIN

departments 2 From the Center

4 Calendar

5 Editor’s Note

6 Letters to the Editors

7 1,000 Words

9 Birds in Focus: Sex and the Single Bird BRYAN PFEIFFER

11 Woods Whys: Self-Grafting Trees MICHAEL SNYDER

13 Tracking Tips: The Intriguing Woodchuck SUSAN C. MORSE

14 Knots and Bolts

28 Field Work: At Work Solving Crimes with Wood Sleuth Richard Jagels JOE RANKIN

54 The Overstory: Black Locust VIRGINIA BARLOW

58 Discoveries TODD MC LEISH

61 Tricks of the Trade CARL DEMROW

63 Upcountry ROBERT KIMBER

64 WoodLit

67 Mill Prices

71 Outdoor Palette ADELAIDE TYROL

72 A Place in Mind LAURA WATERMAN

48

13

2032

40

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 3 5/15/13 4:43:53 PM


A Look at the Season’s Main Events

JuneEastern tent caterpillars are feeding on

pin cherry leaves / Gray treefrogs return

to the woods after breeding to hide in

knotholes and tree cavities for the rest

of the year. Listen near vernal pools for a

cross between a loud trill and an air raid

siren / Young cattail shoots can be peeled

and sautéed. Adding a little soy sauce and

ginger doesn’t hurt / The eight-spotted

forester is a moth that flies in the day and

is as pretty as a butterfly

June 21: The summer solstice, when the

sun is at its northernmost position in the

sky, directly over the Tropic of Cancer at

23.44°N. It’s the first day of summer in

the northern hemisphere and the first day

of winter in the other half / In years past,

whippoorwills were heard on warm June

nights, but this is not so common anymore

/ The male black-throated blue warbler also

has a black face and black sides. He sings

a lot, continuing late into the summer

Mashed up jewelweed plants applied

to poison ivy and other rashes will relieve

the inflammation and itching / Ruffed

grouse chicks are eating more vegetable

matter and fewer invertebrates. High-

protein insect food is the norm only

during their first few weeks of life /

Groups of whirligig beetles often swim in

circles on the surface of the water. Each of

their two eyes is divided in two: one half

looks up, and the other looks down, below

the waterline

White pines are releasing a lot of pollen,

often visible in the air and on cars /

Female hummingbirds are each laying

two oval, pea-sized eggs. Busy chasing

other males and females, the males take

no part in caring for the nestlings / The

snapping turtles now laying eggs have

been around for 200 million years. They

pre-date dinosaurs, plenty long enough to

develop a crusty disposition / Poison ivy

flowers are producing abundant nectar. It

makes good honey

Loon chicks – either one or two – leave the

nest within a few hours of hatching and

head for water. They nestle into the feathers

on the back of a parent to rest and keep

warm / Young great blue herons are large,

walking around on branches, and appear

very near fledging / Serviceberry, aka

juneberry, provides summer fruits for wood-

peckers, eastern kingbirds, thrushes, wax-

wings, orioles, grosbeaks, red-eyed vireos,

and cardinals / Wild leeks are blooming

Canada lilies are in flower; these glorious

tall plants are found in rich, moist field

edges and marshes / Harvester butterfly

larvae rely on alder blight aphids for food.

The orange and brown caterpillars are now

gobbling up aphids – they’re the only truly

carnivorous butterfly in the country / The

full complement of summery flowers is

blooming: daisy, black-eyed Susan, sweet

white clover, and red clover are a few that

seem to go especially well together

August 12 & 13: Perseids meteor shower.

A good year, because the crescent moon

will set just as the shower is gearing

up / Monarch adults are not only found

on milkweed. They will visit red clover,

thistles, and sunflowers, too / Red-backed

salamander eggs hatch over the next

couple of months. They are entirely ter-

restrial and the larval stage is completed

within the egg / Green frogs stay near

water and will jump in with a splash and a

yelp if startled

The sulfur shelf mushroom (Polyporous

sulphureus), a choice edible, grows on dead

wood and is found from July to October.

It is bright orange on top and a rich sulfur

yellow on the underside / Periodical cicadas

are out and calling. They lay eggs in slits in

tree bark. After hatching, the larvae fall and

burrow into the ground. They’ll spend 13-17

years feeding on roots, before emerging as

adults / Joe Pye weed is blooming, a large

plant of wet meadows

Piles of night crawler castings stand

out on closely clipped lawns. Flashlight

beams on warm, rainy nights indicate

that the neighborhood kids noticed, too /

Trout prefer feeding when the water

temperature is low, primarily at night or

early in the morning / Look for anglewings.

Most of these butterflies, in the genus

Polygonia, live in the forest and look

like dead leaves / Tiny spring peepers,

recently metamorphosed, are leaving their

nursery pools

Woodcock chicks have been foraging with

their mothers for about a month, but now

that they can fly, they’ll leave the family

unit / The most important summer bear

foods are wild lettuce (three species),

jack-in-the-pulpit, and jewelweed / The

nectarless flowers of jack-in-the-pulpit

smell like fungus and are pollinated by

fungus gnats / The white, root-eating

grubs of Japanese beetles can make

lawns look ratty. Adults are emerging and

heading for the roses

The active little winter wren will search

for food by turning over leaves and pieces

of debris, probing under loose bark, and

unearthing food items from root wads /

Listen for the dull whistle-like call of the

snowy tree cricket. Count the number of

“throbs” in 13 seconds, add 40, and you

will have the temperature within a few

degrees (F) / A fringe of stiff hairs on the

hind feet of northern water shrews allows

them to run across the water’s surface

The appeal of wasp larvae is stronger than

a bear’s dislike of being stung. They’ll use

their teeth to tear apart logs in search of

wasp nests / Woodchucks are fattening up

and will consume up to one and a half

pounds of green vegetation a day / Whitetail

bucks are tearing away the velvet on their

antlers and polishing them by thrashing

them against branches / Now ravens are

eating corn, blackberries, and other fruits.

In winter, they eat mostly carrion

July AugustFIRST WEEK

SECOND WEEK

THIRD WEEK

FOURTH WEEK

C A L E N D A R

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.

By Virginia Barlow

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By Dave Mance III

EDITOR’S note

On the first 70 degree day of the year we took a UTV ride up to the top of the ridge behind

camp, G and I. She’s originally from Wyoming, so she sees the forests around here with fresh

eyes. Fresh wonder at the hepatica growing amidst the exposed roots of a monarch red oak,

at a sentinel barred owl on a trail-side snag watching somberly as we drove by. We stopped

when we could drive no farther and made the final ascent on foot – about a quarter mile

up the last knob to the top. The shelves beneath the summit were a mixture of beech and

yellow birch – this is southwestern Vermont so the whole mountain is hardwood and white

pine – but at the very top there was a smattering of mature red spruce; we could probably count the spruce

trees on our 20 fingers. From the valley floor the towering trees look like a little spruce fez perched atop the

mountain’s head.

“Where did they come from?” she asked, running her fingers along the fissured bark. “On the wind?

Birds?” We hadn’t seen another spruce all day. And while I didn’t really know the answer to her question,

having recently read Drew, Alan, and Charlie’s story on forest paleoecology (page 40), and Meghan Oliver’s

piece on Alpine Plants (page 32), I ventured a guess that maybe they’d always been there. That after the last

glacier retreated, and the land warmed, it was the spruce that first colonized the mountain, and that all the

other trees were the interlopers that had spent the last 10,000 years chipping away at their turf.

Whatever the real answer, this idea of seeing a forest as a logical system, and not just a collection of

random, individual trees, is the foundation of contemporary ecological thinking and pretty much everything

we write about. And it’s not just plants – it’s all of nature. You can look at the New England cottontail as a

relic of the past in the same way you look at a copse of conifers on a mountaintop. Three hundred years ago,

the settlers set the stage for New England cottontail proliferation by cutting down the forest; 100 years ago,

they abandoned their farms and the resulting perfect habitat caused rabbit populations to explode. Trees

grew back, habitat declined, the rabbits disappeared. As you’ll read in Charles Fergus’s story on New England

cottontails on page 20, it’s quite a bit more complicated than this, but this notion of cause and effect, the sweep

of history, and an element of impermanence is at the root of everything we see out there.

I’m pointing out the obvious to this audience. Everything we do in our woods this summer – the trees we

cut (or don’t) for firewood or sawlogs; the trout we keep for dinner (or release) – will be done with a system

in mind. But this is not so obvious to people outside our tribe. Hence the protectionist philosophies that focus

on the individual rights of a trout or a tree versus the population as a whole; or the nursery tag on a Norway

Maple pointing out the tree’s individual strengths (shade tolerant!), oblivious to the fact that it has no place

in our native forest.

Because many people don’t see the systems in nature, because it’s easier to see individuals, making the

New England cottontail the face of young forest habitat is a brilliant PR move. It’s not unprecedented

– Audubon’s doing a similar thing with their Birder’s Dozen campaign, which links declining young forest

habitat to recognizable songbirds – but it’s another good example of how the conservation community has

begun to anticipate epistemological, as well as ecological, realities. If you propose an overstory removal as

part of an early successional habitat improvement project, you’re speaking to no one but wonks. If you say

nothing and just show up with a feller-buncher to do the angels’ work, you’re leaving yourself open to all kinds

of misinterpretation. But if you say, Let’s go save this rabbit, well now you’re getting somewhere. Now you’re

opening the door wide enough for others to fit in.

Some will point out that putting energy into reviving a practically extinct rabbit species that’ll probably

never have ideal habitat again is a misallocation of resources, akin to the hard reality that in the big picture

a chervil-picking party is not going to fix a town’s invasive plant problems. And this is probably true. But it

overlooks an even bigger picture: that it’s crucial to engage as many people as possible in conservation efforts.

Recognizing how humans organize their thoughts and motivations, how they learn and interact with the

world around them. That’s a system, too. NW

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letters to the EDITORS

At Your ServiceTo the Editors:

As I have stated many times in previous letters,

I always enjoy and learn from Virginia Barlow’s

regular column, The Overstory, which spotlights a

tree or shrub species. Her last one on serviceberry

with its many common names was another of

these gems. I often have some additional informa-

tion or, hopefully, illuminating remark to send in

response, and this time is no exception.

As Barlow wrote, Amalenchier has several

common names. Serviceberry is an apt one that

I have heard (and believe) is based on the story

that pioneer women/homemakers welcomed the

June fruiting of this tree/shrub because it was

the first fruit they could obtain for jams, jellies,

and pies. While the fruit was smallish, and not

as tasty as other edible fruit, it would “serve.”

Another story (that I do not give much credence

to) was that it flowered at the time the frost was

out of the ground, and so bodies of those who

had died during the winter and stored in the ice-

house could then be formally interred. Bouquets of

serviceberry were part of the funeral “service.”

Larry Hamilton, Charlotte, VT

The Neighborly Beaver To the Editors:

I loved Robert Kimber’s article about co-existing

with beavers. We are active tree farmers and relish

our life on Moose Mountain, where there is a huge

old mill pond on our land. We have lived here for

38 years. There have been three beaver colonies

since we have lived here, with the last one having

been more or less successful for nine years. I think

they will be moving on this spring. They have really

eaten just about everything they can find within a

reasonable range from the pond.

Over the years some of them have become

quite tame. I have never hand fed them, but I bring

them apples, and in the past few years poplar

branches that I have gleaned from all over the

Upper Valley. I often fear arrest for my pilfering.

I know that when they move on they will be in

extreme danger from cars, people who don’t want

them around, and the many predators that exist

here. But we are encroaching on them, not the

other way around. Our pond will diminish and the

moose and deer will return for the lush grasses

that will grow as the moist, fertile soil dries out.

Last spring, the adolescent beavers left earlier

than usual. We had two parents and two kits

during the summer. There are five ponds and six

dams – they wintered in the lowest pond. The main

pond was too shallow for them and they didn’t repair

that dam. It is fascinating watching them make these

major decisions. They are currently living in a hastily

built bank dam with a meager food supply. The water

level has not been consistent this winter. In the past

few days, I have seen fresh tracks and cutting of the

few beech trees that are left. I’m sure it’s not a first

choice for food. I was able to make it to a new poplar

supply in the deep snow yesterday and brought them

back a pile of treats. I have thousands of pictures of

them and am enclosing a few from last March.

Kay Shumway, Etna, NH

Stay SharpTo the Editors:

As an arborist of some 35 years, I’d like to add a few

tips of my own to Carl Demrow’s Tricks of the Trade

column on sharpening chainsaws (Spring 2013).

As you can imagine, I am frequently asked (usually

by a homeowner) about sharpening saw chains.

The first thing I tell them is, “It’s not rocket science.”

Carl’s assertion that if your file is off by even a

hundredth of an inch you will decrease the effec-

tiveness of your chain may be true, but not enough

that you would notice in the field. When we get into

dirty wood or a buried piece of barbed wire, we’re

more concerned about getting the job done than we

are about that hundredth of an inch. As long as the

angles are reasonably close and the leading edge of

the tooth is sharp, the chain should cut well enough.

The height of the rakers (depth gauges) is probably

more crucial than those angles. Even new chains

don’t cut as well as they should.

How can you tell if a chain needs to be sharp-

ened? Look at the leading edge of the teeth. If

the edge is dull, the tooth is sharp. If the edge is

shiny, the tooth is dull. But you’ve got to look sharp

because the shine can be subtle. File until the edge

is dull and now it’s sharp. Got it?

As for those new chains, I always find that the

rakers are too high. Filing rakers to the proper

height can be tricky, so use a gauge.

The best talk I ever went to for chainsaw safety

and maintenance was given by Dan Tilton of Tilton

Equipment in Rye, New Hampshire. It should be

required of anyone buying a chainsaw for the first

time.

Kurt Woltersdorf, Sanford, ME

KAY S

HU

MW

AY

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 6 5/15/13 4:43:59 PM


Photographer John Timmis captured this

image on Wilson Pond in Greenville, Maine.

“She would disappear underwater going

after aquatic vegetation,” he remembered,

“causing the flies to leave her body – but

they would be circling around waiting for

her to rise back up. Seeing all of those flies

on and around the moose (and the leeches

attached to her legs) gave me a new

appreciation for the things animals have to

endure in their daily quest for survival.”

1,000 words

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 7 5/15/13 4:44:04 PM


No Clear-Cut AnswerTo the Editors:

Recently, I’ve seen a number of photos and refer-

ences to clearcutting and even-aged management

in the magazine. Lately there have been increasing

reports of heavy cutting (clearcutting?) coming

from the Adirondacks, all since the change of

timberland ownership a few years ago. Foresters,

hunters, loggers, and fishermen have expressed

concern to me, especially regarding impacts on

wildlife. We know what happens to the deer

herd when yarding areas are clearcut, but there

are negative consequences for other wildlife,

too. Those hollow trees are shelter or nesting

areas for fishers, raccoons, owls, squirrels,

bears, wood ducks, and honey bees, to name

just a few. In a fire one time, I saw 12 flying

squirrels sail out of a burning yellow birch. The

wildlife is in there, you just don’t see it. In a clear-

cut those hollow trees are on the ground. Even-

aged management results in the regeneration

of thousands of seedlings and sprouts per acre,

which eventually grow into a dense stand blocking

the sun and inhibiting the growth of vegetation on

the ground that wildlife use as food and cover. The

extreme example would be a pine plantation with

nothing on the ground but pine needles. Wildlife

avoid such places like the plague. Adirondack

hunters are still dealing with such conditions on

some New York State Forest Preserve lands that

were clearcut years ago. And what happens to

I didn’t realize how much she was picking up

until she handed me her poem. I’m not sure if

it’s just the bias of a proud grampy, but I thought

the poem was really good for someone her age.

Sap

I love sap it comes from trees!

I feel the breeze.

I feel like I can fly,

I can see the sky.

I hear the sap pop,

It goes drip drop.

It is fun!

I can feel the sun!

I feel like I have a crown.

The sun goes down,

I don’t hear a sound.

I feel surrounded by trees.

Dana Deering, Buxton, ME

Floor ItTo the Editors:

The story From Forest to Floor (Spring 2013)

about the use of local woods to build a gym floor

by the community reminds me of a similar effort

in Berlin, Vermont. The dance floor installed in

1953 in the Capital City Grange Hall #469 had

finally worn out. It was replaced with a beautiful

new floor made of Vermont maple – harvested,

milled, and installed by local craftspeople. The old

floor was removed by community volunteers and

recyled/upcycled into other floors, a mandolin,

frames, pens, jewelry, and, of course, stove wood.

Check it all out at capitalcitygrange.org.

Merry “Flora” Kay Shernock, Northfield, VT

To the Editors:

From Forest to Floor (Spring 2013) was an

enjoyable article, but could be misleading. If a

sawmill does not have a metal detector, it most

likely would require a logger to cut off the butt log

above where any metal taps or nails to support

the cover might be grown over. This would mean

cutting off about five feet from the base of a

butt log. A landowner planning on selling tapped

sugar maples should check with the sawmill to

determine the mill’s policy regarding acceptance

of tapped sugar maple butt logs.

Ted Cady, Warwick, MA

We love to hear from our readers. Letters intended

for publication in the Autumn 2013 issue should be

sent in by July 1. Please limit letters to 400 words.

Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

those hunting camp leases? What hunter is going

to want to lease land with little wildlife and where

the camp sits in a field of stumps? Hunters go

to the Adirondacks as much for the scenery as for

the hunting.

Don Wharton, South Glens Falls, NY

Bravo for publishing The Cree and the Crown

(Winter 2012), the best piece of journalism –

environmental or otherwise – that I’ve read in

years. I look forward to reading many more pieces

by the article’s author, Naomi Heindel. And please

keep us updated on the future of the northern

Northern Forest.

Ken Goldsmith, Woodstock, CT

Sugarbush Shakespeare To the Editors:

I am enclosing a poem by my seven-year-old

granddaughter, Elizabeth Donahue, or Ellie, as we

call her. Ellie and her younger brother have been

helping me with my little maple syrup operation

(25 taps and growing) since they were big enough

to ride in the sled I use to haul my old milk cans

for collecting sap. I am trying to expose them

to the wonders of my woodlot in the hope that

one day one or both of them will take it over and

continue to work if for syrup, firewood, lumber,

and wildlife habitat. Ellie has been a good helper,

very observant and thoughtful for her age, but

DA

NA

DEER

ING

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 8 5/15/13 4:44:05 PM


Sex and the Single Bird

Story and photo by Bryan Pfeiffer

Blackbirds do it. Chickadees do it. Even

educated emus do it.

Some birds are cheaters. Their trysts,

dalliances, one-morning stands, and

other infidelities would constitute a racy

script for a wildlife soap opera.

But first, the faithful: In the vast

majority of bird species, one male and

one female unite for the purpose of

raising young. In this classic form of

monogamy, or “single marriage,” the pair

stays together either for a single breeding

season (the case among most songbirds)

or for as long as they both shall live (in

geese, gulls, and swans, for example).

Among the rest (or the restless, as the

case may be), polygamy, or “many mar-

riages,” ranges from casual to calculating.

A male red-winged blackbird mates

with a number of females, and each tends her own nest. This

most common form of infidelity is called polygyny, “many

women.” The general hypothesis is that females prefer to mate

with the male that can defend the best territory (size and quality

matters) or exhibits some other evidence of having better genes.

The superior redwing’s harem averages five females, but he may

mate with as many as 15.

It might seem that a female and her hungry young would suffer

if the male in her life was preoccupied with a dozen or more

partners. But polygyny sometimes occurs with conditions favor-

able to a neglected mother: an abundance of food, for example,

or precocial young more able to fend for themselves, which is

the case for the occasionally polygynous ruffed grouse.

The point here is that polygyny doesn’t only benefit males.

Out in the marsh, as male redwings call honk-a-REE, the female

is calculating. She figures that joining the harem of a male with

upscale territory is better than monogamy on inferior turf. Her

offspring prosper if she chooses a king’s palace over a loser’s

hovel.

But in matters of avian romance, turnabout is fair play.

Spotted sandpipers display classic polyandry, or “many men”

– a single female mating with multiple males. Oh, sure, she finds

a mate. She might even help him incubate eggs and raise their

young. But while the male does most of the parenting, she’s on

the prowl.

