The Spruce Budworm Returns

WINTER ’14
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
The Spruce
Budworm Returns
A Primer on Plant Signatures
Weaving History (and Ash)
French Forestry, Salvaging Sunken
Wood, Neat Things About Needles,
and much more
$5.95
on the web
WWW.NORTHERNWOODLANDS.ORG
Cover Photo by Mandy Applin
Photographer Mandy Applin spent many hours
last winter observing and photographing
a parliament of short-eared owls in the Finger
Lakes region of New York. “Just before sunset,
the owls became active, hunting for prey over
an open, grassy area. They were close enough
to hear as they occasionally called to one
another, but far enough away to be quite
challenging to photograph,” said Applin. This
photo was taken with a Nikon D7100 camera
and a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens attached to
a 1.7x teleconverter.
THE OUTSIDE STORY
Each week we publish a new
nature story on topics ranging
from otter spraint to lateblooming asters.
EDITOR’S BLOG
“Depending on your spouse’s
level of squeamishness, bringing
flesh-eating beetles into your
basement may also cost you
your marriage.”
From: Cleaning Skulls
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 a young
buck’s velvet-covered antler.
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VOLUME 21 I NUMBER 4
WINTER 2014
Elise Tillinghast
Executive Director/Publisher
Dave Mance III
Editor
Patrick White
Assistant Editor
Amy Peberdy
Operations Manager
Emily Rowe
Operations Coordinator/
Web Manager
Jim Schley
Poetry Editor
REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS
CENTER FOR NORTHERN WOODLANDS EDUCATION, INC.
Virginia Barlow
Jim Block
Madeline Bodin
Marian Cawley
Tovar Cerulli
Andrew Crosier
Steve Faccio
Giom
Bernd Heinrich
Robert Kimber
Stephen Long
Todd McLeish
Brett McLeod
Susan C. Morse
Bryan Pfeiffer
Joe Rankin
Michael Snyder
Adelaide Tyrol
Chuck Wooster
Copyright 2014
DESIGN
Liquid Studio / Lisa Cadieux
Northern Woodlands Magazine (ISSN 1525-7932) is published
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Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
1
C
Center for Northern
Woodlands Education
from the enter
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
President
Richard G. Carbonetti
LandVest, Inc.
Newport, VT
Vice President
Bob Saul
Wood Creek Capital Management
Amherst, MA
Treasurer/Secretary
Tom Ciardelli
Biochemist, Outdoorsman
Hanover, NH
Si Balch
Consulting Forester
Brooklin, ME
Sarah R. Bogdanovitch
Paul Smith’s College
Paul Smiths, NY
Starling Childs MFS
Ecological and Environmental
Consulting Services
Norfolk, CT
David J. Colligan
Colligan Law, LLP
Buffalo, NY
Esther Cowles
Fernwood Consulting, LLC
Hopkinton, NH
Dicken Crane
Holiday Brook Farm
Dalton, MA
Julia Emlen
Julia S. Emlen Associates
Seekonk, MA
Timothy Fritzinger
Alta Advisors
London, UK
Susan Morse has contributed to this magazine since its early years. One of her
first articles appeared in our Winter 1997 issue. The topic was lynx. The opening
paragraph mentioned her involvement in live-capturing a mountain lion.
As far as I can determine, live-capturing a mountain lion is part of a typical
day in the life of Sue. She disputes that characterization – claiming that she
spends a lot of time in reverie on her couch – but my recent experience trying
to set up a holiday event with her suggests otherwise.
The event, which will serve as a 20th anniversary celebration for both Northern Woodlands
and Sue’s non-profit, Keeping Track®, should have been straightforward enough to organize;
the problem was that Sue kept disappearing. At different times when I tried to reach her she
was in Katmai National Park and Preserve studying brown bears, in northernmost Alaska
traipsing the shore of the Beaufort Sea where she photographed polar bears eating dead
whales, and tracking caribou in Quebec’s Ungava Peninsula where, alas, she pulled a tendon
falling down a hole while carrying a 55-pound pack across the tundra in a blizzard.
I finally tracked down our “Tracking Tips” columnist long enough to nail down plans. Then
she disappeared again, on a quest for badgers.
So, please see page 56 for details about the event, which will occur on Friday, December
12, at the Norwich Book Store in Vermont. And if you come, treat with extreme suspicion any
claims by Sue about quiet days on her couch.
Speaking of the day-to-day: I’m pleased indeed to announce the publication of our “Season’s
Main Events” perpetual calendar. Written by Virginia Barlow, this brand new calendar is an
appealing way to learn about what’s happening right now in local nature. I hope this will find
its way into many classrooms and libraries, and it makes a great gift and stocking-stuffer, too.
You can learn more by calling our office, or accessing our online store.
Finally, I’d be remiss to let this column end without thanking everyone who has contributed to Northern Woodlands’ educational mission in 2014. Your contributions enabled us to
increase our print run this year, putting the magazine into the hands of many new readers. It
helped us make critical upgrades to our website, share educational resources, and invest in
projects (the calendar’s an example) that will broaden our educational reach, while also contributing to the long-term sustainability of our nonprofit. Thank you for the financial support,
in-kind assistance, advice, and encouragement.
Onward to 2015!
Elise Tillinghast, Executive Director, Publisher
Sydney Lea
Writer, Vermont Poet Laureate
Newbury, VT
Peter S. Paine, Jr.
Champlain National Bank
Willsboro, NY
Kimberly Royar
Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department
Montpelier, VT
Peter Silberfarb
Dartmouth Medical School
Lebanon, NH
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.
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.
in this ISSUE
features
28 Spruce Budworm
46
DAVE SHERWOOD
38 Doctrine of Signatures
ALLAIRE DIAMOND
46 Maine Basketmakers
JOE RANKIN
departments
2
4
6
8
9
38
From the Center
Editor’s Note
Letters to the Editors
Calendar
Birds in Focus: Fusion Foods
BRYAN PFEIFFER
11
Woods Whys: Needles vs. Leaves
MICHAEL SNYDER
13
Tracking Tips: Hoof Anatomy
SUSAN C. MORSE
28
14
27
54
Knots and Bolts
1,000 Words
The Overstory: Eastern Hemlock
VIRGINIA BARLOW
58
Field Work: Mining Timber
JOE RANKIN
63
Upcountry
ROBERT KIMBER
66
Discoveries
TODD MCLEISH
73
Tricks of the Trade: Making Charcoal
BRETT R. MCLEOD
74
76
79
WoodLit
Donor List
Outdoor Palette
ADELAIDE TYROL
66
80
A Place in Mind
ANDREA LANI
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
3
EDITOR’S note
By Dave Mance III
How to Bow Hunt in the Rain
Growing up, I never got along that well with school, but I always loved to read and especially
loved to read hunting stories, which were their own genre back then. Wilson Rawls’ Where
the Red Fern Grows – a fabulous book about a boy, his dogs, and their coon-hunting adventures
in real-world nature – was required reading in my fourth-grade class, despite the fact that
two major characters are disemboweled and one dies from starvation. My partner teaches
fourth-grade in a semi-rural school and her kids are now reading Gregor the Overlander, a
book about a city kid who falls through a grate in his apartment building into a fantasy world
full of giant cockroaches and rats. Nothing and everything has changed in the last 30 years.
Anyway, thanks in part to authors like Rawls, I grew up and became a writer. I got my start writing hunting
stories for weekly newspapers. Many of my pieces had a how-to bent, complete with excitable punctuation
(“How to Bag the Biggest Buck of your Life!”), an homage to the Field and Stream columnists I admired and
a byproduct, I suppose, of growing up in a family of teachers. I’m tempted to make fun of my 20-year-old
self for having the audacity to think I was qualified for the gig – it’s a little like the high-schooler who tells
his mother he’s dropping out of school. (“And what do you think you’ll be qualified to do with a tenth-grade
education?” “Teach ninth-grade.”) But I’m not sure that’s fair. In some ways, young me deserved the platform.
I was a driven hunter with a handful of good bucks to my credit; more importantly, I had the certainty of
youth on my side, which I’ve come to recognize as its own immeasurable asset. In the book Moneyball, Billy
Beane, a highly touted baseball prospect who had all the natural ability in the world, recalls being benched
in favor of teammate Lenny “Nails” Dykstra, who was half as skilled and twice as ignorant. Beane basically
thought his way out of the league – he studied so hard he psyched himself out and couldn’t hit anymore.
Dykstra didn’t think much at all and went on to have a storied career. In one memorable exchange, Dykstra
– a rookie – is getting ready to go to bat with the game on the line and asks Beane who the pitcher is. Beane
looks at him incredulously and says the guy’s only one of the best pitchers in the history of the game. None
of it registered on Dykstra’s face, who shrugged his shoulders, sauntered up to the plate with a chip on his
shoulder as big as Texas, and promptly delivered the game-winning hit.
Deer hunting’s kind of like this in that the more you know, the harder things can be. As you age, you find that
early successes are not easily replicated and that what you’d thought were sure-fire tricks were mere hints, at best.
You develop an almost reverential respect for the deer, who over time prove themselves to be remarkably adept
at staying alive. If you’re not careful, you can become Billy Beane; furrow your brow because the wind’s swirling
or because it’s too hot or because the rut is in this phase or that, wondering if you should go north or south and
whichever way you choose second-guessing yourself. Whereas when you’re young and Lenny Dykstra, you simply
announce that you’re going to go shoot a deer and head straight out into whatever direction you’re facing.
Bow season opened on a rainy Saturday this year. It was a miserable Nor’easter type rain – vertical at times,
with a nasty, swirling wind. Had I taken advice from my younger self (During the pre-rut, hunt concentrated
food sources!) I would have been in the lowlands where the oaks and hickories were masting at bumper rates.