A female spotted sandpiper often leaves her first mate to

breed with a second. She might help rear young from both nests

at the same time (simultaneous polyandry). But sometimes she

abandons her first family and devotes her parental energies only

to her second (serial polyandry).

BIRDS in focus

Paternal care of young is rare in birds, but those devoted dads

may have been customary earlier in avian evolution. One pale-

ontologist studying fossilized dinosaurs positioned over eggs

concluded that incubating adults were predominantly male.

And the eggs in their care seemed too numerous for the lone

adult, suggesting that dad was tending to a collection of eggs

from more than one female.

We still have dinosaurs exhibiting this behavior: the emu and

some other ground-dwelling birds. (Remember, only non-avian dinosaurs went extinct.) A male emu is often the lone parent

to an oversized brood from several females. Also noteworthy is

that the emu is among our most primitive birds, relatively close

in lineage to its therapod dinosaur ancestors.

Much further along from emu evolution is the cheating

chickadee. Male and female black-capped chickadees usually

pair up as their winter flocks begin to disperse in early spring.

They are monogamous. Well, almost.

Even as she’s laying eggs fertilized by her mate, a female

chickadee sometimes sneaks off for copulations with another

male, only to return to her nest to lay extramarital eggs. So, in

our inventory of mating strategies – monogamy, polygamy, poly-

andry – it turns out that chickadees are simply promiscuous.

In all these examples of feathered infidelity, the research

varies, and I advise readers to be wary of complete or conve-

nient explanations. Avian affairs are no different than our own.

In other words, when it comes to relationships, as you might

expect, “it’s complicated.”

Bryan Pfeiffer is an author, wildlife photographer, guide, and consulting naturalist who

specializes in birds and insects. He lives in Montpelier, Vermont.

A male red-winged blackbird may mate with as many as 15 females in a breeding season.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 9 5/15/13 4:44:07 PM


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Farm Credit ............................................................................................27

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Fountains Forestry .................................................................................70

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Maine Forest Service.............................................................................52

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N.E.W.T.: Northeast Woodland Training ................................................70

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Vermont Atlas of Life .............................................................................70

Vermont Coverts ....................................................................................12

Vermont Woodlands Association ..........................................................53

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Wells River Savings Bank......................................................................66

Wood-Mizer................................................................... inside front cover

Woodwise Land, Inc. .............................................................................39

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15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 10 5/15/13 4:44:25 PM


By Michael Snyder

Jackie Lyman, NH

When two tree branches or stems grow in close proximity to each

other, it is possible that they’ll eventually grow large enough to

touch. If the bark becomes abraded, say through rubbing caused

by swaying in the breeze, it is possible for them to become

physiologically – or functionally – connected. This is the basis

for grafting.

People have been grafting plants for thousands of years, most

commonly to propagate desirable traits such as flower color,

fruiting, size, or shape by intentionally joining together two

different plants. But both shoot and root grafting occur naturally

in trees, without human assistance. In fact, some scholars have

suggested that horticultural grafting practices first emerged

as early humans attempted to mimic the natural grafting they

observed in the wild.

The result of grafting, either natural or horticultural, is a

genetically composite organism functioning as one plant. That

is, grafting results in the creation of a compound genetic system

by uniting two or more distinct genotypes, each of which main-

tains its own genetic identity throughout the life of the grafted

plant. This is why, for example, a branch of a red-flowering rose

grafted onto a white rose stock will continue to produce red

roses rather than white or pink hybrid roses.

Here’s how grafting works. Just under the bark of all woody

plants is a layer of living cells called the cambium. These cells

divide and multiply to create bark tissues to the outside of the

cambium, and wood tissues to the inside. This is how tree roots,

stems, and branches grow larger in girth. And it is the most

recently created of these cells on each side of the cambium that

perform the vital functions of transporting water and minerals

gathered by the roots from the soil up into the tree, and the

carbohydrates made in the leaves down into the rest of the tree.

Think of the cambium layer as the tree’s plumbing.

When the plumbing system of one tree successfully fuses

with that of another, a graft union is formed. But this can only

happen under specific conditions. First, the tree parts have to

be biologically compatible. That’s why such fusions are more

common among the branches, stems, or roots of one tree or

between two individual trees of the same species. But it can

happen between two trees of closely related species. The more

different the species are taxonomically, the less likely a graft can

occur between their parts. Indeed, no such grafts have ever been

documented between tree species in differing families.

This tree seems to have had a branch or a second tree growing from it, then it died, but then it seemed to have grafted itself back. Would appreciate learning more about this.

Other requirements for this amazing bit of tree magic are

that the tree parts be in direct, prolonged contact; be under

pressure; have sufficient moisture and protection from the

elements, insects, and pathogens; and have those cambial cells

properly aligned. Okay, it’s biology and not actually magic – but

it might as well be considering how many things have to go right

for it to work. Among northeastern tree species, natural shoot

grafting is known to occur in sugar maple, black cherry, red

and white oak, sycamore, willows, beech, eastern hemlock, and

white pine (as pictured).

It should be noted that there are many occurrences of

branches or stems growing very closely together, even touching

in what would appear to be a graft union, but that turn out to

be separated by layers of bark. These are not true graft unions,

because they lack physiological connectivity. The one in question

here would appear to be a true graft because the lower portion

of the one stem appears dead, while its upper part appears to

be alive and well, suggesting a physiological reconnection has

occurred. Ah, the near-magic of tree biology.

Michael Snyder, a forester, is Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Forests,

Parks and Recreation.

woods WHYS

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 11 5/15/13 4:44:27 PM


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The Intriguing Woodchuck

Consider the ubiquitous woodchuck (also known as the ground-

hog); an animal found from Labrador to Alabama; through-

out all of the eastern U.S., west to Kansas, Nebraska, and the

northern tip of Idaho; from eastern Alaska all the way across

the southern half of Canada.

We’ve all heard that Punxsutawney Phil will emerge from

hibernation on February 2, look for his shadow, and predict

the weather for the next six weeks. While this is legend, of

course, male woodchucks will interrupt their hibernation

in late winter and make forays across the snow to search

for female burrows or to establish breeding territories. Such

activity elevates the body temperature to a level necessary for

spermatogenesis to occur, guaranteeing that

males will be ready when it’s time to mate.

While the males are working on their sper-

matogenesis, prospective female mates are sleeping

in. This saves vital energy for the rigors of repro-

duction and raising the family. Woodchucks

breed immediately after the females emerge in

March, and, following a month-long gestation,

their young are born just in time for the green-up

of succulent vegetation.

Everyone knows about the woodchuck’s

penchant for peas, carrots, young corn, and

other vegetable garden and farm crops, but the

incredible diversity of foods that woodchucks

consume can still come as a surprise. I remember being dumb-

founded as I watched an odd beaver-like animal swimming

to shore with a pond lily stem in its mouth. Upon landing, its

identification was clear. I watched in fascination as the ground-

hog sat upright, grasped the stem in its paws, and consumed it

before reentering the water to do it all over again.

In our region, common foods include sedges, grasses, wild

strawberries, plantain, clover, alfalfa, goldenrod, trout lilies,

dandelions, daisies, vetch, and the fine stems and fruit of apples,

serviceberries, and blackberries. In early spring – before the

green-up of herbaceous plants – the buds, bark, and tender

twigs of sumac, dogwood, and black cherry are also consumed.

Woodchucks eat occasional invertebrates, including crickets,

grasshoppers, snails, and June bugs.

Like most rodents, woodchucks’ hind feet are larger than their

front feet. Five toes will show on hind feet tracks and the stout-

clawed forefeet register only four toes. The pollex (or thumb toe)

does not register in tracks because it is reduced to a small stump

tipped with a tiny blunt nail (see photo). The most distinctive

features to look for in woodchuck tracks are the one-three-one

toe arrangement of the hind feet and the pock-marked appear-

ance of the track impression, which is created by knobby pads

Story and photos by Susan C. Morse

TRACKING tips

that protrude from the fleshy base of the feet. The tiered arrange-

ment of three and two pads on the front feet, and a semi-circle of

four pads behind the long toes of the hind feet, help differentiate

a woodchuck track from that of a raccoon or beaver.

We’ll often see a woodchuck near its burrow. Fresh dirt pushed

out of the entrance reveals that a groundhog is actively using and

retrofitting its subterranean refuge. Fecal matter is rarely found,

because it is deposited within the burrow. When exclusively in

use by a groundhog (and not enlarged to accommodate other

occupants, including foxes, coyotes, and raccoons), burrow

entrances measure between five and six-and-a-half inches in

diameter. Evidence of teeth marks on tree roots near a burrow’s

entrance can sometimes be found.

I once watched a woodchuck gnawing on a root, followed

by cheek-rubbing the fresh bite marks. I am convinced that the

woodchuck was scent-marking, using its saliva and secretions from

sudoriferous (sweat) facial glands to communicate its presence.

Susan C. Morse is founder and program director of Keeping Track in Huntington, Vermont.

At right: woodchuck front foot


15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 13 5/15/13 4:44:33 PM


K N O T S & B O L T S

[ F O R A G I N G ]

Swamp Gold: Edible Cattail PollenIt can be difficult for beginning foragers to make the leap beyond the most familiar wild foods. For those

who want to expand their repertoires beyond ramps, fiddleheads, and blueberries, I cannot think of a

better food than the edible pollen of the common cattail (Typha latifolia). It is unmistakable, fun to gather,

easy to process, and tastes delicious.

The greatest challenge in harvesting this unusual food is catching it during its brief season. During

the late spring and early summer, the cattail’s flowers start to form, looking like two green hot dogs

impaled on a stick, one on top of the other. The one on the bottom is the female flower that will produce

the familiar fuzzy puffs of seeds in the autumn. The one on top is the male flower, which generates

great quantities of wind-blown pollen. The problem is that this pollen disperses quickly once it forms.

(The season for cattail pollen can be as short as a week!) If you have access to a large cattail marsh,

start watching it carefully in mid-June. When a gentle tap to the cattail stalk releases a cloud of yellow

dust, it is time to gather. Do not delay, especially if there is rain or wind in the forecast. They will wash

and blow your harvest away.

To gather the pollen, I prefer to use a clean, dry, milk jug. I bend the pollen-covered spike into the jug

and shake. A fine yellow dust will settle into the container along with fibers from the flower itself. Over

the course of an hour, I have gathered two to three cups of pollen from the small riverside marshes near

my home. Those that live near large lakeside marshes can expect to gather up to a quart per hour in

good conditions. I sift the inevitable mass of fibers, insects, and spiders from the pollen by suspending the

mixture in a jelly bag or cheesecloth in a half-gallon glass jar. This keeps me from losing the fine pollen

dust to the air as I shake it.

The pollen itself is beautiful, and if it didn’t taste so good, I would be tempted to keep it on my kitchen

windowsill. Supposedly, it can keep for quite some time. I wouldn’t know. My family usually scarfs down

all of our cattail pollen baked goods on the day we gather. We use it to replace about 50 percent of the

flour in the goodies we prepare. Try something simple first, like the pancake recipe here. Whatever you

choose, I doubt you’ll be disappointed by the golden color, the mild flavor, or the adventure.

Benjamin Lord

Below: Pollen makes the batter a sunflower yellow. Right: A jar of collected cattail pollen.

Cattail Pollen Pancakes

½ cup all-purpose flour

½ cup sifted cattail pollen

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 egg

2 tablespoons melted butter

1 cup milk

Mix the dry ingredients and add the liquid

ingredients into the dry. Mix minimally. Pour

¼-cup dollops of batter onto a pre-heated

griddle. Turn pancakes when bubbles burst

and edges are dry. Makes about 8 pancakes.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 14 5/15/13 4:44:36 PM


[ S E N E S C E N C E ]

Deaf in the WoodsDo you remember your answer to that youthful

question: if you had to be one or the other, would

you rather be deaf or blind? Most of us believed

we’d never have to be either, though my answer

– blindness – never put me in the majority. To

lose sight felt scarier to most because we rely so

much on our eyes to navigate the world. But to

lose hearing, I believed, was to live in silence, and

that felt terrifying.

Deafness would mean losing music and bird-

song. They go together. One of the earliest musical

instruments is a 4,000-year-old flute made out

of vulture bone, found in southern Germany.

Anthropologists believe that some of the first

human songs were imitations of avian singing.

Composers from Maurice Ravel to Philip Glass

listened to birds. And poets – think Robert Frost’s

evening thrush and Emily Dickinson’s sparrows in

the garden – are avid translators. To lose birdsong

is to lose a woodland language.

As I’ve gotten older, my understanding of what

it means to be deaf has changed and I’ve lost

my fear. I’ve watched deaf friends communicate

with American Sign Language, and read what I

could put my hands on, including When the Mind

Hears, A History of the Deaf, by Harlan Lane. Sign

language is a manual language as expressive as

verbal language, if not more so. It’s metaphorical

speech linked to the physical world and beauti-

fully spare in ways hard to imagine for those who

don’t speak it. To say a deaf person can hear with

their eyes may seem naïve, but it is close to the

truth. The entire body and mind becomes an ear:

music comes through the subtle vibrations of

the air on skin. Perhaps the deaf hear birdsong

through voices in the mind we can’t hear.

I’d been in denial about my own hearing loss

for a few years, but one summer morning in the

White Mountains, my son asked me what bird

was singing. I couldn’t hear it. I got exasperated

and kept asking where the sound was coming

from. “Right there,” he said, pointing at a rock.

The blackpoll warbler was singing about four feet

away. Losing that song sent my head reeling.

It felt like an erasure of a small but important

piece of my experience of that place. Sound is an

unexpectedly large component of the visual world.

What other aural pieces were missing?

Presbycusis – the name for age-related hearing

loss – has the unfortunate ring of a religious

LAN

G ELLIO

TT

disease (Greek presbys for elder and akousis for

hearing). It occurs when stereocilia – hair cells

inside the middle ear that turn fluid pressure

into electrical stimuli – begin to die. Birders are

sensitive to lost hearing because the enterprise

depends on it. Average birdsong frequencies lie in

the 4,000-Hz range. But many go up to 8,000-Hz

(human speech is 3,000 Hz and lower). High-

frequency hearing loss tends to kick in at 3,000

Hz. Song may represent well over 75 percent of

what a bird watcher sees in the woods.

So, it’s a bugaboo. For example, I no longer hear

Louisiana waterthrush, a harbinger of spring on

our brook. At first, I thought they weren’t nesting.

Other birds have fallen out of earshot: winter

wren, brown creeper, golden-crowned kinglet,

and northern parula, to name a few. It’s like losing

friends, only they’re still around.

Fortunately, there are workarounds. Conventional

hearing aids can be modified to amplify sound

at only the higher frequencies, thus avoiding

the problem of sensory overload. SongFinder

by Nature Sound Electronics converts high

frequencies to digital signals, then divides and

lowers them. You hear the lost songs only when

they sound lower – like a record playing at a

slower speed. Another product is a mobile app that

picks up songs via the mic on your smartphone

and converts them to graphic sonograms – the

sheet music of birdsong.

There are behavioral changes that can help

age-related deafness, too. While moving out of

the loud cities we tend to live in is one option,

that’s often impractical. I’m going to try to rely

more on sighting songbirds. I’ll try to learn to pick

up the lower-frequency pieces of lost songs I can

still hear. I’ll focus on learning the call notes of

certain birds. I’m going to spend more time with

ducks and shorebirds. I’m going to learn to lean

into the quiet, too: my small corner of the deaf

world I will relish. That means learning some sign

language and communicating with deaf friends to

learn how their minds hear by translating sounds

from vision, thought, and feeling. Finally, I’m going

to prevail upon my wife, children, and friends to

learn some of these songs, bird along with me,

and tell me what’s coming through.

Tim Traver

Northern parula.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 15 5/15/13 4:44:38 PM

K N O T S & B O L T S

[ W O R K H A R D , P L A Y H A R D ]

Take a Bike! And Feel the FlowWhile the difference between a deer trail and a

hiking trail may be obvious, what makes a trail

good for feet is not always what makes a trail

great for tires. Whereas hikers (and deer) tend to

be destination oriented, mountain bikers look for

trails that allow them to experience the woods

above, around, and below them.

Hardy Avery of Sustainable Trailworks in

Morrisville, Vermont, has been building mountain

bike trails for much of his life. When hired to

design and build a trail, Avery begins by talking

to the landowner about management plans they

may already have in place. This collaboration is

key to planning and designing a trail that respects

other land users, protects vulnerable ecosystems,

and (when on public land) follows guidelines set

by the Agency of Natural Resources.

The next step is to assess the terrain. During

this stage, Avery gathers information about soil

types, drainage, and slope, and then begins to

conceptualize possible routes. He decides where

and how to bridge wet spots and streams and

how to connect various high spots along the

route. At just about every step, Avery uses a cli-

nometer – the goal is to keep the slope under 10

percent. This information is essential in designing

a trail that flows across the terrain.

As Avery gets to know the woods he’s work-

ing in, he determines where the control points

are, both negative and positive. Negative control

points are things he wants his riders to avoid, like

swamps and cliffs, and positive control points

are the naturally beautiful features – like vistas

or waterfalls – that he wants his riders to see.

GPS coordinates are taken and a map begins to

emerge. At this point, Avery begins to hang flags

at eye level along the envisioned trail corridor,

looking both forward and backward and con-

stantly checking his clinometer. The speed of the

rider is of constant concern. A seasoned mountain

bike rider himself, Avery knows that riders like

rolling terrain and kinesthetic diversity. Once he

rough flags the route, he can estimate the cost

of the proposed trail (on average about $5 a foot).

Once the trail builder and the landowner agree on

the price, wire-pin flags are placed in the ground

and the building can begin.

Trail builders rely on a variety of tools to con-

struct trails, including a McCloud (a flat, square

shaped blade with a cutting edge on one side and

a rake on the other that’s used to remove berm)

and a Pulaski (half axe, half hoe). Trail builders also

use a sledge hammer, wheelbarrow, and basic

landscaping tools like pruners and rock bars. On

larger jobs, Avery uses a 1.5-ton mini-excavator.

When natural building materials are unavailable, Above: Tools of the trade. Below: Berms at Burke Mountain, Vermont.


15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 16 5/15/13 4:44:41 PM

AD

ELAID

E TYRO

L

[ T H E O U T S I D E S T O R Y ]

Night Vision: How Animals See in the DarkI’ll always remember the time I ran into a wire fence at dusk. I was taking a shortcut through some

woods, and the impact sent me tumbling. Even when I looked carefully, I could barely discern the thin

strands of wire in the gloomy evening light.

All vertebrates share the same basic eye structure: a pupil that dilates or constricts to control how

much light enters the eye, a lens to focus the image onto a light-sensitive retina, and nerves that relay

the information to the brain. Yet humans flounder with the departure of daylight, while many animals

are able to forage and hunt by night.

How do animals see in the dark? For one, they have big eyes. Nocturnal hunters like owls and cats

have pupils that, when open wide, cover the entire front of the eye. So do tree frogs, which have to be

able to jump from branch to branch. In owls, eye size approaches the extreme: their eyes occupy over

half the volume of their skulls.

There are also physiological differences between the eyes of nocturnal and diurnal animals. Owls’

eyes are tubular rather than spherical, with a very large lens positioned close to the retina. This structure

allows a lot of light to register on the retina, but at the expense of flexible focusing. Owls are thought to be

somewhat far-sighted. Tubular eyes cannot rotate in their sockets like the spherical eyes you and I have, so

owls compensate with incredibly flexible necks that allow them to turn their heads 270 degrees.

Many nocturnal animals have a mirror-like layer, called the tapetum, behind the retina, which helps

them make the most of small amounts of light. Light that passes through the retina is reflected off the

tapetum, giving the retinal cells a second chance to sense it. This makes some animals’ eyes shine in

the glare of car headlights. The color you see is the pigment on the inner layer of the retina.

At the heart of all vision is the retina, which contains two types of light-sensing cells: rods and cones.