But the oak woods I hunt are full of chipmunks this year, whose scoldings pulse like asynchronous alarm
clocks and wear on you after a while. They’re close to town, too. Close enough to hear vehicles on the highway,
roosters kerr-ker-rueing on the old Rice farm, the teenagers down in the Hidden Valley gravel pit filling the
sand full of shot. As I age, getting away from things has become more important than playing the hunting
odds, something I suspect is somewhat universal. “I don’t care if I even see a deer this year,” said my brother
recently. “I just don’t want to see people.”
And so I found myself in bigger woods, high up in the Green Mountains. I spent Friday night at camp with
my dear friends Jamie and Hiya, then headed out early Saturday morning to hunt in the driving rain. I walked
for a mile or so into the wildest country I could find and took a stand in a copse of old-growth hemlocks,
the land steep enough here to have kept the skidders at bay. The brown and deep-green color pallet seemed
somber compared to the festive deciduous foliage. The only flashes of color were wine-red shelf fungi and
glowing shards of milk quartz that rose from the earth; chalk white like old bones.
I nestled into a crevice that afforded me a bit of protection from the wind, a 180-degree view, and a couple
4
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
choice screening trees that would allow me to bring my bow to full draw. And then I tried not to think of the rain,
which was heavy enough to run through my pants and down my legs, or work, or any number of personal threads
– good things and bad, important and otherwise. A friend was having marriage trouble and losing weight. The
Patriots’ offense line had been a sieve since they traded Logan Mankins. My ex-wife wrote to say our cat had died.
One of my old tips was to pick your hunting strategies based on conditions. (If the tracking conditions are ideal,
track! If they’re not, sit!) But as you get older it gets harder to compartmentalize and leave your domestic life behind
when you enter the woods. Sometimes you’ve got to keep moving to escape your own head.
You can track deer in the rain on bare ground fairly effectively if you know the country you’re hunting. You
have to be able to pick up on subtle clues to find the track – an upturned leaf, a dent in the dirt. Oftentimes
you need to use your fingers to touch the finer details. You have to know enough about deer to ascertain the
sex and scenario – a buck is going to act differently than a doe/fawn group. And you have to have a portfolio
of past experiences that’s expansive enough to help you predict where they’re going. At this point your brain
takes the available clues and creates a story; you then follow the storyline to the deer.
If you’re not of this world this probably sounds like a load of mystic bull, but you’d be surprised at how
often it works. If you’ve ever picked your way along a familiar forest path on a pitch-dark summer night, your
feet and your ears and your nose taking over and somehow seeing you through to an open meadow and faint
star light, it’s the same sort of instinctual, animal thing.
I gave up my stand and soon found a pair of tracks scuffing through the hemlock duff, bounding at first then
slowing to a purposeful trot. They looked like they were left early that morning, so I followed them down the
mountain into a forest full of red maple and beech. My story was that they were a doe and a yearling and they
were going to follow the curl of the hill and hold in a hardwood flat where I’d pushed doe/fawn groups many
times before. As a younger man I didn’t shoot does; a relic of the don’t-shoot-the-mothers ethos prevalent
among Vermont hunters in the 1980s and probably a macho streak that wanted to put big antlers on the wall.
These days I still can’t shoot a doe who’s with young-of-the-year, but the yearlings and older ones are fair
game. Hunting’s more like gardening, a bow more like a hoe.
Twenty minutes later, I pushed the deer: a doe and a yearling. They ran downhill, tails down, into the wind.
The deer aren’t spooky on the first day of archery season, and so I trotted parallel to where they’d gone, hoping
they wouldn’t go far. About 100 yards on, I turned downhill and stopped at a vantage point overlooking an old
patch cut that had come in to hay-scented fern. I took a knee and looked left to where I figured the deer might
come sneaking to try to get my wind. A full minute later I noticed that both deer were already there – about
30 yards away at the far edge of the opening, standing motionless and watching me. I squared my torso and
drew my bow. I blew the peephole clear of water – the rain was still just pounding down. I’d never be able to
follow a blood trail if this deer wasn’t hit cleanly. My last thought was: don’t you dare shoot her in the belly.
My brain heard loud and clear and the arrow went flying harmlessly over her back.
The deer bolted; one headed north, the other south. I went to the point where they’d separated and found
a good spot where I could see in all directions. I’d wait here to see if they’d returned to join back up – a decent
play in these types of situations. This was a trick I didn’t know when I was 20, and so age and wisdom might
have ruled the day after all.
But as I sat there in the rain waiting for that doe to come back I felt myself beginning to lose. I was cold and
hungry. Hiya would be back in camp, where there would be a fire in the woodstove and an afternoon playoff
baseball game on the radio. “Don’t give up!” was one of my 20-year-old pearls of wisdom. When I was rereading
those early columns, it was the tip that seemed most hackneyed. And yet at that moment this piece of wisdom
shone in its intended glory, and I was able to remember myself more sympathetically. Basically an earnest kid
who didn’t like to lose. Really the only trick I knew back then was to stay out chasing deer all day while the older
guys sat in camp and played cards. But you know, that can be the best trick in the whole book.
“Don’t give up,” I thought. Said out loud, maybe even in my 20-year-old voice. But I did. I shivered against
the rain and unnotched my arrow and walked uphill toward camp.
It was a good tip, kid. That was a nice piece.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
5
letters to the EDITORS
Mixed Nuts
To the Editors:
As usual, the recent issue was good
from cover to cover. I think I can add
something to the story on harvesting
sblack walnut meats [Foraging,
Autumn 2014]. First, after letting the
nut husks decay, I put the nuts in my
small cement mixer with water and several rocks
and tumble the mix for 20 to 30 minutes. (If you
don’t own a mixer, maybe your neighbor has one.)
In the end, a rinse will give very clean nuts ready
to be dried for several weeks. At that time, I do the
initial cracking with a bench vise where the nuts
can be rotated once or twice to get maximum
cracking without crushing. Thereafter, diagonal
wire cutters are the best tool to finally obtain good
nut meats.
Russ Seaman, Rougemont, North Carolina
Bear of an Issue
To the Editors:
I enjoyed the editorial on the battle to ban bear
baiting in Maine [Autumn 2014], even though I
do not hunt and always thought of bear baiting as
unfair. I am glad there are reasonable, smart people that can write well to encourage and educate
others to be tolerant. After reading your thoughts,
I understand the hunt is not always the same for
everyone and that is alright. As you say, most hunters have their own personal ethics. My husband
– who got his Maine guide license a few years ago
– is a responsible and ethical hunter, even though I
would have a hard time pulling the trigger.
Jane Howe, Tunbridge, Vermont
An Atheist’s Answer
To the Editors:
Your piece “Theology of a Quaker Logger” [Autumn
2014] compelled me to write. I am an atheist and
a logger. And a sawyer. And a creator of finished
pieces from those logs sawed into lumber. I’ve
broken my back, my hip, been bruised, cut, and
pummeled, been close to death a number of
times. None of that changed my atheism or what
is. For me, the deepest spiritual realization is that
we don’t know. Mystery is all round; awe for what
is need not have anything to do with belief or faith.
To label the creator of all that
mystery God takes some of the
mystery out, attempts to give
cause to mystery. The incredible assertion “I know there is a
god” flies against that wonderful
piece of wisdom: we know that
we don’t know.
David R. Southwick, Enosburg Falls, Vermont
Timber Theft: Take an Active Role
To the Editors:
Your article on timber theft [Cutting Down on
Crime, Autumn 2014] contained a great discussion on the various forms of timber theft and
deceptive practices, including the degrees of success states are having on enforcement. Because
the article was enforcement-focused, I hope
landowners don’t come away with the impression
that both enforcement and prevention are best
served by government. During my 36-year career
in forestry, the best outcomes I have witnessed
were those where landowners took time to take
an active role by educating themselves on the
best options to manage their woodlands and sell
their timber. It’s not hard to find information. (A
quick Google search on “selling timber” revealed
23,000,000 hits.) Here in Connecticut, the Division
of Forestry has a guidance brochure entitled “Ever
Thought of Selling Your Timber?,” and has service
foresters who can provide landowners additional
advice and information. Other states offer similar
resources. Yes, that means putting the person
who knocks on your door with a deal on hold until
you are up to speed on the best options. It’s a
rare day indeed that any delay while you educate
yourself will result in anything but a better outcome for both your woodlot and your wallet. It’s
true that effective enforcement can deter some
timber theft and deceptive practices. However, in
my opinion, it’s the landowner’s diligence that is
the first and most effective line of defense. Finally,
I agree with the comment contained in the article
about most loggers being hardworking honest
people. I hope this important discussion does
not discourage landowners from managing their
forests, including harvesting forest products.
Doug Emmerthal, program specialist,
Connecticut Division of Forestry
We love to hear from our readers. Letters intended for publication in the Spring 2015 issue should be sent in by
January 1. Please limit letters to 400 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.
6
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
Champion Trees
To the Editors:
The formula for measuring champion trees is
shown in “Going Big” [Autumn 2014], although
without describing the challenge faced in determining one of the three required measurements.
The first, circumference at breast height, should
be no problem for anyone with basic tree knowledge and a standard steel diameter tape. The
second, tree height, is almost as easy (using a
long tape plus a vertical-angle instrument such as
a clinometer, hypsometer, Haga altimeter, or Abney
level). However, the third measurement, average
crown width, is not in a forester’s typical repertoire, and to be done accurately requires a special
instrument not readily available. I am aware of
two designs for constructing such a device: one
published by Wayne D. Shepherd of the U.S. Forest
Service (Forest Service Research Note RM-229,
1973); the other by William H. Dunn of the U.S.
Forest Service North Central Forest Experiment
Station (1977). If anyone has trouble obtaining
these documents, I would be pleased to send you
PDF copies of them [email westing@sover.net].