Cones account for color vision but require bright, focused light, whereas rods can sense very dim,

scattered light, but don’t produce a color image. While each cone has its own brain connection, multiple

rods are wired to a single brain connector. This pools the information collected from the rods and creates

a stronger signal, but the image is less defined.

As you might expect, the retinas of nocturnal animals are packed with rods and have few cones.

However, because their large eyes create a big image that is focused on a big retina, they capture some

detail despite the shortage of cones.

In our eyes, the cones connect to circuits that send either “light” or “dark” signals to the brain, which

increases sensitivity to movement and the edges of objects. Nocturnal animals possess a pathway

through which rods connect to the same “dark” circuits used by cones, which allows them better per-

ception of edges, movement, and silhouettes in dim light.

Even the nuclei of the rod cells are adapted for night vision. In diurnal animals, the chromosomes in

the nucleus are densest around the edges, which means that any absorbed light is scattered around the

edges. In nocturnal animals, the densest material is in the center of the nucleus, effectively focusing all

of the available light in one area.

One can only guess at what nocturnal animals see. It’s likely to be shades of gray, sensitive to movement

but maybe lacking fine detail. Most nocturnal animals also have a highly developed sense of hearing, touch

(e.g., whiskers), or smell to complement their vision. One should not get the impression that an animal’s

night vision is perfect – even nocturnal animals aren’t active in the darkest hours of a moonless night.

Lilian Shen

he has to carry in drainage stone and lumber.

There are two hard and fast rules for trail

building: never fill without retaining, and always

channel water off the surface of the trail.

Retaining walls are used to support turning

platforms on switchbacks and to shore up trail

edges. Trail builders prefer to make these walls

with large rocks, as they don’t rot and their

weight provides strength in the wall. The top of a

retaining wall must be lower than the trail tread

so that water will sheet across rather than gather

on the trail. Strategically placed grade reversals,

“nicks” (shaved down sections of a trail that are

canted to the outside) and rolling grade dips all

help to shed water from the trail. Good signage is

essential to keep riders on the trail. If riders cut

corners, they can slowly widen trails and make

them vulnerable to water erosion.

For mountain bikers, flow is everything. A good

trail hangs together as a well-connected whole,

with perfectly placed corners, well balanced

ascents and descents, and an overall unity that

helps to pull the rider along. On a well-built trail,

riders can relax and fully immerse themselves in

the experience of mountain biking. In the end, a

memorable mountain bike trail is a work of art.

Story and Photos by Dale and Darcy Cahill


15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 17 5/15/13 4:44:42 PM


new england wood pellet—by the numbers:

Manufacturing FacilitiesJaffrey, NH

Schuyler, NYDeposit, NY

www.pelletheat.com

$34.5 Million Money saved on consumer

heating bills each year (vs. heating oil)

67,000 Homes and businesses heated

23 Million Gallons of heating oil displaced

253,000 Tons of CO2 emissions reduced

(vs. heating oil)

400 JOBS (direct and indirect) supported

Building a Healthy, Forest-Based Renewable Energy Economy Since 1992

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 18 5/15/13 4:44:45 PM


15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 19 5/15/13 4:44:48 PM


15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 20 5/15/13 4:44:55 PM


USFWS

“I’ve got some pellets here.”

“Here’s a run!”

he run was a path in the snow made by rabbits –

specifically, rare and imperiled New England cottontails.

The pellets? New Hampshire Fish and Game biologist

Heidi Holman was referring to small, rounded, brownish

rabbit droppings. Those telltale signs of habitation brought

smiles to the faces of Holman, U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service endangered species biologist Anthony Tur, and Jenna

Bourne, an employee of Stonyfield Yogurt, in Londonderry,

New Hampshire, on whose land the group was walking on a

sunny late-February day.

The searchers tramped through a foot of snow. They picked

their way past clumps of six- and eight-foot-tall alder, aspen,

birch, and maple while judiciously avoiding concertina tangles

of multiflora rose. This was thicket habitat – a blend of shrubs

and young trees that provides the dense cover New England

cottontails need. Three years earlier, a timber harvest had

spurred the growth of that vegetation, and the local cottontails

responded by moving in. Wilderness it wasn’t: the 11-acre patch

wrapped around three sides of Stonyfield’s Yogurt Works, a

low gray building; planes roared overhead, headed for landings

at nearby Manchester Airport; and trucks beeped while backing

up at other light-industry plants nearby.

These days, biologists are happy to confirm the presence of

New England cottontails anywhere they can. Since the 1960s,

the species has lost an estimated 86 percent of its habitat, and its

range has contracted to five subpopulations separated from one

another by miles of mature forests, highways, shopping malls,

and housing developments. Its numbers have fallen so low that

this once-abundant regional rabbit is now being considered for

endangered or threatened status under the federal Endangered

Species Act.

In New Hampshire (where it’s been on the state endangered

list since 2008), as few as three dozen New England cottontails

may remain. Next door in Vermont, New England cottontails

have vanished – conservationists consider them extirpated,

though they once ranged across the state’s southern tier and

north through the Champlain and Connecticut River valleys.

Maine has 250 to 400 rabbits (state endangered since 2007), all

in the coastal southwest. A few New England cottontails may

be left in Rhode Island – or perhaps none. The Massachusetts

population numbers in the hundreds, mainly on Upper Cape Cod

and in the Berkshires. Connecticut may have a couple thousand

New England cottontails in its eastern and northwestern

sections, and a similar number may live in New York state, east

of the Hudson River and in the Taconics.

Eastern Cottontail. Note diagnostic black dot on forehead.

By Charles Fergus

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 21 5/15/13 4:44:57 PM


But wait – aren’t cottontails seen with fair frequency in

southern New England? Yes, but the rabbits hopping across golf

courses and nibbling suburban lawns are not New England’s

own. They’re eastern cottontails, as alien to the region as the

autumn olive, Asian honeysuckle, and multiflora rose that

have quietly taken over much of the shrubland that remains.

In times past, only New England cottontails existed in New

England. Folks called them coneys, brush rabbits, and woods

rabbits. They lived on abandoned farms that were reverting to

forest, and in areas where wildfires, windstorms, beaver dams,

springtime flooding and ice scouring, and heavy logging had

temporarily toppled, killed, or otherwise removed older trees so

that young trees and shrubs could come crowding back in.

All of those factors, except storms, have been blunted. Yester-

year’s farms are now mature woods stitched with stone walls.

Dams by the hundreds limit ice scouring and floods. We humans

have suppressed wildfires and beaver activities to protect lives and

property and have covered much of the land with development.

Heavy logging is almost nonexistent in southern New England,

much of which is cloaked with closed-canopy middle-aged and

older forest – a type of habitat that, although natural and needed

by some kinds of wildlife, does not offer enough low-growing

vegetation for New England cottontails or around 60 other

young-forest-dependent creatures, including woodcock, brown

thrashers, towhees, chestnut-sided and blue-winged warblers,

and box and wood turtles. The populations of all these animals

– identified by the states as “species of greatest conservation need”

– have been falling over the past 50 years as the amount of thicket

and young-forest acreage has steadily dwindled.

Two different rabbits

For the New England cottontail, there’s an extra odd twist:

During the first half of the twentieth century, state wildlife agen-

cies and private hunting clubs released thousands of eastern

cottontails (most of them from Kansas, Missouri, and Texas)

to boost hunting opportunities. Eastern cottontails don’t pop

down holes as readily as New England cottontails do, which let

hunters enjoy longer chases with their rabbit hounds and upped

their chances of bagging a bunny. Those imported eastern cot-

tontails caught on, and today they greatly outnumber the native

rabbits across most of southern New England.

The New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis) and

the eastern cottontail (S. floridanus) do not interbreed, or if they

do, offspring apparently don’t survive. An adult eastern cotton-

tail is a bit larger than a New England, weighing three pounds

versus about 2.2 pounds. Otherwise they look similar, with a

mottled brown-and-black pelt and a white powder-puff tail.

Most New England cottontails have a small black spot on the

forehead, whereas about half of all easterns have a white spot in

the same place. The New England’s ears are slightly shorter than

the eastern’s and have a thin line of black fur along the outer

edge. Skull shape differs between the species as well.

Most of what we know about cottontails in New England

comes from research conducted by John Litvaitis, a professor

of wildlife at the University of New Hampshire. Beginning in

the 1990s, Litvaitis and his graduate students went looking

for rabbits and their habitat all over southern New England.

Their field work galvanized conservationists and helped put the

New England cottontail on the shortlist for potential federal

endangered status. The researchers also developed a protocol

for extracting DNA from rabbit pellets, revealing whether the

droppings come from New England or eastern cottontails, which

lets biologists chart where the former remain. (For example,

ongoing pellet studies have revealed that all of the cottontails

around the Stonyfield Yogurt plant are New Englands.)

The researchers also studied how the two kinds of cotton-

tails interact. After putting both types of rabbits in a thicket

enclosed by wire fencing, they concluded that the larger eastern

cottontail does not dominate or displace the smaller New England

cottontail from its habitat. “The only detectable difference

between them,” Litvaitis wrote in a 2002 article in New Hampshire Wildlife Journal, “was that eastern cottontails were

often observed in areas with little understory cover.”

The scientists built another pen and installed feeders with

electronic sensors, which allowed them to monitor when a rabbit

was present. They found that eastern cottontails traveled farther

from protective cover to get food. “Our farthest feeder was

about 60 feet from cover,” wrote Litvaitis, “a long distance for

BR

IAN

TEFFTU

SFW

S

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 22 5/15/13 4:44:59 PM


a rabbit trying to avoid a hungry fox or owl.” Although eastern

cottontails would chow down at those feeders, “New England

cottontails were very reluctant to visit [them] unless they started

to lose weight and were clearly very hungry.”

When the researchers sent a life-sized owl decoy gliding along

a wire suspended over caged rabbits, eastern cottontails spotted

the approaching decoy when it was 70 feet away. New England

cottontails didn’t see the owl until it was only 30 feet away.

Why, the scientists wondered, could an eastern cottontail spy

a predator so much farther off than could its Yankee cousin? The

answer turned out to be fairly simple: the eyes of Eastern cotton-

tails are 50 percent larger than those of New England cottontails,

giving them better long-range vision. Likely, this more-acute

vision developed because the eastern cottontail evolved in open

plains habitats, where it needed to detect danger at a distance. In

contrast, the New England cottontail evolved in shrublands, such

as mountain laurel and scrub oak thickets, and in young forests

created by fires, floods, hurricanes, and beaver work; in such dense

settings, a woods rabbit didn’t need to spot far-off predators.

Today, their long-range vision lets eastern cottontails use the

small patches of thicket habitat that remain in southern New

England: an acre of invasive shrubs behind a strip mall, a briar

patch bordering a gravel pit, a hedge in somebody’s backyard.

From such tatters of cover, eastern cottontails creep out to feed

on grasses, clover, plantain, and other low herbaceous plants in

summer, and on woody vegetation in late fall, winter, and early

spring – and are better able to dash back to cover if a predator

threatens. “Because staying close to cover is probably the best

strategy in forest habitats,” Litvaitis concluded, “New England

cottontails suffer disproportionately when cover shrinks.”

In the wild, the fate of almost every rabbit is to be killed

and eaten by a predator. The researchers identified red foxes

and coyotes as the most common causes of death among 75

radio-collared free-ranging New England cottontails that they

monitored in southern New Hampshire. Cottontails are also

preyed on by fishers, mink, weasels, hawks, owls, large snakes,

bobcats, domestic cats and dogs, and humans. Skunks and rac-

coons raid the natal nests – made from grasses and from fur that

the mother-to-be plucks from her own coat. Another Litvaitis

study showed that the variety and number of predators goes up

in fragmented, human-modified landscapes such as those of

southern New England.

Based on years of study, Litvaitis suggested that for New

England cottontails to occupy a given site indefinitely, they need

a minimum of 20 interconnected acres of good-quality thicket.

Winter is a tough time for rabbits: Instead of feeding on (and

staying hidden in) the abundant greenery of summer, they skulk

in thick shrubs or underground burrows by day, then venture

out at night to nibble on the bark, twigs, and buds of woody

plants, food that is much less nourishing than summer fare. In

US

FWSOpposite page, top: New England cottontail in Rhode Island. Bottom: New England

cottontail burrow. This page: Volunteers and staff plant native shrubs at Libby Field in

the Spurwink River Division of Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, Maine, to help

restore habitat for New England cottontail.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 23 5/15/13 4:45:02 PM


winter, the protective cover is at its thinnest, and if snow blan-

kets the ground for long periods, the rabbits stand out sharply

against the white background. (Unlike the larger snowshoe

hare, another New England native, neither the New England

cottontail nor the eastern cottontail takes on a protective white

coat in winter.) Litvaitis found that in habitat patches 12 acres

and larger, about 7 out of 10 New England cottontails will make

it through winter. But once a patch gets smaller than about six

acres, winter mortality can soar to 66 percent. And if the habitat

continues to shrink, its resident population will wink out.

Helping nature along

The recently improved habitat patch at Stonyfield Yogurt cov-

ers 11 acres, which implied that the “dozen” rabbits thought to

inhabit the tract might have dwindled to eight by that February

day when Tur, Holman, and their colleagues went looking for

cottontail sign. Those theoretical eight bunnies would likely

repopulate the patch during the year to come. Offsetting the

fact that cottontails are food to so many predators is their great

reproductive capacity: A female can have three to four lit-

ters per year, with an average of three to four young per litter.

Cottontails are born blind, but they develop quickly. A rabbit’s

conception through its birth, weaning, and independence takes

only 60 days. Females born early in the year may produce a litter

of their own that same summer.

The previous autumn, Holman had live-trapped and removed

two New England cottontails from the Stonyfield patch. The

improved habitat had helped boost bunny numbers during the

breeding season, so the biologists felt they could safely take a

couple of individual rabbits without harming the local popu-

lation. The two rabbits went to Roger Williams Park Zoo in

Providence, Rhode Island, to become part of a captive breeding

program that, coupled with habitat-creation efforts gearing up

all over the species’ range, aims to save Sylvilagus transitionalis from extinction.

Since 2010, captive-breeding specialists at the zoo have been

perfecting housing, feeding, and breeding protocols. Their goal

is to produce the maximum number of healthy brush rabbits

that can go back into the wild, both to boost the numbers and

genetic diversity of existing populations and to start new popu-

lations in places where conservationists are making habitat.

As of March 2013, 17 female and 10 male New England cot-

tontails were housed at the zoo, with the year’s breeding just get-

ting underway. So far, 15 captive-bred rabbits have been released

on brush-covered Patience Island, a 210-acre uninhabited island

in Narragansett Bay. This year biologists hope to confirm natu-

ral reproduction there; if the island population thrives, it could

become a source for restocking other areas. Conservationists

have also built two hardening pens, at Ninigret National Wildlife

Refuge in Rhode Island and Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge

in New Hampshire. Young captive-bred rabbits will spend a

month in those one-acre, predator-proof enclosures learning

how to hide in cover and feed on native vegetation; then it’s off

Top: Prescribed burning refreshes grasslands and produces more food and cover

for species like the cottontail. Bottom: One-day-old New England cottontails.

US

FWS

US

FWS

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 24 5/15/13 4:45:04 PM


to the real world, red in tooth and claw.

“We’d like to have a hundred or more animals come out of

the zoo in 2013,” Tur said. “The effectiveness of captive breeding

will be measured by whether or not captive-bred individuals can

go back into the wild, reproduce, and bear young.”

Captive breeding will likely be a key aspect of restoring the

New England cottontail. But if there isn’t enough habitat out

there, the overall effort will fail.

Habitat is the key

Making rabbit habitat is the goal of a partnership formed

in 2007 between the five states that still have New England

cottontails, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S.

Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation

Service (NRCS). A Conservation Strategy for the New England Cottontail, written by Tur and Steven Fuller, a scientist who

coordinates the rangewide New England Cottontail Initiative,

came out in November 2012. (It can be downloaded at www.

newenglandcottontail.org.) Developed with input from state

wildlife biologists, the document maps 47 focus areas where,

between 2012 and 2030, conservationists plan to create more

than 50,000 acres of habitat to support 28,100 New England cot-

tontails – enough, scientists believe, to save the species.

How to make that habitat? Potential management techniques

include even-aged timber harvests (both clearcuts and shelter-

wood cuts); noncommercial timber harvesting (cutting down

trees that are not large enough to provide a financial return);

mowing or mulching old, straggling shrubs; and conducting

controlled burns. All of those methods mimic the kinds of cata-

strophic natural events that once operated freely to make early

-successional habitat. All remove the forest or shrub canopy and

let sunlight reach the ground, which spurs the growth of low,

thick vegetation. Such management practices must be ongoing,

because shrubland and young forest generally remain good rab-

bit habitat for only about 20 years. After that, their leafy crowns

knit back together and exclude sunlight, and groundcover once

again gets sparse.

A major component in a New England cottontail comeback is

the NRCS’s Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP). WHIP

funding has helped more than 20 private landowners make over

350 acres of potential cottontail habitat in New Hampshire,

and this year another 10 landowners will begin projects on an

additional 150 to 200 acres. WHIP is also enabling private-land

projects in the other New England cottontail states, particularly

in areas next to habitats, such as scrub wetlands, that support

existing cottontail populations. Recently the NRCS began a

nationwide Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW) initiative that

features the New England cottontail as one of seven wild ani-

mals for which the agency will help farmers and forest landown-

ers make critically important habitat. In 2012, WLFW issued

contracts pledging to pay 44 landowners $1.5 million to make

New England cottontail habitat on more than 1,300 acres. States,

other federal agencies, and organizations such as the National

Fish and Wildlife Foundation have committed several million

dollars to New England cottontail recovery as well.

Another New Hampshire project illustrates what can be done

on public land – in this case, the 428-acre Bellamy River Wildlife

Management Area near Dover. In 2011, loggers harvested low-

quality white pines and hardwoods with a 30-acre clearcut. The

following spring, saplings began spring-

ing up from the root systems and

stumps of the logged-off hardwoods.

Over the next several growing sea-

sons the clearcut should metamor-

phose into a jungle of dense trees

and shrubs. The clearcut is next

to cover where New England cot-

tontails live, so the rabbits ought to

jump right in. Conservationists

have also been planting

native shrubs such

US

FWS

Lou Perrotti of the Roger Williams Park Zoo releases the first rabbit into the

hardening pen at Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge.

NEW YORK

RHODE ISLAND

CONNECTICUT

MASSACHUSETTS

VERMONT

NEW HAMPSHIRE

MAINE

Locations of New England Cottontail Populations

Historic Range

Extant Populations

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 25 5/15/13 4:45:06 PM


as dogwood, hazelnut, and arrowwood. “We estimate there are

about 200 acres of potential New England cottontail habitat on

the wildlife management area,” said Jim Oehler, a biologist with

New Hampshire Fish and Game. “Over time, we hope to keep 75

percent of that acreage in suitably dense bunny habitat.”

Other conservation efforts in the Granite State include agree-

ments with utility companies to lessen the frequency with which

they mow power-line and gas-line corridors; the companies

will simply remove trees as they get too big. “The idea is to

continuously maintain thicket cover,” Holman said. Biologists

hope New England cottontails will use the brushy corridors

to disperse from one population to another, occupying habitat

patches as they are renewed or created, and maintaining genetic

flow within the species.

In Connecticut, biologists and foresters with the state’s

Department of Energy and Environmental Protection have cre-

ated sizable habitat patches on four state properties and plan work

on six more state-owned tracts. Clustered around those sites are

projects on private lands, like the one on aptly named Cottontail

Farm near the town of Scotland. There, landowner Tom McAvoy

is improving shrub habitat in five fields by rooting out older

invasive shrubs, such as autumn olive, and replanting with native

shrubs that offer better food and cover. A 10-acre timber harvest

took place in February 2013; soon, regrowing oaks, maples, and

hickories, along with a dense blueberry understory, will add to

the habitat mix. “I look at this as a legacy project, one that my

sons will be part of in the future,” said McAvoy.

In addition to WHIP funding, McAvoy received help through

the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife

program. Ted Kendziora, a biologist working out of the Service’s

New England field office, supplied planning, technical advice,

and funding, then supervised the private contractors who did

the actual habitat-enhancement work.

Kendziora is helping landowners make habitat in every state

across the New England cottontail’s range. One area with a good

population of New England cottontails is Upper Cape Cod, where

more than 400 acres of fresh rabbit habitat have been created by the

Town of Mashpee, Orenda Wildlife Land Trust, the Wampanoag

Mashpee Native American Tribe, and the Trustees of Reservations,

along with the state of Massachusetts and the U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service’s Eastern Massachusetts Refuge Complex. Many

of the tracts abut or lie close to each other. And only a mile down

the road is the Massachusetts Military Reserve at Camp Edwards,

where wildlife biologists have conducted controlled burns on

more than 1,500 acres of coastal scrub since the 1990s and where

a robust New England cottontail population remains. The use of

fire in this sandy coastal environment removes dead vegetation

and makes it less likely that large, out-of-control wildfires will flare

up in the future. Prescribed burning also renews scrub oak, a low-

growing, fire-evolved oak that’s more of a shrub than a tree and,

when young and dense, offers great rabbit habitat.

So while the situation looks bleak in some parts of its range,

conservationists are optimistic that they can reverse the popula-

tion drop the New England cottontail has taken over the last

half-century. According to the Conservation Strategy for the New England Cottontail, around 145,000 acres of public land are

highly suitable for turning into woods-rabbit habitat. Focusing

management on public tracts would make for substantial cost

savings compared to creating habitat on private parcels and

would reduce the number of management actions needed, along

with their accompanying planning and oversight. It would also

increase the opportunity to use cost-effective controlled burn-

ing as a management tool, plus generate income – and jobs

– from timber products.

To make the habitat that the New England cottontail needs,

conservationists will have to change the public’s perception

of management activities such as burning brush thickets or

clearcutting generous-sized forest tracts – not an easy task in

heavily wooded southern New England, where many people

shudder at the idea of cutting down even a single tree and

where state and local regulations often severely limit the extent

and siting of logging jobs.

As an endangered species biologist, Anthony Tur works with

many animals, from the American burying beetle to Blanding’s

turtle to the mountaintop-dwelling Bicknell’s thrush. “The New

England cottontail is an important part of the wildlife legacy

and biodiversity of our region,” he said. “All species have an

inherent value, and all of them have a place on the landscape.

If humans are the reason for an animal being in trouble – and

clearly we’re part of the problem the New England cottontail is

facing today – then we have a moral responsibility to work hard

to keep that animal around.

“In particular, the New England cottontail is a good barom-

eter of the health of a certain kind of habitat: dense thicket veg-

etation. When we make habitat for New England cottontails, we

help out many other kinds of wildlife. I think we’ll be successful

in this effort. Cottontails are prolific animals. If we supply the

habitat, the rabbits will do the rest.”

Charles Fergus is the author of Trees of New England: A Natural History and

numerous other nature books. A wildlife communications consultant, he handles three

websites for the Wildlife Management Institute: www.newenglandcottontail.org,

www.youngforest.org, and www.timberdoodle.org.

Biologist Ted Kendziora and landowner Tom McAvoy

CH

AR

LES FER

GU

S

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 26 5/15/13 4:45:07 PM


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15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 27 5/15/13 4:45:12 PM

FIELD work

Story and photos by Joe Rankin

At Work Solving Crimes with Wood Sleuth Richard JagelsIf Richard Jagels had a casebook like Sherlock Holmes, the titles

might be: “The Case of the Twig in the Mirror”, “The Case of the

Killer Ship Mast”, “The Case of the Doubtful Dowels”.

Jagels is a wood forensics consultant – a wood sleuth. He

can take tiny samples of wood, ancient or recently cut, put

them under a microscope, and, using his vast knowledge of

wood anatomy and the resources of his impressive library, tell

you whether the sample is Philippine mahogany or California

madrone, red spruce or red pine, eucalyptus or elm.

Jagels would be the first to tell you his investigations don’t

have the glamour of a CSI episode and that he’s not Sherlock

Holmes. But, like the enduring fictional detective, he still gets a

thrill when the game’s afoot. “I enjoy doing the analysis, trying

to figure out the species,” he said, confessing that, “I don’t enjoy

sitting in court testifying.”

Balding, glasses, mustache, worn jeans … Jagels looks the

picture of a retired forestry professor, which is what he is. He

built a side career as a wood forensics consultant while working

at his full-time job in the University of Maine’s School of Forest

Resources, where for three decades he taught courses in the

functional structure of woody plants, wood identification, and

plant microtechnique (a lab course on the ways to prepare plant

tissue for microscopic analysis). As a scientist, he researched the

biomechanics of tree stems and how trees react to stress, such as

the effects of acid fog on coastal conifers. While he retired from

teaching a couple of years ago, he still does forensics and other

consulting work.

Today, Jagels leans back in the chair in his office, a cozy

upstairs space overlooking the brown and swollen Penobscot

River as it muscles past the historic town of Winterport, Maine.

Two flat-panel computer screens perch on the desk. Another

desk holds a microscope, razor blades, and other paraphernalia

for preparing specimens. Bookshelves cradle seemingly every

book ever written on wood and wood identification. Jagels leans

over and pulls out the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet to reveal

neatly labeled folders, more than 30 years worth of cases.

Jagels grew up in White Plains, New York, and went to

SUNY-ESF Syracuse, where he majored in wood anatomy, pri-

marily, he admits, because “there were more electives available.”

He went on to earn a master’s degree in forest pathology, then a

doctorate in botany from the University of Illinois.

Following school, he bounced around for a while – with

stints at various jobs at the University of Alberta, the University

of Vermont, Dartmouth College, Louisiana State, and the

Winterthur Museum in Delaware, where he worked on wood

identification projects – before landing at UMaine in 1979.

Between the University of Vermont and Dartmouth, he made

ends meet doing construction and some freelance writing. He

dialed up WoodenBoat magazine to pitch an article about an

Adirondack guide boat he was restoring and ended up landing

a gig to write a column on wood technology. He’s been doing

it ever since. And it’s that column that brings him a lot of his

forensic cases.

“It just sort of built itself as a sideline,” Jagels said. “I’ve never

advertised. It’s all been word of mouth. I’ve never pushed it.

After all, I already had a full-time job.” Still, he’s worked for the

Maine State Police, engineering firms, museums, private parties,

and lawyers. About a third of the 100 or so cases he’s worked on

qualified as forensics work. He’s working on one now, but he’s

not at liberty to divulge any details. Still, he can talk about the

finished ones.

To really understand how Jagels does what he does, you’d

probably have to take a course in wood anatomy. The way he

A piece of ancient metasequoia.


15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 28 5/15/13 4:45:14 PM

In The Case of the

Doubtful Dowels, Jagels

was contacted by a west-

ern Maine dowel mill

to see if he could fig-

ure out a way to deter-

mine whether dowels

had been sanded. There

was money riding on

the question: Canadian

customs officers claimed

the company’s dowels

were sanded and thus

were a finished product

subject to higher tariffs. After trying various stains and dyes,

Jagels hit upon the perfect method: rubbing a pencil over it.

“After rubbing along the axis of the dowel with a No. 2 pencil, if

darker rings show up that encircle the dowel, this means it has

not been sanded; in other words, you can see the traces of the

cutters used to shape the dowel. Sanded dowels will show only

the pencil marks that run parallel to the grain,” said Jagels. “A

customs officer can do it in a few seconds.”

Not all of Jagels’ forensic work has been in the interest of jus-

tice or commerce. Some of it has been in the interest of science.

About ten years ago, he was one of a team of scientists who

trekked to the Arctic Ocean’s Axel Heiberg Island to examine

the remains of a huge fossilized forest. Many of the trees turned

out to be dawn redwoods (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), an

ancient species that grew when the dinosaurs roamed and was

thought to be extinct until a small grove was found growing in a

remote area in China in the 1940s. The trees in the Axel Heiberg

forest lived 35 to 40 million years ago. Jagels still has the speci-

mens, looking dark and very, very old.

Jagels keeps on with the forensic work, getting a couple of

cases a year, but fewer criminal cases come his way now – DNA

evidence is more definitive these days, he explained.

He sees the entire realm of wood science and wood anatomy

slowly disappearing. These days, most forestry schools don’t

even have wood science programs, he said. Not enough students

want to take it, a result, Jagels believes, of our changing rela-

tionship with wood. Though we continue to use wood – huge

volumes of it – we tend not to use it as lumber. What’s most

furniture made of these days? Composites. Young people aren’t

even interested in antique furniture, he said.

These days, Jagels devotes more of his time and talents to

conservation. He is a founding member and board director

of GreenWood, a nonprofit that trains artisans in developing

countries to make and market wood products and to manage

their forests sustainably.

Joe Rankin is a writer, beekeeper, market gardener, and orchardist. He lives in central

Maine.

explains it, identifying a piece of wood involves looking at

how its cells are organized, understanding how the cell walls

are sculpted, and considering whether there are any inclusions

present. “Occasionally one or a few features define a species,

but more often a combination of features is needed to separate

woods,” he said. For example, if there is spiral thickening of the

longitudinal tracheids, the water-carrying cells that run up and

down through the stem of a tree, it’s probably a Douglas fir.

But it’s a trait shared with the yew family. “Always exceptions,”

said Jagels. “A more complicated scenario would be whether a

conifer has ray tracheids or not, and if so, are the tracheids den-

tate, and if so, are the dentations short or do they extend across

the cell, and if so, what kind of ray crossing pits are present, et

cetera, et cetera,” Jagels added. (Now you see why that course in

wood anatomy might come in handy.)

In a 1988 case, he identified pieces of a twig and leaf material

found in the side-view mirror of a murder suspect’s car as bal-

sam fir and linked the wood to a damaged tree at the site where

the victim’s partially clad body was found, dumped off a tote

road in Hermon. In 1990, he matched a white pine chip found

with a young rape and murder victim’s body to similar chips

found in the car of the prime suspect – a woodworker. Both

suspects were convicted, based partly on his evidence.

Criminal cases involving wood are few and far between.

More often Jagels’ expertise is sought by lawyers in civil cases,

like The Case of the Victory Chimes. The professor was hired

by a firm pursuing a wrongful-death lawsuit against the owner

of the Victory Chimes, the iconic three-masted schooner later

immortalized on the Maine state quarter. A rigger had died

when a mast snapped off. The mast had been deteriorating, but

rather than replacing it, the owners had it repaired using a metal

collar and epoxy, said Jagels. He showed that the repairs made

a serious problem worse by trapping moisture and accelerating

the rot’s movement from the heart of the mast to the outside.

Jagels at work.


Shaving a piece of spruce.

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A Consulting Forester can help youMarkus Bradley, Ben Machin, Mike Scott Redstart Forestry Juniper Chase, Corinth, VT 05039 (802) 439-5252 www.redstartconsulting.com

Anita Nikles Blakeman Woodland Care Forest Management P.O. Box 4, N. Sutton, NH 03260 (603) 927-4163 [email protected]

Herbert Boyce, ACF, CF Deborah Boyce, CF Northwoods Forest Consultants, LLC 13080 NYS Route 9N, Jay, NY 12941 (518) 946-7040 [email protected]

Gary Burch Burch Hill Forestry 1678 Burch Road, Granville, NY 12832 (518) 632-5436 [email protected]

Alan Calfee, Michael White Calfee Woodland Management, LLC P.O. Box 86, Dorset, VT 05251 (802) 231-2555 [email protected] www.calfeewoodland.com

Richard Cipperly, CF North Country Forestry 8 Stonehurst DrIve, Queensbury, NY 12804 (518) 793-3545 Cell: (518) 222-0421 Fax: (518) 798-8896 [email protected]

Swift C. Corwin, Jr. Calhoun & Corwin Forestry, LLC 41 Pine Street, Peterborough, NH 03458 Swift Corwin: (603) 924-9908 John Calhoun: (603) 357-1236 Fax: (603) 924-3171 [email protected]

Daniel Cyr Bay State Forestry P.O. Box 205, Francestown, NH 03043 (603) 547-8804 baystateforestry.com

R. Kirby Ellis Ellis’ Professional Forester Services P.O. Box 71, Hudson, ME 04630 (207) 327-4674 ellisforestry.com

Charlie Hancock North Woods Forestry P.O. Box 405, Montgomery Center, VT 05471 (802) 326-2093 [email protected]

Make decisions about managing your forestland

Design a network of trails

Improve the wildlife habitat on your property

Negotiate a contract with a logger and supervise the job

Improve the quality of your timber

Paul Harwood, Leonard Miraldi Harwood Forestry Services, Inc. P.O. Box 26, Tunbridge, VT 05077 (802) 356-3079 [email protected]

Ben Hudson Hudson Forestry P.O. Box 83, Lyme, NH 03768 (603) 795-4535 [email protected]

M.D. Forestland Consulting, LLC (802) 472-6060 David McMath Cell: (802) 793-1602 [email protected] Beth Daut, NH #388 Cell: (802) 272-5547 [email protected]

Scott Moreau Greenleaf Forestry P.O. Box 39, Westford, VT 05494 (802) 343-1566 cell (802) 849-6629 [email protected]

Haven Neal Haven Neal Forestry Services 137 Cates Hill Road, Berlin, NH 03570 (603) 752-7107 [email protected]

David Senio P.O. Box 87, Passumpsic, VT 05861 (802) 748-5241 [email protected]

Jeffrey Smith Butternut Hollow Forestry 1153 Tucker Hill Road Thetford Center, Vermont 05075 (802) 785-2615

Jack Wadsworth, LPF, ME & NH Brian Reader, LPF, ME & NH Jesse Duplin, LPF, ME & NH Wadsworth Woodlands, Inc. 35 Rock Crop Way, Hiram, ME 04041 (207) 625-2468 [email protected] www.wadsworthwoodlands.com

Kenneth L. Williams Consulting Foresters, LLC 959 Co. Hwy. 33, Cooperstown, NY 13326 (607) 547-2386 Fax: (607) 547-7497

Fountain Forestry 7 Green Mountain Drive, Suite 3 Montpelier, VT 05602-2708 (802) 223-8644 ext 26 [email protected]

LandVest Timberland Management and Marketing ME, NH, NY, VT 5086 US Route 5, Suite 2, Newport, VT 05855 (802) 334-8402 www.landvest.com

Long View Forest Management Andrew Sheere SAF Certified Forester & NRCS Technical Service Provider Westminster, VT 05158 (802) 428 4050 [email protected] www.longviewforest.com

Meadowsend Timberlands Ltd Jeremy G. Turner, NHLPF #318 serving NH & VT P.O. Box 966, New London, NH 03257 (603) 526-8686 [email protected] www.mtlforests.com

New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts require foresters

to be licensed, and Connecticut requires they be certified.

Note that not all consulting foresters are licensed in each

state. If you have a question about a forester’s licensure or

certification status, contact your state’s Board of Licensure.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 30 5/15/13 4:45:16 PM


15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 31 5/15/13 4:45:20 PM


Top Flowers

Adaptations for living on the alpine edge

Story by Meghan Oliver / Photos by Doug Weihrauch

nyone who’s made his or her way up a mountain is familiar with the some-

times startling transformation of the landscape, from leafy hardwood

stands to thick and prickly green cathedrals of red spruce and balsam

fir. Above 3,000 feet, the soil thins and the trees – called krummholz

in mountaineering parlance – become noticeably shorter, bent over,

and stunted by endless winds. It’s hard to believe anything can live

in such an unforgiving environment, but if you’re lucky, as you

crest the mountain’s peak, you may observe a low-lying sweep of

colors amid the rocky cover, courtesy of flowering alpine plants.

In the Northeast, alpine plants grow in a specialized habitat of dry and rocky soil,

constant winds, and cold temperatures, explained Doug Weihrauch, staff ecologist for the

Appalachian Mountain Club. Alpine zones only comprise about 35 square kilometers total

in the Northeast, making them just a tiny part of the region’s mountainous landscape.

But despite their relatively small presence, alpine wildflowers and other plants put

on a remarkable (though short-lived) show each spring and summer. “When you’re

hiking above treeline, you’re hiking into New England’s vegetation past,” Weihrauch

said, referring to the tundra vegetation – the lichen, mosses, and low-growing plants

– that were the first to creep in as glaciers receded.

Alpine flowers bloom in waves, with the first flowers occurring as early as May; look

then for blooms of diapensia, alpine azalea, and Lapland rosebay. June brings – among

others – the rare dwarf cinquefoil, the white blooms of moss plant, alpine bluets, and

Labrador tea, the flowers of small cranberry, and the purple alpine marsh violet. In July,

keep your eyes peeled for the Boott’s rattlesnake-root, arnica, alpine speedwell, harebell,

and the miniscule flowers of eyebright. In August, while alpine aster and alpine gold-

enrod are in blossom, look for the fruits of alpine plants in the heath family, including

mountain cranberry, small cranberry, bilberry, bearberry, and others.

We invite readers to give alpine flowers a good look this summer – an appreciative

look. From a distance, diapensia might just look like a few splotches of white around

some gray rocks. But take a closer look at its waxy leaves and miniature size; marvel

at the fact that these delicate-looking blooms can survive in the most punishing wind-

exposed sites. There’s a whole new world of plants awaiting your admiration (and

respect) up in the alpine zone.

Alpine bluet (Houstonia caerulea faxonorum)

Mountain cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) in fruit.

Arnica (Arnica lanceolata)

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Bearberry willow (Salix uva-ursi) False hellebore (Veratrum viride)

Lapland rosebay (Rhododendron lapponicum)

Alpine bilberry (Vaccinium caespitosum)

A diapensia and Lapland rosebay cushion community.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 33 5/15/13 4:45:29 PM


Diapensia (Diapensia lapponica)

Alpine marsh violet (Viola palustris)

Pale painted cup (Castilleja septentrionalis)

Lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium)

Alpine goldenrod (Solidago cutleri)

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 34 5/15/13 4:45:36 PM


Adaptations for Surviving Above the

TimberlineLow to the groundMost alpine plants are only 1 or 2 inches tall, and being low to the

ground has a number of advantages. The plants’ diminutive size

allows them to stay out of the wind, and in winter, being small means

protection under a thick snowpack. In summer, the soil temperature

in alpine areas may be as much as 15 degrees higher than air

temperature just centimeters above the surface.

Cushions and matsSome alpine plants, such as diapensia and alpine azalea, grow into

a cushion or thick mat. A rounded cushion shape allows wind to fly

smoothly over the plants without tussling delicate leaves. A thick mat

will absorb and retain heat.

Evergreen foliage Evergreen leaves help alpine plants get a jumpstart on the growing

season; they can start photosynthesizing as soon as the temperature

rises above freezing.

Red leavesThe leaves of some plants, such as diapensia, turn a deep reddish-

purple in the non-growing season. The color is caused by anthocyanin,

which absorbs ultraviolet rays and converts them into heat energy,

which warms the plant earlier in the growing season.

Thick, waxy leaves Thick foliage helps alpine plants deal with excessively well-drained soil

in summer and the ever-present drying winds. “Plants need to keep

stomates open to allow photosynthesis and respiration, but this also

lets out moisture, especially in windy conditions,” Weihrauch explained.

Thick leaves help in two ways. “They are less likely to be torn or

damaged by high winds, which are frequent above treeline, and [their

thickness] reduces the surface area exposed to desiccating winds.”

Many of the leaves, such as those of mountain cranberry, produce a

waxy cuticle to aid in water retention.

Fuzzy, curled leavesEven for alpine plants that grow in areas with adequate soil moisture,

desiccation can be a battle for at least part of the year. Fuzzy leaves can

help retain moisture by “combing moisture out of clouds,” Weihrauch

said, and retaining that moisture near the leaf surface when the air dries

out. For a plant like Labrador tea, hairs on the undersides of the leaves

protect the stomates, which, when open for gas exchange, lose water.

Moisture loss through the leaves increases under high winds and when

there is a big differential between moisture levels within the leaf and

the surrounding air. A barrier of moist hairs on the underside lessens

that differential. Labrador tea also has leaf margins that curl under as

another way to lessen wind exposure and the moisture loss that would

occur in a more exposed leaf surface.