Arthur H. Westing, Putney, Vermont
An article in the Autumn issue [“Going Big,” page
36] asked for submissions of your favorite big
trees. Here are a couple gigantic examples we
received on Facebook and via email.
Clockwise from top left:
A striped maple crop tree with beer can for scale, submitted by Joseph Adams,
Rupert, Vermont.
A monster maple, sent in by Jeremy Turner and discovered by his wife, Laura
French, during a timber cruise in New Hampshire.
“How about this yellow birch! I am hanging onto an old barbed wire fence through
the middle,” wrote Nan Williams; photo taken in Rowe, Massachusetts.
The second largest bur oak in New York, sent in by Dave Swanson from the Finger
Lakes region.
Mike Larsson in a forest of big tulip trees in Welwyn Preserve, not far from the
shore of Long Island Sound.
Dan Heale and a huge ash tree in Zoar Valley, Gowanda, New York.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
7
C A L E N D A R
A Look at the Season’s Main Events
By Virginia Barlow
December
January
February
FIRST WEEK
Wintergreen is a fragrant evergreen plant
that creeps along the ground. By now,
its single, white flowers have developed
into bright red berries that are eaten by
deer and grouse / Spring peepers are
hibernating in the woods beneath several
inches of soil / Tree sparrows have
returned – from the north, where they
have been nesting on the tundra. Here,
they’re more likely to be on the ground
below birdfeeders or looking for grass
seeds than in trees
Jan. 5 – Full Moon. Native Americans called
this moon “The Full Wolf Moon” / During
cold spells, loud booming can be heard
when lake ice contracts and cracks / Little
piles of seeds in the woodpile or in the
toes of shoes may be the work of whitefooted mice / Some mourning doves take
a short trip south, but many stick it out /
As cold weather settles in, grouse may
form coveys and roost in the lower branches of conifers, somewhat protected from
the wind
Sometime in February, NASA’s Dawn
spacecraft will encounter Ceres, a dwarf
planet in the asteroid belt. Photos taken
over several months will be sent back to
Earth / Feb. 6 – The giant planet Jupiter
will be at its closest to Earth and fully
lit by the Sun. If your binoculars are
fairly good, you should be able to see
four of its moons / For overwintering
birds, it’s probably as bad as it gets:
temperatures are still low and food
supplies are dwindling
SECOND WEEK
Dec. 13-14 – The Geminid Meteor Shower
is biggest of them all; there may be
120 meteors per hour at the peak /
Red-spotted newts form groups and
remain somewhat active beneath the
ice in ponds and streams. Those in the
terrestrial red eft stage are hibernating
under logs or forest debris / Sunflower
seeds and peanut hearts are good sources
of protein at birdfeeders / The red berries
of winterberry holly, held tight to the twigs,
are brightening wetlands
“As the day lengthens, so the cold
strengthens” / Goshawks are northern
birds and Vermont is near the southern
edge of their range / Beneath the ice,
some aquatic plants are photosynthesizing,
even at low temperatures and light levels.
This produces much-needed oxygen for
fish and other organisms / Common
plantain, with its thin, cylindrical seed
stalk, is also called rattail and that is what
its seed stalks look like now. Mice and
birds like the seeds
Woodchucks are curled up below the frost
line in their burrows, metabolizing the
body fat amassed in the summer and fall,
paying no attention to Ground Hog Day.
They’re not likely to be up and looking for
mates for another month or so / Flying
squirrels are spending their days in nests
lined with moss, lichens, grass, and/or
birch or cedar bark / Foxes will cache
food caught during good hunting days
in pits they dig in the snow. Then it is
covered over
THIRD WEEK
Wild cranberries are the same species
as the cultivated ones. The edible fruits
are still on the plants, in bogs and fens /
Northern shrikes breed in the far north but
sometimes appear at birdfeeders in our
area. It’s not sunflower seeds that they’re
after; this little predator eats birds (also
small mammals) / Green frogs may leave
ponds with low dissolved oxygen to overwinter in streams and seepage areas. They
will survive as long as they don’t freeze
Ivory-colored poison ivy seeds are still
on the vine, nutritious food for many
birds / Previously mated downy and hairy
woodpecker pairs are executing courtship
displays and reestablishing home ranges /
Chickadees in the cattails are likely to
be feeding on cattail moth larvae, not
the infinitesimally small cattail seeds /
An owl’s diet can be reconstructed by
taking apart the pellet of indigestible parts
that gets coughed up 6 to 16 hours after
its meal
Maple sugarmakers are on high alert. Sap
will start flowing in earnest anytime now –
if it hasn’t done so already / Robins will
winter as far north as they can. When
there is no snow and plenty of fruits and
berries, there will be robins / Blue jays
may be cleaning out your feeder, but they
are sharp lookouts and will sound the
alarm if any danger is sighted / Coyote
tracks may lead you to drops of blood from
females in estrus or urine from males
FOURTH WEEK
Woodpeckers sometimes drill holes in cow
parsnip stalks, searching for the insects that
shelter inside. Cow parsnips are huge, up
to 10 feet tall / When the ground is covered
with hemlock branch tips, a porcupine has
probably been at work. Deer often clean
up this mess / Deep snow is especially
important for shrews, as they remain active
in subnivian tunnels throughout the winter /
A raccoon’s long, sensitive fingers would
freeze if used in cold weather
Frost – on windows, trees, rocks, or any
other surface – takes on an endless number
of beautiful patterns / Big brown bats
hibernate singly in the southern parts
of their range but gather in clusters in
northern New England / Purple finches will
visit feeders for sunflower seeds / Red
squirrels often seem to think that the birdfeeder is just for them. They have some
claim to ancestral rights: squirrels evolved
in North America some 30 million years ago
February 22 – Conjunction of Venus and
Mars. During this rare event, these two
bright planets will be within half a degree of
each other. Look for them in the west, just
after sunset / Male skunks have the urge to
mate; their tracks will lead to female dens /
Foxes will be born soon, often in former
woodchuck dens / Wild turkeys seem to get
braver as their food supplies dwindle. They
may venture into yards and orchards for
spilled birdseed and fallen fruit
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.
8
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
BIRDS in focus
Story by Bryan Pfeiffer
Fusion Foods
GLENN PERRIGO
On a crisp, sunny day in September,
at the end of what was probably a
typical summer for a dragonfly (lots
of flying around, killing things, and
mating beside a pond), a common
green darner took off and began
to wander south. As it cruised past
the summit of Vermont’s Mt. Philo,
with Lake Champlain below and
the Adirondacks off in the distance,
the dragonfly crossed paths with a
merlin.
The merlin – a falcon that moves
like a fighter jet – specializes in
killing songbirds. But when it spotted
the fat, juicy dragonfly, the merlin swerved, plucked the darner
from the sky with its talons and began to eat on the wing.
So it goes with birds. Many species go off their diets, breaking
rules or notions we have about what they eat. Our perceptions
give us comfort by imposing a sense of order on nature:
Kingfishers eat fish. Hummingbirds drink nectar. Flycatchers
catch flies.
Except when they don’t.
Migration is one reason. Besides requiring raw determination
and innate navigational skills, migration takes calories, lots of
them, stored as fat and burned as fuel on long-distance flights.
Insects are a fine source of protein and fat for the trip, a healthy
snack for a southbound merlin.
But insects become scarce during the fall migration, which
would seem to be a problem for classic insect eaters such as
flycatchers and warblers. So the insectivores go for the next best
thing: fruit. In one study of 69 bird species stopping on Block
Island, Rhode Island, all but one (winter wren) had fruit in their
droppings. Least flycatchers, blackpoll warblers, red-eyed vireos, and scores of other self-respecting insectivores find essential fuel in the fruits of viburnum, bayberry, pokeweed, Virginia
creeper, and other shrubby plants and vines.
Gram for gram, fruit is lower in lipids and protein than insect
tissue. Even so, some birds fare well at the fruit bar, particularly
avian omnivores such as tanagers and sparrows, which tend to eat
fruit year-round and can maintain body mass and conditioning
on a fruit diet during migration.
The classic insectivores in the study, however, did not fare
as well when fruit constituted a greater portion of their diet.
Yet they often don’t have much choice. On the journey south,
songbirds might stop where fruit is the only option. If you were
weak and hungry, with miles to go, you might settle for an apple
if your hamburger weren’t available.
A merlin with a darner dinner.
For many migrants on their way south, the eastern seaboard
offers a banquet of fruits such as rose hips, bittersweet, and
poison ivy. Bayberry, a waxy source of fat for otherwise insectivorous yellow-rumped warblers and tree swallows, grows in
abundance along the east coast. But the coast is also where a
good many people live. Ornithologists now recognize the value
in keeping these shrubby swaths of habitat (even some invasives)
from being replaced by lawns or housing or shopping malls. For
many songbirds, it’s not only about the breeding and wintering
grounds; it’s also about the fruity turf that lies between.
Whether in migration or not, birds do eat some crazy stuff.
I’ve seen a herring gull crush and swallow a large Arctic tern
chick and a bald eagle nibble on the leg of a road-flattened
northern leopard frog. I’ve watched a snowy owl try to catch fish
at sea and a great blue heron unearth and swallow a gopher.
What may seem odd to us, of course, usually isn’t so odd
for birds. Nature has a way of toppling our assumptions. Those
of us in the Northeast, for example, who see warblers and flycatchers turning from insects to fruit in autumn, might have
it backwards. After all, many of those birds came here to nest
and to feed their young from our spring flush of black flies,
mosquitoes, and inchworm caterpillars. They visit for three or
four months of the year – and then they’re gone, back to the
tropics to eat fruit.
To my mind, a merlin, no matter how many dragonflies it
eats, will always be a songbird killer at heart. But a songbird that
we know as insectivorous may, in fact, be a fruitarian that for a
few months of the year prefers to eat bugs.
Bryan Pfeiffer is an author, wildlife photographer, guide, and consulting naturalist who
specializes in birds and insects. He lives in Montpelier, Vermont.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
9
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Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
CELEBRATING OVER 40 YEARS OF SAWMILL EXCELLENCE
woods WHYS
By Michael Snyder
Why Do Evergreen Needles Look So Different From Deciduous Leaves?
Ask anybody to draw a leaf and damn few would
draw a pine, spruce, hemlock, or fir needle, and
even fewer would draw the green scales of a
northern white-cedar leaf. Most would choose
maple or oak, right? But leaves they all are,
despite so many differences in their size, shape,
and approaches to the very important business
of being a leaf.
Let’s begin there. There are certain things
that all leaves do, regardless of their shape or
size or whether they are evergreen or deciduous.
Notably, all living leaves absorb sunlight and
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mix
them with the water and elements they wick
from the soil in that marvelous free lunch called
photosynthesis. They do this to make carbohydrates, which fuel their own existence and
growth. It is an imperative shared by all leaves.
Accordingly, both evergreen and deciduous
leaves make and use the pigment chlorophyll,
and so both appear green. Both release oxygen as a byproduct
of their self-feeding ways, and both leaf types provide food and
homes for all manner of animals, great and small.
From there, though, it’s mostly differences. For starters, and
with rare exceptions like tamarack, evergreen leaves remain on
the tree much longer than their deciduous counterparts. Despite
the misleading name, evergreen leaves are not green forever.
Leaves remain on the tree continuously for several years – as
many as 10 for some spruces – but eventually whole cohorts
turn yellow, orange, and brown and are shed, replaced by new
leaves in spring. In this way, the tree remains “ever green,” but it
does so with different age classes of leaves.
We also know that evergreen leaves look, feel, and even smell
very different than deciduous leaves. They tend to be linear and
smaller, more compact, and less flat. They appear, well, more
needle-like than leaf-like. They are sticky to the touch when
broken, and typically have a pungent, “evergreen” smell.
There are additional, if less visible, differences. Evergreen
leaves often have a blue-white, wax-like coating. And the pores
through which they exchange oxygen, water vapor, and carbon
dioxide with the atmosphere – their stomates – tend to be
sunken below that surface. Unlike the obvious veins of broad
leaves, evergreen leaves typically run their vascular systems
buried deeper within and surrounded by the photosynthetic
cells closer to the surface.
Taken together, these traits suggest a tree built to make do
in harsh environments. Think winter, when water can be very
hard to come by and there is nearly continuous abrasion from
wind, snow, and ice and relentless browsing by hungry animals.
If a tree is to keep its leaves through winter, they had better be
very tough and good at minimizing water loss. The tree’s life is
at stake.
Thus, our evergreen intrigue. The hardwoods go out in a
blaze of color at the first hint of cold, and nobody can blame
them. (Imagine what would happen to those flimsy leaves in
winter.) Evergreens persist and we’ve got to ask: how?
An evergreen’s tendency toward conical form and clustered
leaf arrangement allows it to shed snow while still capturing
light. Compact needle shape and waxy coverings minimize water
loss. And not having to make new leaves in the spring seems
to be an effective cost-saving measure. The tree gets several
years of production to pay off the costs of its leaf making.
Being able to photosynthesize during winter whenever
temperatures, sunlight, and moisture allow can be a real
advantage. Many studies indicate that while northernmost
evergreens develop such deep cold tolerance that they do not
photosynthesize in winter, many of our temperate evergreens,
such as red spruce and balsam fir, do. This is only an advantage
if the trees can balance production with protection, but given
climate change and a future where weather might become more
extreme, it’s an advantage that someday may really pay off.
Michael Snyder, a forester, is commissioner of the Vermont Department of Forests,
Parks, and Recreation.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
11
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12
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
TRACKING tips
Story and photos by Susan C. Morse
Clods, Wedgies, and Imprints
Tracking appeals to us because we enjoy sorting out nature’s subtle
clues – clues that lead us to visualize and appreciate the behavior
of different wildlife species. Simple tracks of moose and deer
are obvious discoveries for the most part. Other evidence, a bed
site, a rub, or a hair snagged on a twig tip – these are signs that
enable elusive species to come alive in our imaginations. What
I have named “hoof clods,” “wedgies,” and “hoof imprints” are
examples. Though related to tracks, they are more than that. They
are delightful physical pieces of the puzzle. You can
hold them in your hands and wonderfully feel the
presence of the moose or deer that left them.
First, let’s review some cervid foot nomenclature.
What we call a hoof is actually an extension of the
foot’s toes. The hardened clouts are the paired toenails of toes three and four. Smaller vestigial nails
for digits two and five are called dewclaws, and
over evolutionary time have become separated
from the main toe clouts of the hoof. Toe number
one (the equivalent of our thumb) is absent from
cervid feet.
The clout wall is analogous to our fingernails,
and its hardness contributes to the hoof ’s durability, traction, and sharpness for digging. Also called
the unguinus, the wall is made up of compressed
hairs that are glued together by body proteins. The
subunguinus is a narrow area of soft tissue located
between the wall and the inner callus pad. The
callus pad is the relatively hard but supple base
that forms most of a hoof clout’s bottom surface.
Back to clods, wedgies, and imprints. You can
find these signs in any season. All you need is packable mud or From top: Mud clod of cow moose,
freezing temperatures and snow. A hoof clod is a lump of earth perfect cow moose wedgie, bull
or snow that has been packed in between a deer or moose’s moose hoof imprint, alert doe in snow,
hoof clouts and subsequently dropped as differences in terrain and whitetail hoof showing anatomy.
hardness caused the clouts to flex and spread apart. Clods are
wedge-shaped and one can readily feel the smooth sides shaped by the inner walls of the paired
clouts. I call especially good ones wedgies. Of interest to transportation planners and wildlife
biologists, one can determine exactly where moose cross a roadway by searching for clods and
wedgies that have been expelled from hooves onto the hard pavement.
Imprints are moldings of the bottom of hoof clouts. Snow and ice become packed within the
wall edges and into the callus pad’s slightly concave surface. The packed snow builds up, much
as we sometimes experience a similar accumulation of snow within the crampons of our snowshoes. Look for a cast replica of a clout’s base with recognizable wall, subunguinus space, and
callus pad impressions visible. I often find perfect hoof imprints within or near a recently vacated
bed site. The warmth of the animal’s curled body covering its feet causes the frozen imprints to
thaw slightly, then to be released when the deer or moose stands up and exits the bed.
Susan C. Morse is founder and program director of Keeping Track in Huntington, Vermont.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
13
K N O T S & B O LT S
[ FORAGING ]
Wild Parsnips:
A Lesson in Safe Harvesting
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14
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
Yes, foraging can be risky. But most people approach wild foods with unnecessary caution. Foragers are often the subject of anxious looks even when nibbling
wild plants that are no more dangerous or difficult to identify than a garden
tomato. Just how cautious one should be when foraging is a question that each
forager must answer for him or herself. But there are sensible guidelines for
reducing the risk of your wild food adventures.
There are few better cases to illustrate this than the wild parsnip (Pastinaca
sativa). Parsnips are members of the carrot family, Apiaceae, which contains
some of the most toxic plants in the world. One member, water-hemlock (Cicuta
maculata), is so poisonous that a single bite may be lethal. Before gathering
wild parsnips, a forager should be able to identify water-hemlock and other
similar-looking poisonous plants at a glance. This is not as daunting a task as
it may sound. In our region, the list of dangerously toxic plants is a short one,
but it is a list that all conscientious foragers must commit to memory. Knowing
these plants also helps new foragers prioritize. Beginners can steer away from
the carrot family toward species that are easily identified and where the stakes
of faulty identification are much lower.
The next step is to spend time with comprehensive field guides. There is no
way around it: if you want to pursue an interest in wild foods, you must also
cultivate a familiarity with wild plants in general. When I first encountered the
parsnip, I cross-checked several guides until I was certain of my identification.
The guide also reminded me to handle the plant carefully, as the sap from parsnip
stems and leaves contain a toxin that can cause a nasty burn.
Field guides assume that the plant you are identifying is in flower, as this is
the stage of a plant’s life when it can be identified most reliably. But parsnips
in flower are not good to eat, having long since drawn the sugars and
nutrients from their roots. What’s a forager to do? Wait. Watch. Get to
know the plant through its whole life cycle. Parsnips are biennials:
they spend their first year storing energy in their big taproot and only
flower in their second year, using the stored energy to outgrow competing annuals. So in the fall I note the location of first-year parsnips.
Then I seek out their star-like, green rosettes in the spring.
Once harvested, prepare only a small amount of any new plant
for your first taste. If it tastes unpleasant, do not eat it. Unpleasant
flavors warn of toxins. Even if it tastes good, consume in moderation
at first. In the case of wild parsnips, I find this last bit of advice to
be the most difficult to follow – their sweet, spicy flavor makes
them difficult to stop eating.
Isn’t this a lot of work for a taste of wildness? At first, yes.
But once wild parsnips become familiar, you will gather them
with the same confidence you have when harvesting carrots
from a garden. The only difference is that the wild ones are free
for the taking. And for those who are nervous about wild foods,
it is good to remember that all food carries risk. Even the most
benign-looking garden strawberries will make you sick if eaten
in sufficient quantity. For those willing to explore the wild for new
flavors, foraging for plants like the wild parsnip can provide both
an education and an adventure.