Slow growthSlow growth keeps these plants from growing unnecessarily high, which

is dangerous in the alpine zone. Extra height means more exposure to

winds and the risk of becoming taller than the snowpack. “In a good year,

they’re lucky to put on a few inches of growth,” Weihrauch said. He noted

that some plants the size of a quarter may be 25-50 years old.

Alpine aster (Aster alpinus)

Krummholz and Lapland Rosebaym)

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 35 5/15/13 4:45:39 PM


Where to Find Them Lace up your boots and pack an extra layer: it’s time to ascend

the great alpine peaks of the Northeast in search of alpine flora.

Weihrauch noted that any hiker in the alpine zone should stick to

trails or step or skip from rock to rock to avoid walking on the plants,

which can die from being trampled. “They haven’t evolved to have a

bunch of people hiking all over them,” Weihrauch said with a laugh.

New Hampshire:The Presidential Range, particularly Mount Washington’s Alpine

Garden, Franconia Ridge (Mount Lafayette and Mount Lincoln), Mount

Cardigan, Mount Monadnock, South Twin, Mount Chocorua, Mount

Moosilauke, Mount Hight, South Baldface.

Vermont:Camel’s Hump, Mount Mansfield, Mount Abraham.

Maine:Katahdin Range, Saddleback Mountain, Bigelow Range, Mahoosuc

Range (straddling the New Hampshire-Maine border), The Baldpates,

Sugarloaf Mountain, Mount Abraham, Mount Desert.

New York:Mount Abraham, Whiteface, Mount Marcy, Algonquin

Moss bell heather (Harrimanella hypnoides)

Mountain heath (Phyllodoce caerulea)

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 36 5/15/13 4:45:45 PM


Alpine harebell (Campanula rotundifolia)

Labrador tea (Rhododendron groenlandicum)

Alpine speedwell (Veronica wormskjoldii)

Eyebright (Euphrasia oakesii) Boott’s rattlesnake-root (Prenanthes boottii)

Alpine azalea (Loiseleuria procumbens)

Mountain avens (Geum peckii)

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 37 5/15/13 4:45:51 PM


The Lyme Timber CompanyInvesting in Forestland Since 1976

Forestland Investments l Conservation Advisory Services

23 South Main Street l Hanover, NH 03755 l 603.643.3300 l lymetimber.com

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 38 5/15/13 4:45:54 PM


15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 39 5/15/13 4:45:57 PM


Reconstructing the Past:

Maine Forests Then and Now By Andrew M. Barton, Alan S. White, and Charles V. Cogbill

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The New England

settlement story is

a familiar narrative.

We all know the tale:

farms hacked out

of daunting woods

in the eighteenth

century, rolling

Agricultural lands in

the nineteenth century,

and abandoned fields

reverting to forest in

the twentieth century.

There’s only one

problem: That’s not

what happened

in Maine.

Euro-Americans colonized the Maine

coast in the 1600s and early 1700s, but

much of this occupation was repulsed by

Abenaki tribes. After the Revolutionary

War, a larger wave of settlers pushed inland,

quilting southern and central Maine with

farms and in the process clearing more

than three million acres of forest. But after

the Civil War, immigration into the state

slowed to a trickle, and many people left

their Maine farms for better land in the

Midwest, or the industrializing cities of

the Northeast. As a result, settlers never

reached most of the northern half of the

state, leaving about 14-15 million acres of

forest intact. In short, the business plan to

settle the state never materialized.

There is no state like Maine in the

eastern U.S. where such a large chunk of

contiguous land has remained continu-

ously forested since pre-settlement times.

It’s tempting to look for similarities with

the western U.S., where vast forests were

never cleared. Most of those lands, how-

ever, are managed by the federal govern-

ment. Most of the Maine Woods are pri-

vately owned, and that has led to a very

different kind of relationship between

people and forests. Maine, in other words,

has carried out its own unique, long-term

experiment in land use.This article is adapted from the authors’ 2012 book, The Changing Nature of the Maine Woods, which explores the following topics in greater depth. Sources for the article can be found there.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 41 5/15/13 4:46:13 PM


What are the consequences of this 400-year experiment?

Does today’s forest look like the forest before European settle-

ment? Have the characters in the story – the plants and animals

and other species – changed in any appreciable way?

Uncovering the past

Historical ecologists have spent decades reconstructing what

pre-settlement forests were like in Maine. It’s challenging work,

as we’re talking about ecosystems that existed 200 to 600 years

ago, differed widely across the state, and were never static. No

single approach or type of data will suffice; we must rely on

multiple lines of evidence that operate at different geographic

scales and combine history, biogeography, archaeology, survey-

ing, natural history, and ecology.

Our first clues come from early explorers who wrote about

coastal forests. The earliest of these observations, in the 1500s, are

not especially revelatory, such as this description from Giovanni

da Verrazano in 1524: “nothing extraordinary except vast forests.”

When the early settlers did get specific, their tree naming was

often rudimentary and flexible. The early usage of “fir,” “spruce,” or

“cypress,” for example, could have referred to any conifer.

But by the 1600s, some explorer journals record detailed

observations, such as the following description of the Camden

Hills from the 1605 Waymouth voyage:

passed over very good ground, pleasant and fertile, fit for

pasture, for the space of some three miles having but little

wood, that Oke like stands left in our pastures in England,

good and great, fit timber for any use. Some small birch,

Hazle and Brake . . . Upon the hills grow notable high

timber trees, masts for ships of 400 tun.

A second source of clues comes from land surveys, from

which one can tease data related to topography, water drain-

age, forests, natural disturbance, and specific trees. Surveyors

used witness trees to mark boundaries, and the frequency of

these trees in survey records provides a reliable estimate of the

species composition of the forest at that time. Charles Cogbill

has collated presettlement land survey records and recorded

23,490 witness trees in what is now Maine. This includes some

36 species (or closely related groups of species) in 180 towns.

For example, a 1789 survey by Ephraim Ballard in west-central

Maine noted eastern hemlock, American beech, northern white

cedar, birches, maples, northern red oak, and American bass-

wood. A survey in the far northern tip of Maine in Aroostook

Township in 1845 describes a very different forest: lots of fir and

spruce, some hardwoods, and balm of Gilead (balsam poplar).

But the human record is only part of the story. Paleoecologists

use preserved pollen, macrofossils, charcoal, and insect remains

to reconstruct environments of the past. As the glaciers receded,

Maine was dotted with lakes and ponds onto which all manner

of wind-blown flotsam – pollen, seeds, cones, leaves of plants,

even bits of charcoal from fires – blew and sank to the bot-

tom. Lakes slowly filled with organic matter, some remaining

as bodies of water, others developing into bogs or fens. Low

oxygen levels slowed decomposition in these sediments, and the

embedded detritus was preserved, layer upon layer.

Using radiocarbon dating on these bog cores (see sidebar,

page 43), we’ve been able to reconstruct a pollen chronology

that records more than 14,000 years of forest changes in Maine

– from tundra to spruce-fir to a drier pine-birch-oak forest to

mixed hardwoods and, finally, to the mixed hardwoods and

softwoods the explorers found.

Historical records and 14,000-year-old sediment samples are

intriguing, but we can’t forget to simply go out into the woods

and see what’s there. Presumably, old growth forests resemble

presettlement forests and contain clues about forest composi-

tion, structure, and the roles of various disturbances in shaping

them. Maine has scarcely any old growth remaining – mostly

tiny stands (or stunted vegetation on high mountains) that

have survived because of an idiosyncratic history of ownership,

condition, or location. Fortunately, The Nature Conservancy’s

Big Reed Forest Reserve protects a singular Maine old growth

landscape of 5,000 acres.

By analyzing cores from 6,909 trees (63 dating from before

1750, the oldest prior to 1555), Alan White and his graduate stu-

dents were able to reconstruct a record of how much the Big Reed

forest has been naturally disturbed by fire, wind, ice, and other

natural phenomena. They found that the average stand distur-

bance rate is only about 9 to 12 percent per decade and projected

that a major disturbance (over 50 percent disturbed) would occur

only once every 1,100 years. Big Reed Forest Reserve also provides

a glimpse of the rich species diversity (26 different tree species!)

that the unmanaged presettlement forest would have supported.

No one line of evidence is sufficient to reconstruct the

presettlement Maine Woods, as each has advantages but also

weaknesses: only the witness tree data provide a nearly com-

prehensive geographic view; only the paleoecology studies

reveal changes over relatively long time periods; only Big Reed’s

old-growth landscape offers details about forest dynamics and

allows us to see and measure a forest that resembles those of

presettlement times. Taken together, however, the lines of evi-

dence reveal a picture of what the presettlement forest looked

like, how it operated, and how it varied across the landscape.

Maine forests then and now

So what do we find when we compare the forest of today with

the forest first encountered by settlers in the seventeenth cen-

tury? Remarkably, Maine’s forest area today is about the same

as it was four centuries ago. Maine is 21.3 million acres (19.8

million is land). In 1600, 18.2 million acres were forest; today’s

forest covers 17.7 million acres.

The major forest regions have also been largely stable since

presettlement times. Cogbill’s analysis of witness trees reveals

four major forest zones before European settlement: a south-

western oak-pine district (with some outliers eastward along the

coast); a west-central province of northern hardwood forest, with

beech as the most abundant species; a northern zone of spruces,

fir, northern white cedar, yellow birch, and lesser amounts of

other northern hardwoods; and a coastal area east of Casco Bay,

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 42 5/15/13 4:46:15 PM


50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0-10 10-75 75-150 150-300 300+Years

This graph shows the age-class difference between pre-settlement

forest estimates and data from 1995. The majority of the trees in

the Maine Woods today are between 10 and 75 years old; 400

years ago, most were between 150 and 300 years old, and almost

30 percent were older than 300 years.

■ Presettlement

■ 1995

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 43 5/15/13 4:46:20 PM


largely of spruce and hemlock. These zones are widely recogniz-

able in modern forests and are the basis of most forested land

classifications in the state. Despite considerable change in cli-

mate, land use, and many other environmental factors, the forest

regions and transition zones have been remarkably stable.

This is not to say that the distributions of all species have

been static. The Carolina wren, northern cardinal, Virginia

opossum, and less welcome species such as ticks and invasive

plants have all migrated north over the past century. If we widen

the focus to all of New England, the list of northward traveling

species is large and taxonomically diverse, with frequent new

Past Worlds in a Grain of Pollen

A few years back I found myself standing in the middle of a black spruce bog

on the Phippsburg peninsula with Andrea Nurse, from the University of Maine’s

Climate Change Institute, and three research assistants. We were there to col-

lect a time capsule from the wet earth.

Andrea and student researcher Tommy Hannington stood a long, metal peat

corer on its pointy end, attached a T-bar handle, and began pushing it into the

sediment. The top few inches corresponded to recent decades of secondary

forest; the next few feet brought us through a couple centuries of farmland

now long abandoned, back to the mixed oak and spruce forest at the begin-

ning of European settlement. When we’d filled the borer’s three-foot chamber

we gave it a heave-ho and it rose with a great sucking sound. We emptied

the four-inch-diameter cylinder of organic material, added an extension, and

resumed our process.

Four, five, six feet into the past: hemlock and spruce, then hemlock is gone,

replaced by oak, beech, and birch, then hemlock again before it disappears

for good, replaced by white pine and oak. Twelve feet down it’s just spruce

and tundra plants, at which point the sediment resists. “We’ve hit bottom,”

says Andrea, breathlessly. We extract the borer and lay out this bottom core. It

looks different from previous ones – more solid, with little identifiable organic

matter. At the top is a dark smooth substance, plant matter that has been

transformed by compaction and the downward oozing of humic acid. Below

that is grayish clay, and finally seashells. As we’d expected, Phippsburg was

under the ocean just after the ice melted, but the 14,000-year-old ocean life

is still wondrous to see. — ANDREW BARTON

A peat core sample

reports. Many of these migrations appear to be connected to the

warming climate of the Northeast.

Given that Maine is already a warmer place than it was a

half-century ago, why haven’t tree species responded in some

conspicuous way? Part of the explanation is obvious: they don’t

have feet or wings with which to get up and go; their migration

depends on an annual march of seeds in whatever direction is

favorable. But trees differ from many other types of organisms

in another important way. Once established, trees tend to be

tolerant of all manner of assaults from the environment. They

also live for a long time, and so have an intrinsic inertia that may

well slow their response to climate change.

Despite the similarities in forest cover and geography, the

modern Maine Woods do differ from presettlement forest in

fundamental ways. A visitor from the seventeenth century would

find many familiar organisms, but key species, such as the gray

wolf, mountain lion, and caribou, are missing. The loss of two

top predators has likely profoundly altered food webs in Maine

forests, although the extent of these impacts is poorly known.

Many species of fauna and flora have immigrated to Maine,

and they predominate in some sites. A recent assessment of

Maine’s biodiversity found that about one-third of the 2,107

wild plant species in the state are exotics. Some of these will

be very familiar: purple loosestrife, Japanese knotweed, com-

mon buckthorn, Oriental bittersweet. But others – lupine, black

locust, and apple trees, for example – have become such an inte-

gral part of the Maine landscape that most people would be sur-

prised to learn of their nonnative status. This goes for animals,

as well, especially birds. European starlings, pigeons, and house

sparrows – all abundant in Maine – are European species.

There is circumstantial evidence that some forest-dependent

herbs, mosses, and lichens have become rare as a result of cen-

turies of land clearing and harvesting. Modern Maine forests

also tend to be lacking in large-diameter classes of dead organic

matter, such as snags, cavity trees, and logs, which provide habi-

tat for vertebrates, invertebrates, bryophytes, lichens, and fungi,

and supply nutrients to plants and other organisms. Whether

other presettlement species, especially inconspicuous ones, have

been extirpated by land use changes is an open question. Our

knowledge even of Maine’s current biota is far from complete,

especially for the small, the inconspicuous, the economically

unimportant, and those with too many legs.

Our research shows that the relative abundance of tree species

in Maine has also changed since presettlement times. The largest

declines have been for beech, yellow birch, hemlock, oaks, and

spruces; the largest increases have been for red maple, poplars,

balsam fir, and white pine. These transformations were caused,

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albeit through complex and often indirect means, by the people

who settled and have lived in Maine for these last few centuries.

Increased fire incidence during settlement favored birches and

white pine and acted against fire-sensitive species such as red

spruce, hemlock, and beech. Accidentally introduced beech bark

disease has decimated beech. Frequent harvesting has favored

species that respond well to disturbance, such as poplars (aspens),

paper and gray birch, black and pin cherries, and red maple. In the

north, 150 years of spruce harvesting has benefitted balsam fir.

The physical structure of Maine’s forests has changed, too.

Maine never did support giant trees, with the exception of some

white pines, which were not as abundant as one might think

(Table 1). But because of high harvest levels, trees in Maine today

are much smaller and younger than in presettlement times. The

Maine Forest Service’s most recent statewide inventory found

that of trees over 5 inches in diameter, only 7.2 percent are in the

13- to 21-inch diameter range, and only 0.5 percent are larger

than 21 inches. For comparison, of trees in the old growth at Big

Reed Forest Reserve larger than 4 inches in diameter, 20 percent

are greater than 14 inches and 5 percent are greater than 20

inches. Land survey records suggest that about 60 percent of the

presettlement forest of Maine was older than 150 years, a value

that had declined to about 1 percent by 1995. Of the original old-

growth forests, only about 0.05 percent remain today.

After examining the old growth at Big Reed Forest Reserve,

we also suspect that the larger, older trees of the presettlement

TABLE 1: TREE SPECIES COMPOSITION IN PRESETTLEMENT VERSUS MODERN FORESTS IN MAINE

TREE SPECIES PRESETTLEMENT 2003 CHANGE

SPRUCES 20.2 17.4 -2.8

AMERICAN BEECH 12.2 4.8 -7.4

BALSAM FIR 10.5 15.2 +4.7

YELLOW BIRCH 9.3 4.7 -4.6

EASTERN HEMLOCK 8.9 5.8 -3.1

NORTHERN WHITE CEDAR 8.0 10.3 +2.3

SUGAR MAPLE 5.6 5.3 -0.3

PAPER BIRCH 4.9 6.1 +2.2

OAKS 4.6 2.4 -2.4

EASTERN WHITE PINE 4.5 5.2 +0.7

RED MAPLE 3.6 13.4 +9.8

ASHES 2.0 1.6 -0.4

POPLARS 1.4 4.0 +2.6

Note: Percentages are from statewide numbers of survey witness trees for presettlement and for

live trees greater than 5” in diameter

forest gave these woods a different texture beyond just diameter

and height, for large specimens of some species simply look

different from the smaller versions we’re used to. The typical

shiny yellow, somewhat stringy bark of yellow birch trees, for

example, is replaced by large, grayish, platy blocks on large

trunks of this species.

The Maine Woods remain a vast territory that supports a wide

range of species. The last four centuries of land use, however, have

altered the original forest, favoring generalist and disturbance-

associated species, reducing tree size and age, and decreasing

structural complexity. The southern Maine forest has changed

from an old-growth mixed-hardwood forest to a network of

suburban and rural forests, much established on formerly cleared

land. The northern forest has changed from a structurally het-

erogeneous spruce-hardwood forest to a more homogeneous,

younger fir-spruce forest. Although vast and complex, the modern

Maine forest is very much a product of human culture.

What might this mean for the future of Maine forests?

Returning to the presettlement forest is not possible, given the

scale of forest and environmental change. On the other hand, we

can support elements of that landscape – mature forest, coarse

organic matter, structural complexity – that are essential for the

maintenance of biological diversity. Past land use matters, as it

clearly constrains what is possible for future forests. But Maine’s

forest history tells us that there are many potential paths within

those ecological boundaries.

Raised in the mountains of North Carolina, Andrew Barton is a forest ecologist and

conservation biologist at the University of Maine at Farmington. Alan White, a forest

ecology professor at the University of Maine, grew up in the small western Maine town

of Kingfield, surrounded by the forests that shaped his teaching, research, and recre-

ational interests. Charles Cogbill, who has spent decades working in Maine forests, is

a historical ecologist from Plainfield, Vermont.

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Andrea Nurse and Tommy Hannington extract a peat core.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 45 5/15/13 4:46:24 PM


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15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 47 5/15/13 4:46:34 PM


Lessons in Planting Tree

f you’ve ever tried to grow a tree from a single seed, and failed, you’ll probably

want to know how the New Hampshire State Forest Nursery manages to grow

about a quarter of a million trees this way each year. The nursery, part of the New

Hampshire Division of Forests and Lands, has been growing seedlings in Boscawen,

just north of Concord, for over 100 years. It is a point of pride that their seedlings are

grown from locally collected seeds in order to be well adapted to New Hampshire’s

climate and soils. All 50 varieties of shrubs and trees leave the nursery when they are

between one and four years old and less than one foot tall.

On the day of my visit, highbush cranberry berries are spinning in a washing-

machine-like drum. As the pulp collects on the edges of the drum, the pink lentil-shaped seeds

are funneled down a chute to a waiting bucket. Scotch pine cones are tumbling and shaking in

antique machines designed to shred the cones and clean the seeds. Bagged conifer seeds wait in

the freezer. I follow Howard (Howie) Lewis, nursery forester at the New Hampshire State Forest

Nursery, past trays of acorns, cones, and hazelnuts to his office, where I begin my education on

growing trees from seed.

By Tammis Coffin

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 48 5/15/13 4:46:48 PM


Seeds LESSON1You need lots of seeds.

“We don’t collect handfuls, we collect pailfuls,” explained Lewis. “If we can fill

a pickup truck, we do.” Red and silver maple seeds mature in June, and crews

have to be there the day they come down. “If they’re ripening and we know a big

storm is coming, we’ve got to jump in the truck with our tubs and our rakes,” said

Lewis. Some of the best collection locations for maples turn out to be cemeteries.

“They’re clean – and trees growing in the open tend to produce more seed.”