Benjamin Lord
[ N A T U R A L LY C U R I O U S ]
Most songbirds use their nests only once. After their young have fledged, the nests
are usually abandoned. But nothing is wasted in nature. White-footed mice and
deer mice, both of which remain active year-round, often use old nests as larders
where they store food for the winter. Occasionally they even renovate a nest in the
fall in order to make a snug, elevated winter home. They do this by constructing
a roof (of milkweed fluff in this photograph) over the nest, which serves to keep
the snow out and provides a welcome layer of insulation.
Mary Holland/www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
15
K N O T S & B O LT S
[ INVASIVE PESTS ]
The Cold Can Only Do So Much
Lowest Minimum Temperature (°F)
Jan 2001–Feb 2014
-35
16
-30
-25
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
-20
-15
-10
-5
BARBARA SCHULTZ
According to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University,
last winter was among the top five coldest on record in Ithaca, New York,
when you consider the number of days the temperature dipped below zero.
The cold did a number on our wood piles, but did it affect exotic insects like
the hemlock woolly adelgid and the emerald ash borer? Unfortunately, the
answer is probably no.
Insects prepare for winter by building up glycerol – basically an antifreeze
– in their blood. The accumulation of glycerol is usually gradual in response
to environmental triggers. Cold tolerance varies between insect species and
according to the season. Typically, insects are the least cold tolerant in summer, gaining tolerance through fall and early winter to a high point in January
and February, and then gradually decreasing again in spring.
Many have hoped that the spread of exotic invasive insects would be
limited by cold winters in northern New England and New York. Last winter’s
very cold temperatures, in particular, fueled speculation that hemlock woolly
adelgid (HWA) might be set back. (The adelgid remains in place for life once it
settles on a twig and begins feeding, and so it can’t avoid the cold.) A recent
laboratory study demonstrated that HWAs in the Berkshire Mountains in
Massachusetts suffered 97 percent mortality at 22 degrees below zero and
none survived 31 degrees below zero.
The problem is that natural conditions rarely mimic lab conditions. As
everyone knows, there are cold spots and warm spots on the landscape.
And even when the temperatures do get cold enough to kill a large number
of individuals, the remaining HWAs – which are all female and reproduce
asexually – can ramp up reproduction and quickly rebound. Population
dynamics are a pretty nuanced thing, and while it might seem that 97
percent mortality would be hard to overcome, the reduced density means
less competition. The food quality of the hemlock twigs will stay better for a
longer time, giving the surviving HWAs a fertile field in which to flourish.
Research indicates that cold tolerance is a genetically linked trait, so
progeny of the survivors may also be cold tolerant. Last winter I worked
with students in my lab at Cornell University to monitor
two sites that have been harboring HWA for a few years:
one in Cayuga Lake in central New York, the other in
the northern Catskills. At a site near Cayuga Lake, the
temperature never got below 8 degrees
Jim Edsen, a forester with the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation,
conducts a woolly adelgid survey in southern Vermont.
below zero, yet we found HWA mortality to be 92 percent. On the other
hand, at a site in the northern Catskills, temperatures got to 24 degrees
below zero and we found only 82 percent mortality. It may be that HWA
populations in the northern Catskills have developed better cold tolerance
than the adelgids near Cayuga Lake.
The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) has an advantage over the HWA in that it
spends the winter under an ash tree’s bark, which shelters it from winter
extremes. The tree’s mass collects solar energy during the day, which
moderates low temperatures at night. The few hours of extreme cold
experienced in the early hours of a morning won’t be felt under the bark
of a tree. So even though your thermometer might indicate an extreme temperature, EABs are not nearly that cold.
Research on the cold tolerance of the EAB has been conducted in Minnesota
and Ontario. Lab research in Ontario indicated that the lethal temperature for
the EAB was between 9.4 degrees below zero and 15.5 degrees below zero,
whereas in Minnesota another lab study found 98 percent mortality at 30
degrees below zero. While 20-degree below zero temperatures were fairly
common in many locations last winter, there were also warmer periods
between these cold snaps that limited the amount of time a tree trunk
actually spent at that temperature. There’s currently no evidence that EAB
populations are developing cold resistance, but researchers in Minnesota
evaluated mortality in logs placed outside in 33-degree below temperatures,
and found that there were still a few survivors.
The take-home message is that cold temperatures are not a “silver
bullet” for controlling our invasive forest pests. By enduring the bitter cold
last winter we might have bought a year of relief with HWA, but due to their
reproductive prowess, they will be back soon, perhaps even stronger than
before. In New York, at least, EAB populations seem to hardly have been
phased by last winter. We must prepare for the arrival of these insects in
order to mitigate their impacts and make plans to preserve the genome of
our threatened native ashes and hemlocks through seed collection and treatment of seed trees to keep them alive. We need to act quickly and wisely to
conserve what we can of our native forests.
Mark Whitmore
[ THE OUTSIDE STORY ]
Spanning the Seasons
The sign in the window, which read “Clearance! Hats and Gloves 50% off,” puzzled me. Snowflakes
swirled on gusty winds. The bitter cold stung my fingertips. Clearance? Temperatures hadn’t climbed
above freezing for days; the warmth of spring was a distant dream.
Lose your gloves or your wool hat in winter, and when you go looking for a replacement you’re likely to
find sandals and sun hats on display. I used to rail against such a setup, assigning it to an insatiable human
propensity for speed, afraid that at some point we might just lap ourselves. But when I began to study trees,
and learned how their growth patterns transcend traditional seasonal boundaries, I softened my stance.
It began one summer when I was studying leaves – long and pointed, with coarsely toothed edges,
on American beech; seven or so leaflets supported by a central stalk on white ash; the finely toothed
leaves of paper birch. When autumn arrived, the leaves flashed brilliantly and fell, but the show wasn’t
over. The seemingly bare branches displayed buds for the next year’s leaves and flowers that were, as
botanist and writer Rutherford Platt described, “varied as jewelry, in all sorts of exquisite shapes and
bright colors.”
On beeches, the lance-like buds were such a vibrant chestnut-brown that I wondered how I could
have previously overlooked them. The brown, pointed buds of paper birches were less prominent, but no
less beautiful. The rounded buds on the tips of white ash twigs reminded me of the dome on a telescope
observatory.
Through buds I continued studying leaves, without waiting for spring. I discovered that inside each
bud, miniature leaves grow into intricate ptyxes, or folding patterns. Many leaves and stems are packed
together to allow the greatest volume in the smallest space, a process referred to as vernation. The
whole thing reminds me of a hiker trying to fit weeks’ worth of gear into a backpack.
These folding patterns are so specific and varied that they warrant their own set of botanical terms.
Beech leaves, for example, grow in a plicate pattern – pleated along the central rib. One theory holds
that the unique leaf shape of each tree is derived, at least in part, from the need for efficient folding
patterns within the bud.
Throughout winter and early spring, I watched the buds swell and grow longer until they seemed
ready to burst open, like racehorses at a starting gate. Buds, however, don’t just open in response to a
vagrant, unseasonably warm day or early season rain. Specific criteria – exposure to cold temperatures
for a cumulative, but not necessarily continuous, period of time, followed by adequate day length and
an accumulation of warm weather – must be met before buds break dormancy. Species, location on the
tree, genetic variation, and the weather of the previous season influence the requirements of each bud.
The buds opened like slow-motion jack-in-the-boxes. Stems elongated. Miniature leaves unfolded
and grew larger. The volume that grew from each tiny bud astounded me. For many species in our
region, including American beech and white ash, an entire year’s new leaves and new stems often
originate from this single flourish, a process called determinate growth. As soon as the flourish is over,
these trees develop new buds – at first smaller than the head of a pin – that will open the following
year. Other species, such as paper birch, have indeterminate growth – a series of buds form and open
during the growing season before the following year’s buds are produced.
With either growth form, the next year’s buds, which are completed before the leaves fall in autumn,
carry the legacy of seasons past. In spring, for example, the number of leaves and the length of the
shoots produced by each bud are greatly influenced by the previous summer’s environmental conditions,
such as temperature and moisture levels.
The growth process of buds and leaves is a continuous cycle that blurs traditional seasonal boundaries.
Planning ahead, it seems, has its advantages. This winter there is still time to find jeweled harbingers of
spring along the branches. And if you just can’t wait, cut some twigs at the end of February and place
them in a vase in a sunny window. You’ll get an origami lesson and an early taste of spring.
Michael Wojtech
The Outside Story is sponsored by the Wellborn Ecology Fund of New Hampshire Charitable Foundation: wellborn@nhcf.org.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
17
K N O T S & B O LT S
[ STEWARDSHIP STORY ]
Forestry in the Age of Instant Gratification
Instant messaging. Instant coffee. We live in an age
of instant gratification. So practicing forestry, where
rotations are measured in centuries, isn’t always
easy. This was made apparent to me when I was
a young forester, just starting my career managing
state forests in suburban Connecticut. One of my
first assignments was to plan and oversee a timber
harvest on Paugussett State Forest in 1984. I inventoried the stand of mixed hardwoods and wrote a
plan for the sale. It called for removing poorer-quality
trees on most of the 32-acre stand to improve the
overall quality and composition of the timber. There
was a 1.5-acre patch of tulip poplar sawtimber that
I thought would rapidly regenerate if it was clearcut.
Knowing that tulip poplar seed is viable on the forest
floor for up to seven years, and that the soils were
fertile, I expected a lush growth of seedlings the year
after the harvest.
What I didn’t expect was to be called by a reporter
from the local newspaper a few weeks after the cutting began. A local resident had complained that an
area of the forest had been entirely denuded of trees.
To quote: “It looks like you’re clearing for a house. It’s
totally stripped. Everything has been knocked down,
from tiny saplings to trees of tremendous girth. The
debris has been left there. Is the state planning to
clear it to allow new growth?” We invited the reporter
out to the site. We showed her the forest floor, covered by tulip poplar seeds that would quickly take
root the following spring. She took pictures and wrote
a well-balanced article. But the headline still blared
“Timber Harvest Looks Horrible.”
Fast forward to 2009 (an instant in forestry). In
conjunction with another timber sale on the same
state forest, I called a reporter from the same newspaper and showed her the now 25-year-old stand
of tulip poplars. This time the headline read “TipToeing Through The Timber Harvest – Doing Nature’s
Forestry With Chainsaws and Trucks.” The article was
very positive.
It’s been 30 years since the original cut. The
regenerated tulip poplars are tall and straight, and the
biggest ones are 14 inches in diameter. Most people
would walk right past it, except for the letterboxes.
A few years ago, the Connecticut Division of Forestry
installed a letterbox in each state forest to educate the
public in a fun way about forest management. One of
the boxes is in this stand of tulip trees. (You can find the
clues at www.ct.gov/deep/letterboxing)
I have learned to be proactive when it comes to
educating the public about forestry. Shortly before a
harvest begins, I notify neighbors, municipal officials,
and sometimes the local newspaper if necessary. The
Connecticut Division of Forestry installs informational
signs at all of its timber sales, explaining the reasons for
the harvest and a contact phone number of a forester
for more information.
So, no, practicing forestry in an age of instant gratification isn’t easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.
Jerry Milne
The author measures a 9-inch-diameter
black walnut tree growing at Paugussett State Forest.
This series is underwritten by the Plum Creek Foundation, in keeping with the foundation’s focus on promoting environmental
stewardship and place-based education in the communities it serves.
18
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
[ ECOLOGICAL ETYMOLOGIST ]
Dear E.E.: My husband thinks that the
“witch” in witch hazel refers to an actual
mole-on-the-nose witch. But I think
it’s witch like witch a well. Who’s right?
Neither of you, I’m afraid. People did dowse with it, but
that’s not where it got its name. It also doesn’t have anything to do with the local witch – those glam rock flower
petals are the give-away. The wizard of Oz’s Glinda aside,
no self-respecting witch would be seen in sunburst yellow.
Witches (the people) got their name around 900 a.d.
from the Old English verb wiccian (Old German wikken),
which meant to control or cast a spell on. Wych, on the
other hand, is an adjective meaning pliant. It’s been around
a little longer (since 700 a.d. or so) and has different roots,
coming from the Old English wice, Old German wik. Now
I’ll admit they look awfully similar (which is why even some
dictionaries get it wrong) but they’re linguistically unrelated,
and a speaker of Old English would have pronounced the
two words differently.
Hazel has also been in the English language since about
700 a.d., starting as haesel. It probably came to England
with the Vikings. (Hollywood likes to portray the Vikings as
brutal thieves, but there was a surprising amount of cultural
exchange.) Of course, the English people must have already
had a word for hazels, but it probably sounded more like
the Irish word coll. Interestingly, both words came from a
Proto-Indo-European word that was probably something
like koselo. Think of them as distant cousins – we know
they’re related, even though they look nothing alike.
The first known use of wych hasill was in Henry VIII’s
Unlawful Games Act of 1541, which outlawed all games of
skill except archery and mandated bows of “Elme, wyche
hasill, ashe, or other Wood.” Witch hazel as we know it
doesn’t grow in England so the law must have been referring to wych elm, which Gerard’s Herbal (dating from the
same time) calls witch hasell. You can see from the spelling
discrepancy that people were already confusing wych and
witch because the two words had come to have the same
pronunciation. It wasn’t until 1760 that a botanist called
our American shrub witch hazel. Of course, hazels are
the Betulaceae family, elms are
Ulmaceae, and witch hazels are
Hamamelidaceae, but that’s
eighteenth-century botany for you.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
19
K N O T S & B O LT S
[ M A N Y M I L E S A W AY ]
French Private Land
Forestry
In 2006, I took a trip to northern France to learn
how private land forestry was practiced there. I
returned for a more extensive visit in 2009 and
was able to spend more time walking the woods
with consulting foresters, asking innumerable
questions.
My guides were Roland Burrus, a large landowner, and Roland Susse, who is classified as an
“expert forester.” Both belong to a Europe-wide
forestry organization called Pro-Silva that has
chapters in 26 countries, including one in the U.S.
at the New England Forestry Foundation.
From my hosts, I learned that the French
approach to forest management has both similarities to and differences from the practices used in
New England. In order to understand why certain
practices are followed, it is necessary to dig down
into society, history, economics, and biology.
First, the place. France is about the size of the
six New England states combined. It is 25 percent
forested, versus 85 percent in New England. The
land is pretty rich, with many sites having fairly
deep soils and a pH of 6.0-7.0. The forest species
are fewer than in New England. The focus is largely
on oak, in particular sessile and pedunculate, both
in the white oak family. After that come beech
The author, left, and host Roland Burrus, a French forest
owner.
20
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
and sycamore maple. Conifers also are present,
including Norway spruce, Douglas-fir, and white fir.
Northern red oak is viewed with caution over concerns that it may become an invasive. Black cherry
is a very problematic species in parts of Europe,
acting like buckthorn here in the Northeast.
The French have a very different relationship
with nature than we do, in that they expect forests to be managed. There is a gardening attitude
toward the entire landscape. Unmanaged land
makes Europeans somewhat uncomfortable. Wild
nature is highly valued, but it is relegated to specific places and reserves.
Historically, much of the land in France was
managed for firewood. Until the introduction of
coal heat and power in the 1800s, Europe ran
on wood. Hundreds of thousands of acres were
devoted to firewood production; these areas were
clearcut every 40 years and regrown from coppice stump sprouts. I saw many acres of these
former firewood plantations that were still in transition. Today, most forest management focuses on
growing high-quality trees for logs. Traditionally,
France’s officially endorsed forest management
policy has largely focused on even-aged management (i.e., clearcutting and either using natural
regeneration or replanting) in both hardwood and
softwood stands, but this is changing.
Close-to-nature forestry, as practiced by
adherents to irregular, uneven-aged silvicultural
systems, is driven largely by economics. Irregular,
uneven-aged systems differ greatly from the
even-aged management approach that traditionally was followed. In the latter method, if trees
are planted they often have to be fenced for several years to prevent browsing by deer. If natural
regeneration is used, the competing plants are
often clipped out by hand, sometimes two or three
times in 10 years. These costs generally run about
$1,200 per acre. Thus, uneven-aged systems
using natural regeneration in small patches, with
no planting, hand clipping, or deer defense, is
much more attractive from a financial standpoint.
This irregular, uneven-aged approach still has
more tending costs than many American landowners are used to, but it is much less expensive
than the even-aged alternatives.
In addition to lower costs, it is felt that the
irregular forest is less risky for landowners,
because they do not have all their eggs in one
basket. France has experienced major winter
wind storms in the last 20 years that have flattened many mature stands. The irregular stands
often suffer less economic loss and, having established regeneration, often recover faster.
The forests in France are continually culled and
improved. Management of individual trees starts
when they reach three to four inches in diameter.
Harvest cycles are normally between 5 and 12
years compared with the 15- to 20-year interval
typical in New England. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, one of the key features of French forest management is excellent permanent access.
These forests have established trails every 60 to
100 feet; it’s a system known as “the rack.”
Harvesting is typically done with a cable skidder and chainsaw by small contract logging crews
working either for the landowner or for a sawmill.
Logging costs are low because access is easy.
They harvest often but lightly, typically cutting
only a few large, high-quality trees per acre.
Much of the work is seasonal. Hardwood logs
are cut when sap is not flowing, normally from
September through March. Softwood logs are cut
anytime except during the four- to six-week loose
bark growth season. Loggers cut firewood and
have no certification. They do not feel it is worth
the cost and bother.
I asked Roland if certification made a difference
in selling wood. He said only in beech logs, which
are in an oversupply situation, so buyers can be
choosy. Oak logs are in high demand, so mills will
buy all they can with no regard for certification.
Amazingly, supply and demand actually works.
One final fact I found interesting is the French
profession of “forest guard,” a local person, some-
times with a forestry education, who is employed
full-time by a large landowner. About 10 percent
of owners still use forest guards, although many
more used to. The guard walks the land, trying to
get to every acre every year. He tends the forest,
thinning, enrichment planting, pruning, and keeping guard. Many owners are moving to split the
job, with volunteers doing the guarding and paid
silvicultural contractors providing the tending.
Si Balch
PHOTOS BY SI BALCH
softwood pulp and do precommercial silvicultural
work the rest of the year.
Hardwood sawlog-quality trees are felled and
then topped at the point where the log-grade
material stops. This stem-length wood is sold
and delivered to the mills, which do the bucking. One mill I visited was cutting oak into nine
grades. Auctions are held at the log landings and
mills bid for logs by lot. Some wood is sold standing by bid. The tops are left in the woods and sold
in place for firewood.
Both forests and agricultural lands are recognized as nationally important assets in France, and
protective measures have been in place for many
decades that have resulted in an almost complete
moratorium on land conversion. In France, as in
many other European countries, this approach is
accepted as normal. The trade-off in prohibiting
the conversion of land to other uses are tax laws
that encourage landowners to be able to manage
their lands profitably. Owners with management
plans that meet the approval of the public service
forester qualify for an even lower tax rate. This
system encourages long-term planning and silviculture, since there is no possibility of any other
use of the land. In the U.S., conservation easements have a similar effect. (Though in the U.S.,
land that is subject to conservation easements
does not see a reduction in taxes, even though the
development potential is gone. The U.S. approach
to the “problem” of taxing land for potential use,
and thus driving rural land toward development,
has been the creation of current use programs.)