In a good seed year, nursery workers gather three or more bushels of maple

seeds, called samaras. “We try to collect one or two years ahead,” explained seed

specialist Nancy Connors. She is still planting balsam fir seeds collected in 1988,

but some seeds have to be collected every year. (The shelf life of bayberry, for

example, is only six to eight months.) Germination rates vary widely from species

to species and year to year; Nancy Connors’ germination tests on each seed

batch determine the numbers planted and their spacing in the nursery fields.

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Left: Balsam fir seedlings at one year. Top: Lewis dumps conifer seeds into the drill

seeder. Bottom: The drill seeder in action.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 49 5/15/13 4:46:53 PM


LESSON 3Good acorns and bad acorns look just the same.

In a good year, you’ll find piles of acorns on the ground by early fall. They all look

perfectly sound, and quite a few people gather acorns beneath their favorite trees

and bring them to the nursery. Lewis is happy to receive these gifts, but he always

tests the acorns for viability. Without fail, the donated acorns float in water, mean-

ing they are no good. Turns out that squirrels, who are such helpful gatherers of

conifer seeds, are no help for oak. Instead of collecting ripe acorns and placing

them in convenient caches, squirrels spirit good acorns away immediately, leav-

ing the bad ones behind.

High winds, heavy rain, or an early hard frost bring the acorns down. “That’s one

you have to watch by the day,” Lewis said. “You keep an eye on the roadsides on

your way to work.” At the first cue, the seed collectors go out and quickly shovel

up newly fallen acorns before the squirrels get them. The nursery might plant

20,000 acorns in a year, but only one out of three acorns will make it.

LESSON 2You can’t grow a pine tree from a pine cone.

“Conifers are a unique thing,” said Lewis, tapping a Scotch pine cone and hand-

ing me a seed. It’s just a wisp in my palm, a weightless black speck attached to

a translucent wing. “Most conifers have a seed that looks like this,” he explained.

“They use the wing to fly away from the mother tree.”

The seeds of most native conifers are released while the cones are still hanging in

the tree. By the time the cones fall, they are fully open and empty of seeds – unless

they’ve been cut and dropped by squirrels. Squirrel stacks are highly convenient

for nursery staff when they go out collecting. Lewis pulls up a few photos on his

computer showing Norway spruce cones in piles in the woods. “That’s a five-

bushel cache. We like those,” he said, explaining that the squirrels collect more

than they need and that generations of squirrels use the same caching locations.

The cones of white pines ripen in August when the weather is still warm and the

sap is sticky. Nursery staff will take a welcome break from weeding fifteen miles

worth of seedling beds to go collecting. Old clothes are a must for this job. After a

few days of collecting white pine cones, your pants stand up by themselves. After

a week, you have to throw them away.

In late October, the crew heads to the top of Mount Kearsarge to harvest red

spruce cones. “They’re all squirrel cuts,” Lewis said. But squirrels won’t cache

red spruce. “They put two or three cones here and two or three cones there. You

can’t tell the difference between this year’s cones and last year’s because both

are brown, but this year’s have pitch on them. We crawl around on our hands and

knees all day and end up with a bushel or two.” At 5,000 cones a bushel, 50 good

seeds per cone, it’s still a good haul.

If timber is being harvested on state lands when the cones are ready for harvest,

Lewis is right there with his crew as soon as the trees come down. “We are

opportunists,” he said, “And we can always use more seeds.” After the cones are

collected, they are air dried for a few weeks until they open. Then the seeds are

extracted using antique machines with names like the squirrel cage (a tumbler),

clipper cleaner, de-winger, and shaker. The resulting handful of clean seed is quite

valuable. “Pure gold,” said Lewis, holding up a one-pound bag of eastern larch

seeds worth close to $400.

Clockwise from above left: Scotch pine in the squirrel cage. Cleaning Scotch pine on the clipper. The de-winger’s output of seed, chaff, needles, and cone scales before final

cleaning. Lewis at the de-winger. Opposite page: In September, Virginia rose hips are stripped from thorny branches of nursery hedgerows. New Hampshire State Forest Nursery

worker Jim Viar jokingly points out, “You need gloves for this job.”

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 50 5/15/13 4:46:56 PM


LESSON 5Improvise.

Each time the nursery adds a new tree or shrub to the catalog, Nancy Connors

researches methods of seed extraction and germination. At first, winterberry holly

did not germinate well. The seeds foamed like soap lather when she rinsed them

and, through trial and error, she discovered that they had to be rinsed until all the

lather subsides. In other words, “When you are sick of rinsing it, rinse it again.”

This is part of nature’s plan. As Lewis explained, “A lot of fleshy seeds have to

run through a bird’s stomach and have to be super-clean. If they germinate easily,

they would compete with the parent plant.”

When Connors arrived, a slim book from the US Forest Service held all the

instructions she could find. The current edition of The Woody Plant Seed Manual,

weighing nine pounds and covering 1,300 taxa, still does not contain the detail

she needs. This book recommends floating wild rose seeds in water and keeping

those that sink. After none of her wetland rose and Rosa rugosa seeds germi-

nated, she took a look at the floaters and the sinkers under the microscope. “I

was throwing the good ones away,” she confessed with a laugh, noting the logic

that when roses grow near water, their seeds will need to float away to come in

contact with soil.

Lewis compares notes with people at the New York State Nursery, only to find

regional differences. In New York, they have to do root cuttings of red osier dog-

wood; they can’t get it to germinate. In New Hampshire, they just plant the seed.

“The books don’t talk about that,” he said

When the nursery opened in 1910, they sold white pine, red pine, and white

ash, primarily for reforestation. Now seedlings are purchased for songbird and

other wildlife habitat, wetland restoration, stream bank control, and Christmas

tree farms.

“Native shrubs have been a major part of what we’ve added in the past 15

years,” Lewis said. “We are always on the lookout for new species we can add

– for example, wetland shrubs that can fill a niche for songbirds.” Maple-leaf

viburnum will soon be added to the catalog, and they’re working on obtaining

seed for spicebush and summersweet.

By the end of my day at the nursery I’ve heard about ridge tops, treetops, and

squirrel caches that provide bushels and truckloads of cones and seeds. I’ve

seen drying trays of scrub oak, hazelnut, red osier, wild raisin – entire habitats

distilled into their concentrated parts. But one image sticks in my mind – a freezer

packed with half a ton of conifer seeds. With a thousand pine seeds, or a million

white spruce seeds, in each four-pound bag, this translates to thousands and

thousands of acres of forest.

“What we do is unique,” said Lewis. “Here we have what you find in the wild

– New Hampshire grown.”

Tammis Coffin leads programs combining nature exploration with creative arts. She

writes about natural, cultural, and literary landscapes in a blog for the John Hay

Ecology Center at www.thefells.org.

LESSON 4Guard your seeds.

Lewis is standing by a newly planted stretch of eight thousand hazelnuts.

Stamped neatly across the 300-foot length of black protective fabric are the

muddy tracks of wild turkeys that came running to investigate. “If we didn’t cover

them, they would be gone in one night,” Lewis said. “The next morning, it would

look like a rototiller had gone through here.” As quickly as a walnut is planted, a

squirrel will take it away – unless it’s securely covered.

The nursery grows about 5,000 walnut seedlings each year, planted in the middle

of the field to keep them as far as possible from the mice and squirrels. “They have

a pretty good nose and can sniff them out,” Lewis said. “Someone planting them in

their backyard would have to cover them with a screen because nine times out of

10 the squirrels will find them. Acorns, you have a chance. Walnuts, you don’t.”

As more customers seek plantings that will serve as food for wildlife, the nursery

is growing more varieties of shrubs with persistent fruits. Wildlife are drawn to

the planted seeds, young seedlings, and ripening fruits on hedgerows, and this

becomes a double-edged sword. On the bright side, the nursery and the adjoining

trails of the state forest are a great place for bird watching; on the down side,

seed harvests are diminished and sometimes eaten entirely. Occasional moose

tracks cross the seed beds, and nursery staff go to great lengths to protect young

fir seedlings from becoming the winter browse of deer.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 51 5/15/13 4:46:57 PM


Forest information. Professional assistance. And practical advice for your Woodlands.from the Maine Forest Service

1-800-367-0223 toll-free in ME or 207-287-2791www.maineforestservice.gov

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 52 5/15/13 4:47:02 PM


15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 53 5/15/13 4:47:05 PM

T H E O V E R S T O R Y

Black Locust Robinia pseudoacacia

You’ll not often find me singing the praises of a nonnative

tree, but there are just too many good things about black

locust for me to want to cut them down and throw

them on the buckthorn pile. It would be like get-

ting rid of apples or honeybees – and they’re both

imported from much farther away, from a different

continent.

Still, some people hate black locust and, indeed,

it is only in the Northeast now because, starting in

early colonial times, farmers carted it in from its

native range in the southern Appalachians and on

the Ozark Plateau. In its defense, however, the species

was found in our area before the last glacier chased it

south. It just failed to find its way back home when the

glacier retreated.

During the winter, full-sized locusts have a wild,

disheveled look: twisted, stark, with deeply ridged black

bark, but still, in my opinion, strikingly beautiful. But

when the blue-green leaves unfurl from their buds the

skeletal structure is hidden and the trees undergo a complete transformation. The large

compound leaves are made up of 7 to 19 little egg-shaped leaflets, and somehow the

crown looks both dense and delicate. When the showy, fragrant, milk-white flowers come

out, locust-lined roadsides are temporarily gorgeous.

And temporary it is; the show lasts only about 10 days. The intense orange-blossom

scent of the flowers brings in droves of insects: a mix of honeybees, wild bees, wasps, flies,

and who-knows-what other insect orders, all fighting to get into the pea-shaped flowers.

Locust honey is famous, both for its flavor and color – well, really, its lack of color, for

pure locust honey is as clear as water and so high in fructose that it can be stored for a

long time without crystallizing. We never get honey like that in the Northeast because

locusts bloom in the second half of May, at the same time that many other species are

also producing nectar.

Farmers brought black locust to the Northeast because the wood makes superb, rot-

resistant fence posts, a product so essential in the pre-pentachlorophenol days that, as

word spread, most every farmyard soon had a grove of locusts used for that purpose.

Flavonoids in the heartwood allow the wood to last over 100 years in soil. Admittedly,

black locust does have some dislike of being fenced in itself and it sends up root sprouts

in every direction; the clonal clumps can walk, step by step, across the land.

This can be a desirable trait in some situations, such as when it is used to reclaim

mining sites or other treeless wastes. Like many other legumes, black locust fixes nitrogen,

an ability that is rare among trees of temperate regions. It tolerates severe frosts, drought,

air pollution, and high light intensities, and grows rapidly under the most adverse

circumstances. On the flip side, it is disliked because of these very same traits: this sun-

lover is capable of spreading into any and all openings and one tree planted in the yard

can quickly send up enough root sprouts to create an impenetrable thicket. Also, the twigs

and bark are poisonous to livestock.

In addition to its decay resistance, the wood neither shrinks nor swells very much.

Story by Virginia Barlow

Illustrations by Adelaide Tyrol

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 54 5/15/13 4:47:10 PM


These traits made it the wood of choice for treenails, known as “trunnels,” the pegs that

were used to attach a ship’s planks to her ribs. This might seem like a trivial application,

but for the wooden boat builders of yore these little things made all the difference.

Metal fasteners corrode, and oak – used before locust was discovered in the New World

– shrinks more and is more susceptible to decay.

Abraham Lincoln is said to have split rails and fence posts from black locust logs in his

early years. When telephone and power lines were stretched across the country a century

later, the species found another niche: it was used to make the wooden pins that held the

insulators to the cross arms.

Black locust is still appreciated in much of the world. First imported to France in

about 1636, it has since been planted widely in many European countries and in China.

Eighteen percent of the forest trees in Hungary are black locusts, mostly in plantations

where they are cultivars, selected for straight (instead of the usual wobbly) stems.

One of these selections, called shipmast locust, was first noticed in Virginia. It

was propagated on Long Island in the 1700s, using sections of the roots that are even

more intent on sprouting than those of normal black locust. Interestingly, this selection

– apparently it’s not different enough to be called a variety – is also more rot resistant

than a normal locust and is less susceptible to the tree’s greatest foe: the locust borer

(Megacyllene robiniae). This borer can wreck the timber potential of black locust,

especially when the trees are grown on substandard sites. Good growing conditions, as

well as good genes, help reduce borer damage.

A much more obvious and widespread pest is the locust leaf miner; these insects

turn lovely locust leaflets to a dingy gray-brown over the course of the summer.

The pretty adult beetles emerge from the leaf litter just as locust leaves begin

to unfurl in the spring, and the female beetles do a little chewing as they lay

eggs in groups of three to five on the undersides of new leaves. It’s the tiny

larvae, imprisoned between the upper and lower layers of a leaf, that do

the real damage. Relentlessly, they chew their way around and around in

a leaf ’s interior until there’s no more green to be found. It’s a tribute to

the locust that it can survive total defoliation, year after year. Most trees

can survive this for only a couple of years.

Here and in several European countries, locally grown black locust

is promoted as a sustainable substitute for decay-resistant tropical

hardwoods and pressure-treated lumber. After the EPA restricted use

of the highly toxic pentachlorophenol to prevent wood decay in the

early 1980s, chromated copper arsenate (CCA) was used in just about

every outdoor application, before people realized that arsenic was

leaching from the wood wherever it was used – especially worrying

in playgrounds. The EPA gave that one a thumbs down in 2003 and

now ACQ, a less toxic (and less effective) mix of copper oxide and a

quaternary ammonia is used just as widely. However, it, too, is corrosive

as well as toxic.

Nowadays, the need for telephone insulator pins, treenails, and fence

posts isn’t what it used to be and black locust has continued to flourish, making

it widely available. Consequently, the timber value is low. Not only is it well

suited for outdoor applications, at present it’s also inexpensive – assuming there’s a local

source or that you can find someone to mill it out for you. The wood, which is stronger

and harder than white cedar, provides a local, safe alternative to the southern yellow pine,

pressure treated with toxic chemicals, that is now so common. If black locust can make

lawn furniture and playground equipment safer, this may diminish its bad reputation.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 55 5/15/13 4:47:15 PM


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15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 56 5/15/13 4:47:22 PM


Learn about forest conservation, sustainable management,and our new Heart of New England campaign!

New England Forestry FoundationC O N S E R V I N G F O R E S T S f o r F U T U R E G E N E R A T I O N S

www.newenglandforestry.org | 978.952.685632 Foster Street | Post Offi ce Box 1346 | Littleton, Massachusetts 01460

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 57 5/15/13 4:47:24 PM

Butterflies Take Note Before Taking FlightClimate change is affecting a wide range of wildlife, from plants and bees to birds and

trees. A new study led by biologists at

Boston University adds butterflies to the

list, finding that butterflies emerge earlier

in warmer years.

The researchers focused on the flight

periods of 10 species of butterflies in

the elfin and hairstreak families, using

museum records and 23 years of data col-

lected by members of the Massachusetts

Butterfly Club. “We picked those species

because they’re common and relatively

easy to identify by local experts,” said

Caroline Polgar, a postdoctoral research-

er at BU. “They’re also short-lived species

who only fly for two or three weeks. We

felt we would be better able to detect a

shift in emergence times with species that

have a short flight window.”

They found that when average tem-

peratures were higher than normal, the

butterflies came out earlier. Elfins, which

fly in late spring, emerged 4.8 days earlier

for each degree Celsius, while the summer-

flying hairstreaks emerged 2.6 days earlier.

Polgar explained the difference

between the spring and summer species.

“Spring temperature changes are usually

more dramatic, sometimes going from

very cold to warm, whereas in summer

it’s already warm so the temperature dif-

ferences aren’t so dramatic. We see the

same thing with plants. Spring flower-

ing species respond more to temperature

changes than summer flowering species.”

The temperature period the research-

ers examined was the two months before

the butterflies were due to emerge. If it

was warmer than average in March and

April, for instance, the elfins were likely to

emerge early. Polgar said that the change

over time was significant for some species

and less so for others, “but should temper-

atures continue to warm, it is extremely

likely there will be a significant change in

emergence times for all species.”

The good news, she added, is that but-

terflies appear to be responding to tem-

perature at a rate similar to that of plants.

Because of the close relationship between

them, if one responded differently there

could be “a catastrophic timing differ-

ence,” meaning that the leaves or flowers

may not be available when the butterflies

or their larvae need them.

That is a concern the researchers raise

with birds. Studies have shown that bird

arrival times in spring are much less

responsive to local temperatures than

plant and insect populations. Some bird

species, especially those that migrate rela-

tively short distances, have been arriving

earlier in the spring, but others have not

– perhaps because they take cues for their

longer migration routes from photoperiod

(the number of hours of light in a 24-hour

period) as well as temperature. That could

raise the specter of ecological mismatches

as migratory birds arrive after the peak

abundance of their insect food.

A Rugged Pair of Genes

A project to map the genes of spruce and

pine trees has revealed that the genome

of conifers has remained pretty much the

same for more than 100 million years.

This stability explains why today’s coni-

fers look like fossil conifers dating to

before the age of the dinosaurs.

According to Jean Bousquet, a profes-

sor of forestry at the University of Laval

in Quebec, conifers were the first plants

to evolve after ferns, and fossil records

of conifer needles date back 300 mil-

lion years. That’s about when flowering

plants diverged from the conifers. Since

then, the flowering plants have under-

gone major changes, evolving into about

400,000 species, while today there are

just 600 species of conifers. The stability

of the conifer genome goes hand in hand

with its low speciation rate.

“Flowering plants have totally changed

their morphology through the years – they

include the grasses, shrubs, hardwood

trees, vegetables, all kinds of flowers,”

Bousquet said. “It’s evolution at a large

scale, and we see that in their genome.

They have had a lot of reshuffling in

their genome, but the conifer genome has

remained stable.”

Bousquet speculates that one reason

for this stability is that the conifer genome

is very large.

By Todd McLeish

D I S C O V E R I E S

Butterflies, such as the banded hairstreak, emerge earlier when temperatures are warmer.

CA

RO

LINE PO

LGA

R


15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 58 5/15/13 4:47:26 PM

“The spruce genome is 20 times the

size of the human genome,” he said. “We

call it genome obesity. It has become

progressively larger over time, and at the

same time it has experienced genome

paralysis. It is so big that it can’t move

or change very quickly.” He considers

the large size and unchanging nature of

the conifer genome as a sign of genome

aging, just like when people age they slow

down and gain weight. He notes, how-

ever, that genome aging is not a sign that

the trees are likely to die out soon.

Details of the research by Bousquet

and colleagues at the University of Laval

and the Canadian Forest Service were

published in the journal BMC Biology.

The study was conducted by compar-

ing the genome macrostructure for 157

gene families present in both conifers

and flowering plants. While they did find

genetic mutations and other small-scale

modifications in the conifer genome, the

scientists said the macrostructure of the

genome has remained stable.

Bousquet thinks this stability occurred

in part because the conifers adapted to

their environment very early on and

haven’t needed to change much. “They

survived the glaciations, they survived the

dinosaurs, they appear to have achieved a

balance with their environment long ago,”

he said.

“These plants also have a lot of genet-

ic diversity – among the highest of all

plants – which has enabled them to adapt

to changing conditions. That’s why they

have survived for so long . . . In contrast,

flowering plants are under intense evolu-

tionary pressure as they battle for survival

and reproduction.”

Soil: Can It Take the Heat?

Soils throughout the world store more car-

bon, in the form of organic matter, than

all of the vegetation and atmosphere

combined. Microorganisms in the soil –

bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, and

other organisms – feed on that organic

matter and release large quantities of car-

bon dioxide. Historically, this release of

CO2 has been balanced by the photosyn-

thesis of plants, which absorb about the

same amount of CO2 as the soils release. UNH professor Serita Frey and graduate student George Hamaoui collect soil samples.

59Northern Woodlands / Summer 2013

But according to a study by University of

New Hampshire Professor Serita Frey, as

global temperatures rise, additional car-

bon is released from soils into the atmo-

sphere – at least in the short term.

“While they’re low on the charisma

scale, soil microorganisms are critically

important to the carbon balance of the

atmosphere,” said Frey. “If we warm the

soil due to climate warming, are we going

to fundamentally alter the flux of carbon

into the atmosphere in a way that is going

to feed back to enhance climate change?”

Frey and colleagues at the University

of California-Davis and the Marine

Biological Laboratory simulated the

effects of climate change on the soil by

placing heating cables 10 centimeters

beneath the soil surface at study plots

in the Harvard Forest in Petersham,

Massachusetts, to learn how a warming

world would influence what takes place

in the soil. The study plots, one heated for

two years to simulate short-term warm-

ing and another heated for 18 years, were

warmed to 5°C above ambient tempera-

ture. The project was designed to mea-

sure the efficiency of the soil organisms.

“If an organism takes one molecule

of glucose, for example, as a food source,

some fraction of that goes to cell mainte-

nance and growth, and some portion of

that gets lost to the atmosphere as carbon

dioxide,” she explained. “The more effi-

cient the organism is, the more of that food

source stays in the cell; the less efficient it

is, the more is lost to the atmosphere.”

What they found is that as tempera-

tures in the soil increase, the soil micro-

organisms become less efficient, releasing

more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

That effect diminishes over time, how-

ever. The organisms appeared to become

more efficient in the longer term, sug-

gesting that the microbial community

becomes acclimated to the warmer soils

or the community somehow changes.

“The positive feedback response may

not be as strong as we originally pre-

dicted,” Frey said. “It could be that differ-

ent species become more abundant and

others less abundant over time. Perhaps

there’s also a shift in physiology, an evo-

lutionary adaptation to those conditions.

We just don’t know yet.”

The next step will be to conduct a

DNA analysis of all the organisms found

in the soil to identify the species and

see if the community changes as the soil

warms. The researchers also plan to con-

duct laboratory tests of the physiology of

the organisms to learn if their metabo-

lism adapts to the warmer conditions.

“Ultimately, we’d like to know how

climate change is affecting all of these

organisms,” she said.

UN

IVERS

ITY OF N

EW H

AM

PSH

IRE

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 59 5/15/13 4:47:28 PM


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LYME, NH

• Forest Management

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The Autumn 2013 issue deadline is June 25, 2013.

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Haul large loads of firewood and much more.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 60 5/15/13 4:47:31 PM


Building a Lumber Pile

By Carl Demrow

TRICKS of the trade

The demise of the local sawmill has been closely

followed by the rise of the sawyer with a portable

bandsaw mill. Usually the sawyer will come to your

house, set the mill up parallel to your log pile, and cut

custom boards for you, but it’s often up to the client

to furnish a tailer who will stack and sticker the sawn

lumber. If you lack teenaged children, this job may

well fall on you.

Much of your satisfaction – or dissatisfaction

– from a custom milling project will be the result of

how the lumber is treated after it is pulled off the

mill’s bedrails, so proper stacking is critical.

You’ll want to build your lumber pile perpendicular

to the prevailing wind. It’s not a good idea to stack

green lumber inside a closed building, as air movement is

important to wick moisture away. Use cinder blocks for a base, and

level them as best you can. The goal is to have the first boards a foot off the ground.

The stack should be 3 to 4 feet wide, and supported every 2 feet to minimize warping.

Span the cinderblocks with level, seasoned 4x4s (known as dunnage) and leave a gap between boards

to allow air penetration.

For the lumber to dry properly, you’ll need to sticker your pile. Stickering refers to the use of narrow

strips of wood – typically 1”x 1” – between the layers of lumber to allow adequate air flow. For best

results, the stickers should all be the same length (the same as the width of the pile) and rot- and stain-

free (to minimize staining your lumber). In a perfect world, the stickers would be dry, but billions of

feet of wood have been stacked using green stickers created in the board edging process with perfectly

adequate results.

Keep each layer of stickers directly over the dunnage and lined up with the stickers below and keep

the edges of the outside boards plumb. A sticker placed right at the end of a board tends to stop deep

end splits from developing. While 2-foot spacing is adequate for most species, you may want to con-

sider 18 inches or even 1-foot spacing for species that warp excessively, like sycamore or elm.

Build up to a height you are comfortable with, add 6 inches of dry dunnage on top, then cover the

pile with metal roofing, making sure that the roof has a 6-inch overhang and that nothing is sticking

out in the weather.

How long will it take for your lumber to season? Softwood generally seasons faster than hardwood,

but just how long it takes depends on how much moisture the log had in it when it was cut, the time

of year, the thickness of the lumber, how much it is exposed to wind and sun, and how good you are at

stickering your wood. The US Forest Service estimates that it takes between 60 and 200 days to air-dry

green, 1-inch-thick white pine lumber to 20 percent moisture content.

Blue stain is a common problem with sawn pine, though it usually occurs in the log, not in the

boards. To avoid blue stain, have your pine sawn during the winter, then sticker it and cover the top

so the wood seasons prior to warm weather. If you’re using your lumber outside, say for siding that

outbuilding, the blue stain will eventually weather away.

Sticker stain is another common problem in white wood. It’s caused by slow drying at warm tem-

peratures when the lumber is above 40 percent moisture content. The only sure way to avoid sticker

stain is to achieve fast drying, and to do this you might be wise to invest in kiln-dried stickers that have

a diagonal groove cut into the top and bottom flat faces, which allows for optimum air circulation.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 61 5/15/13 4:47:33 PM


Just what is SFI®?The Sustainable Forestry Initiative is a program

with tough stewardship objectives that are practiced and promoted by many landowners

in the Northeast and across the country.

Performance to these objectives are certified by an independent third party. If you have questions or concerns about any forest practices in Maine, New Hampshire, New York or Vermont or if you

want information about forestry tours being offered, Please call 1-888-SFI-GOAL

(1-888-734-4625)

www.sfiprogram.org

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 62 5/15/13 4:47:38 PM


None of this should come as a surprise. All of Maine is right

in the middle of the northern temperate zone, but our little

region is even more middling than the rest of the state. We’re

smack-dab on the 45th parallel, midway between the North Pole

and the equator. We’re 60 miles from the Canadian border and

60 miles from the Atlantic coast. We do get occasional inklings

of the Arctic in winter (-39°F) and of the tropics in summer

(101°F), but most of the time we’re a model of moderation, as

middle of the weather road as you can get.

Our location does not, of course, make us immune to weath-

er disasters – witness the hurricane of 1938, the April Fools’

Day flood of 1987 that swallowed houses and bridges in one

gulp, and the ice storm of 1998 that may well hold the record for

property damage statewide. Still, events that devastate coastal

New England with hurricane-force winds and storm surges

often just sideswipe us as they pass by. So it was with Nemo; so

it was with Irene in 2011 and Sandy in 2012.

But getting off light is no cause for full-scale rejoicing if the

homes of your friends only 20 or 50 or 200 miles down the road

are getting torn off their foundations. And when, in a span of

two years, we’ve had two hurricanes, a record-setting blizzard,

and a fluky warm winter visit our region, even the most san-

guine weather observer has to sit up and take notice.

Then, too, the animals have more and more to say about our

weather every year: the northward march of ticks, the squad-

rons of turkey vultures circling in our skies, the tufted titmice

and the red-bellied woodpeckers at our bird feeders, the New

Hampshire bears that have given up hibernating. As a Koyukon

elder once said to anthropologist Richard Nelson, “Every animal

knows way more than you do.”

Robert Kimber has written often for outdoor and environmental magazines. He lives

in Temple, Maine.

Talking about the weather is supposedly the height of dopiness, a

display of intellectual poverty so extreme that it evokes neither

pity nor contempt from those exposed to it, but only embarrass-

ment and a desire to escape. If you can’t think of anything better

to talk about than the weather, the conventional wisdom says,

then hold your peace. Just shut up.

I do not agree. I’ve always loved conversations about the

weather – weather present, weather past, weather future. I’m

particularly fond of our upcountry Maine weather, so I like to

brag about it any chance I get, even though I can’t take the least

bit of credit for it.

What spectacular weather we had, for instance, on February

7, 2013, a brilliant, bracingly cool (12°F) but not bitterly cold

winter day, with the sunlight booming down out of a sky as blue

as a sky can be and fading to a lighter, paler cornflower blue

around the horizon. A couple of fat gray squirrels reveled in the

warmth of the sun as they lunched on sunflower seeds the birds

had let fall from our feeder. In the Temple post office I found

general agreement that this was a nippy day, but one whose

nippiness in no way detracted from its beauty and the sense of

wellbeing it inspired in humans and gray squirrels alike.

But then, Nemo, the Blizzard of 2013, moved in for the next

two days, just as the meteorologists told us it would, giving us

about 72 hours of more blowing than snowing. The official

snowfall, measured right next door to us in Farmington, was

a mere 9.2 inches. Given the wind, however, those 9.2 inches

translated into only 4 in our driveway but 32 right outside our

kitchen door. On Sunday, February 10, we went right back

into another halcyon day as sunny, windstill, and sweet as the

Thursday before.

Now I know that halcyon days – if you chase “halcyon”

back to its origin in Greek mythology – can apply only to

those days in mid-winter when Aeolus, the god in charge of

the winds, reins them in and calms the waves so that his

daughter, Alcyone, whom the gods transformed into a

kingfisher, can safely build her nest and lay her eggs

on the shore. But what I find so remarkable about

our local weather is its ability to produce halcyon

days year round: sunny Indian summer days

when the air is crisp and clean, spring days when

the hills first start greening up, even midsummer

days when the humidity lifts and you think you

could reach up and touch the top of the sky.

Halcyon days – whether they come winter or

summer, spring or fall – are days of calm; days

when we may be busy but are unhurried, content

and carefree; days when all feels right with the

world.

By Robert Kimber

The Weather

up COUNTRY

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 63 5/15/13 4:47:40 PM


With the Grain: A Craftsman’s Guide to Understanding WoodBy Christian Becksvoort

Lost Art Press, 2013

For cabinetmakers, both professional and ama-

teur, the name Christian Becksvoort will have the

same kind of resonance that Babe Ruth or Mickey

Mantle will have for a baseball fan. Becksvoort

has been building elegant, superbly crafted fur-

niture inspired by Shaker designs for over 40

years, and his list of articles in Fine Woodworkingmagazine, where he is a contributing editor,

is longer than both my arms put together. An

Amazon customer who must have read a library

copy of Becksvoort’s 1983 book In Harmony with Wood and subsequently tried in 2003 to buy a

copy on Amazon, mourned that the book was no

longer in print. He need mourn no longer because

Becksvoort has thoroughly revised In Harmony with Wood and republished it with a new title,

Working with the Grain.

Both those titles and the book’s subtitle, ACraftsman’s Guide to Understanding Wood, accu-

rately reflect Becksvoort’s focus. Understanding

wood and working in harmony with it in every

stage from tree to tabletop is what this book is

all about: how wood grows, how it is sawn and

dried, how it responds to variations in humidity

and temperature, how the orientation of grain, as

well as methods of joinery, combine to produce a

finished piece that will be stable under changing

conditions, as well as pleasing to the eye.

A graduate of the University of Maine’s School of

Forest Resources, Becksvoort draws on his exten-

sive background in forestry and wood technology to

provide in concise, readable form what every furni-

ture builder ought to know about wood. His book’s

five chapters are organized in a progression that

begins with the tree and ends in the woodworking

shop. Chapter One is about the structure of wood

and the properties that determine the workability of

different tree species and the appearance finished

pieces will have. The second chapter, “Wood and

Tree Identification and Characteristics,” delivers

on its title, describing not only the features needed

to identify 30 North American trees, but also the

properties – such as color and luster, density and

specific gravity, grain and figure – that make each

one suitable for particular woodworking purposes.

This chapter is illustrated with clear drawings of

tree profiles, twigs, leaves, nuts, and fruits, as well

as with photographs of bark, grain, and end grain,

the latter enlarged 25 times to show the porosity of

different woods.

Chapter Three, a concise yet comprehensive

account of woodlot management and tree har-

vesting, lays out the elements of a multiple-use

strategy that will protect the wildlife habitat and

recreational potential of the forest while encour-

aging the growth of furniture-grade trees with

thinning and pruning. Chapter Four, on sawing

and drying wood to make it ready for the shop,

is the logical penultimate step in Beckvoort’s

progression toward his final chapter, “Working

with Solid Wood,” which describes in detail strate-

gies he has either learned from past masters or

developed himself to compensate for the shrink-

age and expansion that even optimally dried wood

undergoes in response to the changing seasons.

This whole book is a feast of knowledge, and

its final chapter tops it off with a chance to see a

master craftsman putting his knowledge to work.

I won’t attempt to summarize. Suffice it to say

that for me, whose furniture building has never

advanced much beyond the plant stand I made in

my seventh-grade industrial arts class, Working with the Grain – meticulously researched and

written and generously illustrated with drawings,

photographs, and charts throughout – has been

an eye opener on the kind of craftsmanship that

aspires to, and achieves, the level of art.

Robert Kimber

Sudden Eden By Verandah Porche

Verdant Books, 2012

Intensely personal poetry only works if readers

can recognize something of themselves, or some

universal truth, or something fun or beautiful in

the prose. If it’s there, the poet and reader achieve

some sort of mental synthesis – sort of like a

grafted white pine.

If you lived through the 1960s and ’70s in the

rural Northeast, you’ll see yourself in Verandah

Porche’s new collection of poetry, Sudden Eden,

at which point my guess is that the graft will

take. Porche, a city girl from Teaneck, New Jersey,

moved to a ramshackle Vermont farm in 1968 and

went on to become a minorly famous figurehead of

the back-to-the-land movement. You’ll recognize

the tension between the play-farmer artists and the

granite locals in these poems. Not surprisingly, the

book’s release has garnered a lot of nostalgic press

in Vermont about that tumultuous time.

But if you didn’t live through that era, there’s

still plenty that’s universal and beautiful in these

poems. I was born seven years after her commune,

which is to say I never knew rural Vermont (I could

be speaking for any rural state here) without a

countercultural influence. Our role models growing

up were sixth-generation dairy farmers who listened

to Paul Harvey and organic hippie farmers who

liked the Grateful Dead – they were all part of the

same place.

For me, and I suspect for many of you, you’ll

find that the poems in Sudden Eden work just fine

as homages to rural life – and Porche is as good

a chronicler of this as anyone I know. We collect

chanterelles with her (“a trill of thrush made

edible”); split and haul bucks, and forests, with

local boys; marvel at the overlapping home ranges

of Arctic Cats and Firebirds. That she can write

poems about the sticks with such authenticity is

not surprising, considering that when other back-

wood LIT

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 64 5/15/13 4:47:44 PM


to-the-landers moved back to the city, Verandah

stayed. Forty-four years later she still lives there.

Her life’s work has been to help kids in schools

and factory workers and seniors and people in

crisis centers tell their stories; to help them fall in

love with language. If there’s a touch of affection in

that last line it’s because I was one of those people

– a fourth grader in Shaftsbury Elementary School

enthralled with this strangely named lady and the

wild words that fell off her tongue.

Verandah the writer can be a mad hatter, for

sure, in that distinctly late 1960s Trout Fishing in

America way. In one poem she uses the sound of

every letter in the alphabet to make words (CroK

balls); in another she instructs a reader to fill a black

sky-speckled kettle with a rolling boil. Steam quart

jars. Can light. Seal and cool. But she can also be

simple and spare. “100 Years of Squares and Reels”

evokes a wintertime dance in a hill-town grange

hall, a milk maid in a pretty red dress. The lines in

the poem are as sparkling clean as fresh snow.

In “Blue Seal” she opens with the phrase:

Did you ever fall open

Like a hundred-weight

Of Blue Seal Dairy Ration?

And could have ended the poem right there.

The very best poems in Sudden Eden are

playful, challenging, odd, and disciplined, which I

guess is another way of saying a mixture of the

33-year-old woman pictured on the front cover and

the 68-year-old woman on the back. “Stovepipe,”

which ran in the Autumn 2010 issue of Northern

Woodlands, paints a spare, gothic image of a fire

being laid in an old farmhouse. Dusk (“the light

bent down as if to milk”); young tough country kids

juxtaposed with an ominous image of a stovepipe

thinned to lace. In nine lines she paints an image

full of mystery and magic and foreboding. And

then on the third, or fourth, reading, you notice that

it’s an acrostic – the first letter of each line spells

STOVEPIPE. The mad hatter at work.

In “Trouble Time” we’re shown a woman in bed

lying next to an unfaithful spouse. It’s winter and it’s

late and he’s sleeping. She’s awake and thinking,

heartbreakingly, Let I be she. The poem’s last line:

O soothe, sooth, soot.

Subtract me.

Is soo Verandah. So playful and poignant at the

same time.

Dave Mance III

Peak Experiences: Danger, Death, and Daring in the Mountains of the Northeast Edited by Carol Stone White

University Press of New England, 2012

There’s something about wilderness rescues and mishaps that seems to bring out the voyeur in

many of us. Are we drawn to the cautionary tale,

fascinated by the raw power of nature and the

arrogance of some people in the face of it? Maybe

we just want to think to ourselves, “I can’t believe

they did that! I would never do something that

stupid!” Or maybe it’s a bit like a train wreck – we

just can’t help but look. Whatever it is, tales of mis-

fortunes in the wilderness have long been popular

in fiction and nonfiction, and those who spend time

in the mountains love to trade in such tales.

So what goes wrong? People go into the

woods, they make decisions (often influenced

by dehydration, hypothermia, bad map reading,

lousy communications, underestimating weather

conditions, overestimating fitness, and fear) and

Mother Nature just does what she always does.

In Peak Experiences, a few of the 54 stories are

recounted in standard accident-report form, but

most are told by the rescued and the folks who

had a close call. Many, like a good fishing tale, are

Yellow

Willows, their yellow indigestible haze

almost first to billboard spring.

Later, a yellow warbler, the butter-colored

bloom of him chestnut-striped.

Breast engorging, throat swelling he

tips back his head, skies his voice

from a thin branch not bending

under song’s weight. He slings

a rising streak of notes —

so yellow and yellow and then yellow…

SUSANNAH LAWRENCE

Norfolk, CT

entertaining, funny, and have a message to pass

on to the reader (assuming the reader is a soon-to

-be hapless fellow adventurer).

Peak Experiences is organized around such

topics as weather, rescues, treacherous places,

the dangers of water, and animal and avian

behavior. Each section includes a somewhat

oddball assortment of entertaining tales. Doug

Mayer’s story of getting himself out of the woods

with a broken leg, and Laura Waterman’s tale

of nearly drowning in her sleep in the middle

of winter both stand out, but my favorite was

Donna Brigley’s “Never Underestimate the Power

of Pudding.” Brigley’s story is of a much longer

journey, framed by her time in the mountains

and filled with uncertainty, loss, and searching.

She manages to convey how necessary spending

time in the mountains is to the health of her soul

while contemplating the inherent risks. She writes

about why she needs the woods. She ties it up in

a bow. And I’m a sucker for pudding.

The stories are great, but Peak Experiences is

also a helpful book. Advice and “Cliff Notes” of

backcountry travel wisdom are sprinkled through-

out each chapter. And the appendices include a

list of clubs and organizations that can get you

started in adventures in the outdoors, safety

guidelines, and suggestions for further reading.

All of the stories show the rewards of back-

country travel and the risks involved – risks that

apply to all, no matter how well prepared you are

or how impeccable your decision-making is. Those

who venture into the woods need to be skilled,

prepared, and fit, have good information and

dependable partners, and make sound decisions.

But they also need a bit of luck – for in the end,

it may just be that tiny bit of luck that makes the

difference between a close call and a tragedy.

Carl Demrow

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 65 5/15/13 4:47:45 PM


THE A. JOHNSON CO.Bristol, VT (802) 453-4884

Evenings & Weekends call:802-545-2457 - Tom

802-373-0102 - Chris M.

802-363-3341 - Bill

WANTED: SAW LOGSHard Maple • Red Oak

Yellow Birch • White Ash • BeechBlack Cherry • Soft Maple White Birch • Basswood

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 66 5/15/13 4:47:48 PM

These prices are for #1 hardwood logs, at least 8 feet long, with

three clear faces and a minimum 12-inch top diameter. In the

timber world, this is a log of average quality, not a prime sawlog

and not a poor one.