Napoleon had a huge impact on forest holdings in France through changes he orchestrated
in the inheritance laws. French law refutes the
European custom of primogenitor and requires
fairly equal distribution among all children. Thus,
if your assets are forestland, it will be divided
into smaller pieces. Some forest blocks can be
held together if there are other assets to distribute. Also, the value of forestland in estates is
appraised at 25 percent of its full value. This is
because a full forest rotation is estimated as 100
years and a human generation is 25 years, so it is
valued at one-quarter of full value. This valuation
formula makes it more likely that forests can be
passed on to heirs intact.
Forest certification in France is not as prevalent as you might think. We have been led to
believe that the Europeans have fully embraced
it. However, Roland Susse told me that only one
of his many clients is FSC-certified; about 20
percent are PEFC-certified (a program similar to
the American Tree Farm System); and the rest
Top: Auctions are conducted at landings and mills bid for logs by lot. Bottom: The tops of sawlogs are left behind,
processed, and then sold in place as firewood.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
21
K N O T S & B O LT S
[ LOOK BEFORE YOU PUMP ]
Ethanol Exorcism
Dwight Broome drains the alcohol out the bottom of his separator tank. What’s left inside is ethanol-free gasoline.
22
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
Dwight Broome looks a bit like an old-fashioned
moonshiner as he pours water into a shop-built
contraption that could easily be mistaken for a
still. Broome is indeed after alcohol, but not the
kind the feds frown upon. In fact, the federal government is responsible for the very alcohol he’s
now trying to isolate. Broome’s goal is to remove
the ethanol that’s been added to gasoline since
2005 as part of a federal mandate designed to
reduce oil imports and support corn farmers.
“You just dump five gallons of gas in there, and
then pour in two quarts of water,” he said, the
explanation taking about as long as the process.
“When the water hits that gas, all the alcohol is
absorbed right into the water.” Simplifying the
chemistry, the ethanol that’s been mixed into the
gasoline would rather join up with the water. The
result of this new union is a milky solution that
very quickly settles to the bottom of the tank, an
old propane canister cut in half and turned upside
down. Broome drains the ethanol/water mix out a
threaded valve at the bottom, leaving behind only
the gasoline, which can then be drained from the
same opening right back into a five-gallon plastic
tank. Voila. Purified gas almost instantly. And the
by-product doesn’t go to waste – Broome uses
the ethanol-water mix that’s siphoned off to
fill tractor tires as part of a small-engine repair
business, and as a “really, really nice” windshield
washer fluid in his car: “I’ve used it down to 40
degrees below zero and it hasn’t frozen yet.”
Broome’s been practicing this purification ritual
at his shop in Concord, Vermont, for at least the
last 10 years. That’s about the time he began to
be overwhelmed by an “onslaught” of customers
bringing in weed whackers, chainsaws, and other
power equipment suffering the symptoms of ethanol poisoning. “I used to fix four-wheelers, marine
outboards, snowmobiles – and I’ve had to give all
that up because chainsaw and weed whacker and
lawn mower fuel system problems keep me so
busy,” Broome said. Seeing the devastating effect
that ethanol can have on machinery, he began making ethanol-free gas to put in his own equipment.
Those burning gas containing ethanol may not
know exactly what it’s doing to their equipment.
“It makes engines run hotter,” said Broome of
problem number one. That’s because ethanol has
a higher oxygen content than gasoline, which
creates the effect of a carburetor adjustment
Above: Select stations sell non-ethanol gas, and often are eager to promote that fact. Below: The Northern Woodlands’
research department conducted a test of the ethanol content of gas from six random stations in central Vermont. All
pumps tested stated a 10 percent ethanol content; the results of our experiment showed four stations came in right at
10 percent, while two showed little to no ethanol. This project was highly unscientific, but interesting and fun. Get your
own ethanol content tester and try yourself: fill with water up to the first line, top off with gas, shake and let settle.
used to happen. “Your gas might have gotten old.
You might have had to clean the carburetor out.
But everything still worked once you did that,”
said Broome. Ethanol also can swell up plastic,
in Broome’s experience. If you’ve ever had to
struggle to get your chainsaw gas cap on or off,
you now know why.
Loggers, who use their saws almost constantly,
tend to experience fewer problems, said Broome.
Trouble usually shows up when the fuel is allowed
to sit in the engine, like it does for the many people who fire up their saws mainly to cut firewood
a couple times a year or take down the occasional
tree. To make matters worse, these homeowners
are also more likely to run their chain a little duller
or have fuel filters that are plugged.
So what is the right way to put your saw up for the
winter, or store it between extended periods of use?
“If you’re using alcohol fuel, you need to run it dry,”
Broome advises. “The worst thing that’ll happen
then is you might have to clean the carburetor
or put a new diaphragm in. If you leave gas with
alcohol in the carburetor, most of them now have
deceleration valves [a feature designed to reduce
emissions by shutting off fuel delivery once the
throttle is released] and those will stick. And when
that happens, you can throw the carburetor away,
because it’s not a replaceable part.” Conversely,
when the carburetor sits empty, that plastic part
shrinks and won’t stick. The damage from ethanol
doesn’t happen instantly; as a general rule, chainsaw manufacturers recommend storing gas for no
more than two months and always shaking the
gas can vigorously before filling equipment.
A safer bet, according to Broome, is to avoid
using gas containing ethanol in the first place.
For those who don’t want to build or buy their
PHOTOS BY PATRICK WHITE
and makes the engine run leaner. Equipment
manufacturers say that this additional heat can
score pistons or expand rings to the point that
they become affixed to the cylinder wall. The
problem can be exacerbated with equipment like
chainsaws, which are designed to run at very
high RPMs and can also suffer other heat-building
problems, like a dull chain or grime and sawdust
that prevent the saw’s cooling mechanisms from
functioning properly.
Standard gasoline is currently mixed at a ratio
of 10 percent ethanol (E10), though blends such as
E15, E30, and even E85 are sold at some stations.
This has created confusion and led the Outdoor
Power Equipment Institute, a manufacturer’s trade
group, to create a “Look Before You Pump” campaign, encouraging equipment users to be sure
the gas they’re buying is compatible with their
equipment. While most equipment made today can
safely use mixes up to E10, there can still be problems with older equipment, when fuel isn’t used
promptly, or when the gas that comes out of the
pump has a higher ethanol content than advertised
on the label.
Broome says that some E10 mixes actually
have a higher ethanol content than advertised,
perhaps because of separation that occurs in the
underground storage tanks below gas stations,
particularly those that don’t pump a lot of gas.
“If you happen to get a batch that’s 20 or 30
percent alcohol, the temperature can get so high
that it’ll actually cook the motor,” he said. Broome
uses a small plastic tester (they’ve been around
for decades and can be purchased from many
outdoor power equipment retailers) to determine
the percentage of ethanol in the gas he buys, and
reports that he regularly sees ethanol in excess of
20 percent at local stations.
It’s not just heat that causes problems. “[Ethanol
blends] go bad quicker. And slime everything up.
And rot the gas lines,” said Broome. This is a
particular problem with older saws that weren’t
built to withstand today’s more corrosive fuels. He
regularly sees generators come in with the fuel
lines rotted off, and marvels at how much gas
has likely made its way into the ground around
the country – an example of the law of unintended
consequences, since the ethanol blends were
designed to be green. Similar problems occur
when gas containing ethanol is allowed to sit in a
chainsaw; it can literally melt the fuel filter to the
inside of the tank, he said. “In fact, I’ve seen saws
that have sat for six months, and the fuel filter has
almost completely dissolved – it’s just a smudge
on the side of the tank.” These problems never
own water separator, websites like pure-gas.org
provide information on local gas stations offering
ethanol-free gasoline. (There are loopholes that
allow independent gasoline distributors to avoid
having to add ethanol to their product.) And small
canisters of ethanol-free gas (often pre-mixed
with two-cycle oil) can be purchased at hardware
stores. Broome hopes that someday this problem
will go away if policymakers are pressured by the
public to reverse course on ethanol requirements.
“In the meantime,” he said, “I just want to get
information out there so people can learn to deal
with it.”
Patrick White
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
23
K N O T S & B O LT S
1
[ OBJECTIFY ]
The Modern
Woodstove
The use of fire as a cooking
and warming tool predates
our species – evidence suggests that Homo erectus, a
now extinct relative, was creating controlled fires a million
years ago in Africa. It was
probably the Neanderthals
– that next link in the human
evolutionary chain – who
invented the fireplace; picture a crude clay mound in
a cave. And while fireplace
design became more sophisticated as Homo neanderthalensis gave way (or merged
into) Homo sapiens, people
heated their homes with open fires for the next
several hundred thousand years.
The problem, of course, is that fireplaces are
stupidly inefficient. About 90 percent of the heat
energy of the wood goes up the chimney, and the
draft pulls the warm air out of the cave (or house)
as the smoke exits.
Enter good old Ben Franklin, a man who
was so competent that he makes pretty much
everyone in the history of the world look like
a slug by comparison. His accomplishments
include figuring out electricity, mapping the Gulf
Stream, establishing the most successful newspaper in the colonies, facilitating the relationship
with France that helped decide the American
Revolution, courting an impossible number of
mistresses on two continents, and in his spare
time inventing bifocals, a carriage odometer, a
flexible catheter, a glass harmonica, swim fins,
the lightning rod, and, as we’re discussing here,
the modern wood stove.
Europeans had been improving chimney design
since the 1600s. German Franz Kessler famously
promoted a chimney with a complex baffle
system designed to lengthen the path of a fire’s
fumes (and thus its heat). Frenchman Louis Savot
invented a draft mechanism that supplied the fire
with oxygen. Franklin’s twist was to add a metal
firebox that incorporated both a rear baffle and a
cold air supply.
Functionally speaking, the original Franklin stove
24
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
3
was, by most accounts, a piece of crap. Inventor
David Rittenhouse soon improved the design, but
who knows who David Rittenhouse is? James
Wilson, a merchant from Poughkeepsie, New
York, improved Rittenhouse’s design in the early
1800s (stove historians suspect he’s the one who
added the doors that turned the open fireplace
into a closed stove), but Wilson’s patent was,
ironically, lost in a fire. Also, his invention was
called a “Franklin Stove,” so it further cemented
Ben’s legend.