Landowners should remember that the dollar amount here

indicates what is being paid for logs that have been felled, limbed,

skidded, bucked, and delivered to a mill or buyer. The costs of log-

ging and trucking need to be subtracted from these figures to arrive

at the price paid to the landowner. Because every job is different,

these costs vary widely.

These data are compiled from interviews with suppliers and buyers

and from the most recent print and online versions of the Sawlog Bulletin, and are used by permission. For more information on the

Sawlog Bulletin, call (603) 444-2549 or go to sawlogbulletin.org. Please

note that many of these prices were reported three months prior to our

publication date, and current prices could be higher or lower.

NY VT NH ME DOLLARS PER THOUSAND BOARD FEET

White Ash NA 381 361 350

White Birch 292 187 250 375

Yellow Birch 356 517 463 550

Black Cherry 550 612 450 475

Sugar Maple 500 608 475 540

Red Maple 308 316 333 390

Red Oak 425 443 443 375

MILL prices

Talking Timber

When Northern Woodlands first started reporting sawmill prices in the

summer of 2001, right about the time the .com bubble was bursting in

Silicon Valley, one could be forgiven for feeling a bit smug about the value

of their standing timber. Let the silly urban people invest in pets.com; we’ll

keep our money in tangible, traditional trees. Little did we know that the

1995-2005 peaks in securities markets, housing construction, and wood

products were not normal. In fact, this was its own bubble waiting to burst.

And burst it did for the big three hardwoods – sugar maple, black cherry,

and red oak. This graph shows the cliff face. If you were a forestland owner

But for now we’re left with this snapshot of 12 years, and the lessons we

might tease out of it. It’s interesting how the lower-grade trees held their

value through the fall, how yellow birch has begun to outcompete oak and

even cherry in some areas. Probably an economist would tell you that the

moral is to stay diversified, think total return, don’t try to time the market,

cut lightly and frequently. Probably the more philosophical lesson is that a

timberland investor should take her lessons from the trees. Grow slowly. Be

patient. Weather the drought years and the insects and the Wall Street col-

lapses and the fickle human fashions. People will always need hardwood

and, in the grand scheme of things, 12 years is no big chunk of time.

Logs scaled with the International 1/4-inch Rule.

Prices compiled May 1, 2013.


per Mbf

WOOD VALUE AVERAGES (in constant 2001 dollars)

$800

$700

$600

$500

$400

$300

$200

$100

WTR

12

SUM

12

WTR

11

SUM

11

WTR

10

SUM

10

WTR

09

SUM

09

WTR

08

SUM

08

WTR

07

SUM

07

WTR

06

SUM

06

WTR

05

SUM

05

WTR

04

SUM

04

WTR

03

SUM

03

WTR

02

SUM

02

WTR

01

SUM

01

• Cherry

• Sugar Maple

• Red Oak

• Yellow Birch

• Ash

• Red Maple

• White Birch

• Beech

counting on your maple sawlogs to fund your retirement,

you’re probably still working. And, as one might

imagine, the collapse, coupled with competition from

imports and non wood substitutes, helped drive out the

mills that couldn’t adapt. This industry consolidation

has made collecting reliable data for this page difficult –

to the point where we’re going to discontinue reporting

mill prices in each issue.

It’s not all doom and gloom. Housing markets have

begun to recover and the hardwood markets should,

too. In our fall issue, we’ll be starting a regular profile

series on wood products companies that have perse-

vered and positioned themselves for success in this

new marketplace.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 67 5/15/13 4:47:48 PM

Issues 1–18: Digital Download Only

Issue 19: Winter 1998Clearcutting and Habitat Management Reforesting Lyndon State ForestZero Cut ControversyLong Trail Cleanup Favorite Places on Public Land


Issue 24: Spring 2000Hubbard Brook Experimental ForestLearning to Love LichensTree GirdlingRoadless DesignationAppalachian Trail in Canada

Issue 25: Summer 2000Adirondack Guide-BoatsFlying SquirrelsTree Biologist Alex ShigoLook Who’s Wearing the ChapsLearning in the Landscape

Issue 26: Autumn 2000A Buck Sheds his VelvetMaine’s Forestry ReferendumForestry at Paul Smith’s CollegeForests, Carbon, and Climate ChangeLandowners Learn About Habitat


Issue 33: Summer 2002Markets for Low Grade WoodThe Gifts of a ForestFire and GraniteMaine Teacher ToursReturn of the Trout?

Issue 34: Digital Download Only

Issue 35: Winter 2002The Forest at Quabbin ReservoirViolins from Spruce and MapleLiquidation Harvesting in MaineMapping Soils


Issue 37: Summer 2003New England Sawmill Bucks the TrendEeek! 370 Species of MiceThe Northern Woodlands StorySecret Life of SoilThe Flow of Wood in the Region

Issue 38: Autumn 2003Nature Conservancy’s New DirectionAdirondack Baseball BatsEfficient LoggingOwl PelletsA Different Kind of Diesel

Issue 57: Summer 2008Forest RelicsMarking a Timber SaleNoel Perrin’s Rural VisaIdentifying Woodland Grasses

Issue 58: Autumn 2008Doing Battle with Invasive SpeciesCircling ScavengersA Fall Feast for WildlifeNorth Woods Hunting Camps

Issue 59: Winter 2008Does Changing Climate Mean a

Changing Forest?The Deep, Dark WoodsThe Value of BiomassWinter Camping in the Maine Woods

Issue 60: Spring 2009Certification Comes to Family ForestsGrowing Your Own MushroomsSpringtime in the Turkey WoodsCan the American Chestnut Come Back?

Issue 61: Summer 2009Wild Bees in Your WoodlotCanoeing from the Adirondacks to MaineA Guide to Plants You Shouldn’t TouchNatural Disturbances and Forestry

Issue 62: Autumn 2009Colorful Dyes from the ForestSilviculture in Vermont’s National ParkBucks and Bulls in VelvetThe Beaver’s Felling Techniques

Issue 63: Winter 2009Which Bird Made That Nest?A Bygone Industry: Chemicals from WoodHow to Make a Holiday WreathSnow Fleas, Deer Yards, Scotch Pine

Issue 64: Spring 2010Spring Flower Show in the WoodsWhy Trees Grow Where They DoOn the Job with a Biomass BuyerForgotten Stump Fences

Issue 65: Summer 2010Old-Fashioned Bee Lining Tending a Woodlands GardenIncome Sources from Your ForestlandWhich Caterpillar Becomes Which

Butterfly?

Issue 66: Autumn 2010Biomass Debate Heats Up Native Invasives on Your WoodlotHabitat for WoodcockMaking a Windsor Chair

Issue 67: Winter 2010Goodbye to an ElmHow Many White Tails?A Maine Logging Camp in 1912Learning Lumberjack Skills

Complete your collection of Northern WoodlandsIssue 68: Spring 2011The Hope IssueBobcats on the ComebackRebuilding a Trout StreamA Place for Wolf Trees

Issue 69: Summer 2011House Hunting with HoneybeesMike Greason and the Gospel of SilvicultureTrends in Maine’s Log PricesHemlock Tanneries in Old New York

Issues 70 & 71: Digital Download Only

Issue 72: Spring 2012The Lowdown on GlyphosateGhost Moose and Winter TicksClouds Up CloseCrop Tree Release

Issue 73: Summer 2012Making Sense of Scientific NamesA Paper Mill RememberedNo Dry Matter: The Wood-Moisture RelationshipBioluminescent FungiBalsam Fir Pillows

Issue 74: Autumn 2012Warming Up with Wood PelletsA History of Fire Towers in the NortheastLessons from Last Year’s FoliageTrapping in the 21st Century

Issue 75: Winter 2012Cree Tradition & Transition in Northern CanadaChristmas on the Tree FarmThe Man Who Freed a GiantBeech Party on Your WoodlotA Harlequin (Duck) Romance

Issue 76: Spring 2013Where the Wild Things Go: How Animals DisperseThe Ballad of Amos CondonA Gym Floor from Local TreesOld Logging Films, Squirrel Sap TapsChainsaw Sharpening

Every issue provides a fascinating

array of stories about all aspects of

life in the forests of the Northeast.

Issue 39: Winter 2003The Cedar Family TreeA New Look at Gifford PinchotThe Fisher DiasporaWhen the Company Moves to China

Issues 40 & 41: Digital Download Only

Issue 42: Autumn 2004Bear Hunting ReferendumWind Power PrimerNative LumberA Tale of 21 Tails


Issue 44: Spring 2005Investing in a WoodlotGiant Silk MothsSpring WildflowersTamarack and Ships’ Knees

Issue 45: Summer 2005Growing and Selling VeneerLoons on the ReboundMedicinal Goldthread

Issue 46: Autumn 2005Timber TheftMoose RutHunters for the HungryRare Plants Rediscovered

Issue 47: Winter 2005Coexisting with WolvesBlue JaysExcellent ForestryScouting Cameras

Issue 48: Spring 2006Energy from Wood: Chips and BioethanolApple LaddersLogging in a Heron Rookery


Issue 50: Autumn 2006Maine’s Last Log DriveBooms and Busts in Grouse PopulationsNH Sawmill Uses Every Bit of SawdustBaffling Beavers


Issue 52: Spring 2007Discovering the Presettlement ForestNew Hampshire HomesteadersA Woodcock’s Spring ShowA Team of Draft Horses


Issue 56: Spring 2008Lyme Disease Marches NorthOutdoor Wood Boilers Under FireVisit a Water-Powered SawmillGrowing up Outdoors


15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 68 5/15/13 4:47:50 PM

We’ve got ALL of our archived content online in print format and/or digital downloads (as well as neat merchandise) at our shop: www.northernwoodlands.org/shop or use the mail-in order form below for print copies.

Check out our books!NEW: More Than a Woodlot, a Northern Woodlands publication,

a comprehensive guide to stewardship for the forest landowner in

the Northeast. Includes information on successful timber harvests,

wildlife management, consideration of your land’s future, and silvi-

culture, demystified ..................................................... PAPER $19.95

NORTHERN WOODLANDS’ BOOK The Outside Story: Local Writers Explore the Nature of New Hampshire and Vermont, gives

readers the inside scoop on local ecology. Local writers, including

Northern Woodlands’ staff and regular contributors, explore a broad

range of topics, from acid rain to garter snake mating. While the

subject is Vermont and New Hampshire, the book appeals to nature

enthusiasts across the Northeast................................ PAPER $19.95

The Tree Identification Book, by George W. D. Symonds. Tree

leaves, bark, buds, thorns, flowers, and fruit each have a separate

section in this book. This book was first published in 1958 and has

stood the test of time. Over 1500 black-and-white photographs

make the trees of the eastern U.S. easy to nail down. ..PAPER $20.00

The Shrub Identification Book, by George W. D. Symonds. The

companion to The Tree Identification Book (above). A complete

guide to the shrubs and other small woody plants... PAPER $20.00

SPECIAL: Buy the Tree Identification Book and The Shrub

Identification Book together for $36.00!

Mammal Tracks and Scat: Life-Size Tracking Guide, by Lynn

Levine & Martha Mitchell, is a handy waterproof field guide

designed to be carried through brush, bramble, and snow banks,

and emerge unscathed. It uses a novel three-step process to

identify tracks & scat of 29 different animals that are commonly

encountered in the field. ...........................................PAPER $19.95

Trees of New England, by Charles Fergus. Trees are listed alphabet-

ically by common name, and Fergus gives a description along with

range and ecology facts for each one. Information on how wildlife

and people use every listed tree is also included....... PAPER $16.95

Reading the Forested Landscape, by Tom Wessels. Bill McKibben

wrote, “What a fascinating book. Equal parts Sherlock Holmes and

Aldo Leopold, it will help thousands of New Englanders answer the

questions that come to mind as they wander this landscape of stone

walls, stunted apple trees, and towering hemlocks.” ...PAPER $18.95

Working with your Woodland: A Landowners’ Guide, by Mollie

Beattie, Lynn Levine, and Charles Thompson. Assessing your

woodland for various goals, creating a management plan, under-

standing management techniques, and harvesting – from deciding

on a schedule to handling the proceeds – are all covered thoroughly,

with an overall emphasis on carefully tending a forest for the very

long term. ................................................................... PAPER $23.50

Order books by title, using the magazine’s insert, or check out these and many other books, including kids’ selections: www.northernwoodlands.org/shop.

Please use the order form from the most recent issue:

NAME

ADDRESS

CITY

STATE ZIP

Method of payment (check one)

Check MasterCard Visa

CREDIT CARD NUMBER

EXPIRATION DATE 3 DIGIT SECURITY CODE

SIGNATURE

Back issues are $6.00 each

19 24 25 26 33 35 37

38 39 42 44 45 46 47

48 50 52 56 57 58 59

60 61 62 63 64 65 66

67 68 69 72 73 74 75

76

Total number of Issues

(Vermont residents add 6% sales tax) TOTAL $

Please include $5.50 for each domestic shipment of books and merchandise,

excluding back issues. Call our office for international shipping rates: (800) 290-5232

Please send to: Northern Woodlands Back Issues, P.O. Box 471, Corinth, VT 05039

Prints and posters of select photos are available for purchase. To order, call toll-free (866) 962-1191 or visit www.northernwoodlandsprints.org.


15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 69 5/15/13 4:47:55 PM


Importers of the highly advanced

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Britton Lumber Company

Manufacturers of Eastern White Pine Lumber Since 1946

P. O. Box 389 • 7 Ely RoadFairlee, Vermont 05045

[email protected]

www.brittonlumber.com

Learn from the Pros!

229 Christmas Tree Farm Road Chester, VT 05143

[email protected]

Northeast WoodlandTraining,Inc.

Call (802) 681-8249

Professional & Homeowner Game of Logging classes held

throughout New EnglandHands-on safety training for forestry-related equipment. •Chain saw •Skidder•Brush saw •Forwarder •Farm tractor •Harvester

www.woodlandtraining.com

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 70 5/15/13 4:47:58 PM

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

Craig Mooney, Valley Sunset, 48” x 48”, oil on canvas, 2008.

the outdoor PALETTE

Craig Mooney is a master of atmospheric perspective. He manipulates his oil paints to reflect the effect that

weather, atmosphere, and shifting light have on the appearance of a place. Mooney paints with a facility that

is fresh and exciting. Through his deft use of value, hue, and saturation, he is able to convince us of receding

distance and to play with what Leonardo da Vinci called “the perspective of disappearance.”

There is very little site-specific detail in Valley Sunset, and as Mooney explains, this is not a specific

locale; it is more an expression of how a dramatic sky interplays with the landscape in our region. This is a

place born of memory, experience, and a love of the Northeast. Though his landscapes may not be found

on a map, they are familiar and tenaciously rooted in the New England experience. We look at Valley Sunset and are reminded of Lake Champlain pushing north, of the Kennebec River snaking through farmland, or

of the Connecticut River Valley flanked by fertile croplands.

It is important to Mooney that when people look at his work, they are able to find their own experience

of place. Valley Sunset is one moment as the sun breaks through the clouds and lights up a valley. We all

know this moment to be beautiful and fleeting.

Craig Mooney is represented by galleries nationwide. Regionally his work can be seen at West Branch Gallery

in Stowe, Vermont, Jules Place in Boston, Massachusetts, and Gallery North Star in Grafton, Massachusetts.

He will have shows this summer at the Field Gallery in West Tisbury, Massachusetts and Maine Art in

Kennebunkport, Maine. Craig can be reached through his website, craigmooneystudio.com — Adelaide Tyrol


15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 71 5/15/13 4:48:00 PM


It was called a camp. A summer camp with a woods path leading

up from a sparsely traveled dirt road. We’d arrived by train, an

overnight trip, and we were met at the Brattleboro station by a

family friend, my father’s colleague. They were working on a

book together – the reason we had come to spend the summer

in Vermont. We had no car. It was 1945, the last year of the war.

I was five, my brother two.

As we wound up from the Connecticut River into the forests

near Wilmington, my father exclaimed, “Smell the air!” We

all breathed in air that was so cool and sweet. My father knew

Vermont air. He was born in Vermont. That was the other

reason we were here. My father wanted his children to know

Vermont, too.

The camp was on the lake. There was no telephone. “Your

ice will be brought weekly,” Mr. Barber, the real estate man who

opened the camp said to my mother. “There’s your icebox.” We

saw a shed through the window. A woodstove took up half the

kitchen floor. “Could roast a moose,” Mr. Barber said, patting

the stove’s cast iron flank. My mother blanched. “But you’ll cook

on this.” He gestured to a two-burner oil stove sitting on spidery

legs. “Here’s your oven.” He picked up what looked like a bread

box. “You set it on top.” He demonstrated to show my mother

how easy it would be to prepare meals for her family of four. He

turned a knob at the sink. Water gushed out in a silvery stream.

“It comes from the lake,” he said. “You’ll heat your hot water

on the stove.” “Don’t drink it,” he said, turning the water off.

“The well’s out back. Send the kids for the drinking water.” He

grinned at us. “Make sure you prime the pump, otherwise you’ll

wreck it.” My mother walked into the living area and sat on the

couch in front of the fieldstone fireplace. The couch swung back

and forth. It squeaked. It was a swinging couch on springs. My

mother burst into tears. Our father saw Mr. Barber out.

We spent the next eight summers there.

The camp was in the woods. The air around it smelled of

balsam, fresh and tangy. There were other camps on the road

but we couldn’t see them. The woods across the lake were

undisturbed by man. The camp had a porch across the front,

from which we could look deeply into the surrounding trees

– thick, dark, and green. My brother and I scanned the woods

for movement.

We became fascinated by chipmunks. When our parents

had drinks on the porch with guests, who came because of my

father’s work, my brother and I would strew cocktail peanuts up

the porch steps to entice chipmunks. Chipmunks, shy of adult


A PLACE in mind

Laura Waterman

talk, remained aloof. But when we came out after dinner to

inspect, the peanuts were gone.

When it was just us kids, a chipmunk would hop up the first

step, grab a nut, and retreat to a nearby rock. We’d be extra still.

The chipmunk would come back, hop up two steps, scarf a pea-

nut, scamper to the same rock, and nibble rapidly, working the

nut between his paws. Our goal was to entice a chipmunk up to

the porch itself. There were six steps. One day this happened.

The chipmunk took the nut from the porch floor, only a few

feet away from where we crouched, motionless as any woodland

creature who doesn’t want to be seen.

One chipmunk became our friend. Not that exactly, but he

became identifiable when he lost his tail. In a battle with another

chipmunk? For several weeks it dragged behind him, until it

fell off. Then he became our Chippy. We were relieved to see

Chippy could climb, scamper, and scurry as well as if he had his

tail. Would Chippy be there, was the question our whole family

asked as we drove up from New Jersey each summer. Chippy

always was, until suddenly he wasn’t. My brother and I roamed

our woods hoping to encounter him. We never did.

In the evenings we walked along the road with our mother.

“That’s Indian paintbrush.” She pointed out the orange tuft on

an upright stalk. “And that’s black-eyed Susan. See the dark disk

of her eye?”

My father found our picnic spots: a field of ferns and steeple-

bush; an old woods road leading to a rushing stream. We’d bring

our bathing suits.

Our parents transplanted from the loamy woods a jack-in-

the-pulpit and a pink lady’s slipper by the porch. “Be careful

around them, children,” they said. We were because they were

so undefended and beautiful. Would they be blooming when we

arrived in June? They always were.

We made balsam pillows under our mother’s direction, clip-

ping the boughs, stripping the needles, sewing little sacks to be

filled. We took them to our winter home and tucked them in our

drawers. On days when school bore down and summer seemed

far away I would open up a drawer and release that tangy balsam

smell. Our Vermont summer would come again. The woods, the

chipmunks, the lake where we learned to swim – it was sleeping

now and waiting.

Laura Waterman writes about environmental issues and founded the Waterman Fund,

which works to combine education and stewardship to preserve alpine areas. She

lives in East Corinth.

15813_WOOD_SUM13.indd 72 5/15/13 4:48:07 PM

saving the new england cottontail · 2014-02-25 · a new way of looking at the forest summer ’13...

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