At this point, it’s fair to wonder if Franklin should
be credited with the invention at all. Archeologists
have pulled modern-looking cast iron stoves out
of Han tombs in China that date back to 20-225
AD. The earliest known record of a European cast
iron stove is in 1475. The pilgrims bought Dutch
jam stoves (a metal box you jammed into a fireplace) with them to America, and the first patent
for a device for “saueing [sic] of firewood and
warming of rooms with little costs and charges”
was issued to John Clarke by the general court of
Massachusetts in 1652, more than half-a-century
before Franklin was even born.
But it’s good to have folk heroes who are larger
than life. And since you’re sitting by a woodstove
reading a printed product under an electric light
through your bifocals in a free and independent
United States of America, the thought that you
owe the entire moment to ol’ Ben makes for a
much more entertaining story.
8
2
[ SOIRÉE ]
Writer’s Conference
a Success
4
On October 17-19, Northern Woodlands held our first-ever
Writer’s Conference, hosted by the Hulbert Outdoor Center
in Fairlee, Vermont. The weekend featured natural history
presentations, woods walks, instructional workshops, a
nature illustration class, and readings/presentations by
notable authors from around the Northeast. Author John
Elder offered the keynote address. Special thanks to The
Trust for Public Land, who sponsored the weekend, and to
all who participated in the event. We hope to see all of you
(and a whole host of new people) at next year’s conference.
5
6
7
1 Attendees 2 View over Lake Morey. 3 Castle Freeman and The Trust for Public Land’s
Patricia Crawford. 4 Patti Smith and guests at S’mores social. 5 Howard Frank Mosher
6 Robert Kimber 7 Ted Levin addresses the group. 8 Woods Walk
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
25
Learn from the Pros!
Professional & Homeowner
Game of Logging classes held
throughout New England
Serving Timberland Investors Since 1968
Full Service Forestry Consulting
across New England, New York, and Pennsylvania.
Timberland Marketing and Investment Analysis Services
provided throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Foresters and Licensed Real Estate Professionals in 14 Regional Offices
Portland, ME (207)774-8518
Bangor, ME (207) 947-2800
St. Aurélie, ME (418) 593-3426
Bethel, ME (207) 836-2076
Lowville, NY (315) 376-2832
Clayton Lake, ME (603) 466-7374
Tupper Lake, NY (518) 359-2385
Jackman, ME (207) 668-7777
W. Stewartstown, NH (603) 246-8800
Concord, NH (603) 228-2020
Kane, PA (814) 561-1018
Newport, VT (802) 334-8402
Americus, GA (229) 924-8400
Eugene, OR (541) 790-2105
Hands-on safety training for
forestry-related equipment.
•Chain saw
•Skidder
•Brush saw
•Forwarder
•Farm tractor
•Harvester
www.woodlandtraining.com
Northeast
Woodland
Training Inc
,
229 Christmas Tree Farm Road
Chester, VT 05143
Nate@woodlandtraining.com
Call (802) 681-8249
26
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
.
1,000 words
Photo by Frank Kaczmarek
A maple leaf frozen in time (and ice) near
the edge of a small pond in northern New
Hampshire. “The blue seen in the shot
is the reflection of a cloudless sky,” said
Kaczmarek. “The leaf is still embedded in
the ice. More than likely a thaw, followed by
a refreezing, buried the leaf in a new layer
of ice, leaving only its impression visible.”
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
27
Caterpillar
28
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
The Budworm Returns
By Dave Sherwood
Clash
PAUL WILLIAMS. INSET: JERALD E. DEWEY/USDA FOREST SERVICE/BUGWOOD.ORG
n the spring of 1976, Bangor, Maine, was preparing for
war.
Douglas C-54 Skymasters, the same four-engine behemoths used during the Berlin Airlift, sat wing-tip to wingtip on the tarmac of the small city’s International Airport.
State and federal government agencies had mobilized
millions of dollars in public funds for the battle. A cumulative 18 million acres – an area nearly the size of the
state of South Carolina – was to be carpet-sprayed
with chemical and biological weapons over
the coming decade, an overwhelming show
of force unlike anything this quaint, quiet
corner of New England had ever seen.
Despite these efforts, the death
toll would reach the tens of millions,
with impacts felt as far away as New
Hampshire and Vermont and Manitoba
and Newfoundland.
Because the victims were trees, not
people, the war hardly generated national
headlines. But the carnage, total and absolute, would forever change Maine’s society
and economy. Thousands of miles of roads
were cut to facilitate huge salvage harvests. Mills
retooled to handle the enormous volumes of wood.
Jobs were gained, then lost. Fierce public backlash in
the wake of salvage harvesting and aerial spraying led to
new laws governing forest practices. A new forest emerged.
All of this was, for the most part, the result of feeding by
the larvae of a small, nondescript gray-brown moth called the
spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana). “Those years
were a blur,” recalls veteran forester Gordon Mott on a recent
visit to Maine’s Baxter State Park, ground zero during the outbreak. By the end of the 1970s, said Mott, the broad, sweeping
flanks of mile-high Mt. Katahdin, the park’s signature peak,
were lifeless. From the summit, it looked as if the Maine Woods
Left: Budworm damage in Quebec. Above: Choristoneura fumiferana larva
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
29
were dying. “It was a sea of red and dying crowns, everywhere
you looked,” he said.
Mott, a Yale-educated research scientist who led the “campaign” against the spruce budworm in neighboring New
Brunswick during the 1950s, had been called upon by the U.S.
Forest Service to monitor and research the 1970s outbreak in
Maine. The devastation, the politics, and the side effects of longsince-banned chemical pesticides like DDT, used to combat the
budworm, had worn him ragged. “It wasn’t a good feeling to
have 6 million acres of DDT [spraying] on my hands,” he said,
shaking his head.
Wiry, sharp-witted, and white-bearded, Mott, now 82, is a veteran of two outbreaks – and may soon bear witness to a third.
The budworm is back.
even the most wizened woodsman is unlikely to ever spot one.
But every 40 years or so – for reasons still little understood by
scientists – budworm populations explode. In just five years,
populations skyrocket to 20,000 per tree. Veterans describe the
forest as wet and dripping with caterpillar “snot.”
To make matters worse, the larvae pupate and emerge as
moths in July and take flight, sometimes sailing with the prevailing winds in vast clouds, then landing like paratroopers
in far-off forests. If wind and weather combine for favorable
traveling conditions, these airborne invasions can be swift – and
devastating.
It is this possibility that alarms many in Maine, including
Dave Struble, chief entomologist for the Maine Forest Service.
Since around 2006, more than 8 million acres have been infested
3250
Quebec Spruce Budworm Defoliation
3000
(1,000 Hectares)
2750
2500
2250
2000
1750
1500
1250
1000
750
500
250
1995
1997
1999
2001
2003
2005
2007
2009
2011
A Hot-Burning Fire
The spruce budworm is a well studied – but surprisingly little
understood – native of the Acadian forests of the northeastern
United States and Canada. Confusion begins with its name.
The “spruce” budworm actually prefers balsam fir. In the
spring, it emerges from hibernation as a larva that feasts on
spring shoots and buds, then grows to a fleshy brown, inchlong caterpillar. Depending on availability, timing, and weather,
it will also prey on white, black, and red spruces. Regardless of
species, the budworm prefers the more luscious, foliage-rich
crowns of older, mature trees, though it often attacks younger
trees, as well.
The budworm is always present across northern New
England in small numbers, though between outbreaks its
density plateaus at just five caterpillars per tree – so low that
30
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
2013
in Quebec – north and west of Maine and directly upwind. Trees
are defoliated, gray, and dying.
Though the species is native and has been documented as far
back as the sixteenth century, it’s viewed as an enemy combatant
in Maine, explains Struble, because much of the northern third
of the state is dedicated to growing trees for paper and lumber
production. During the most recent outbreak, Maine’s spruce
and fir stocks were so savagely struck that even The New York
Times took notice, predicting a severe timber shortage in Maine
and fingering the budworm as the culprit. An estimated 20 to
25 million cords of spruce and fir were killed between 1975
and 1988, more than a decade’s average harvest in Maine. Ken
Stratton, a former state forester, told the Times: “This is a very
serious situation. Some people are going to be hurt.”
The ferocity of the outbreak led to an equally ferocious
about 15,000 acres a year are clearcut. Industrial landowners
opted instead for smaller, partial harvests, as dictated by new
laws. While more aesthetically pleasing, they spread the cutting,
and roads, across a much larger footprint, according to records
kept by the Maine Forest Service. Even paper-making changed
dramatically. Instead of making newsprint the traditional way,
with spruce and fir pulp, mills retooled to use hardwood species
unaffected by budworm.
“The budworm changed everything,” says Struble.
The forest products industry has since downsized, though it
remains a larger part of Maine’s economy than that of any other
state. In 2013, forest products generated $8 billion in total value
to the state’s economy, including 38,789 jobs – too many to
ignore, says Maine State Forester Doug Denico.
tor, arrived in the state shortly after the outbreak subsided, but
oversaw much of the subsequent harvest – and was in the midst
of the public relations skirmishes that followed.
“Initially, we built roads for salvage. But we needed to justify the capital expense. So we cut more and more. Everything
became bigger. Bigger harvests. Bigger sawmills. More demand.
Once you learned how to move that much volume that quickly,
it began to feed on itself,” he said.
New mills, manpower, and money – the cogs of the war
machine – created a business boom and an environmental
backlash. More roads also meant more “eyes” in the woods
– and increasing public scrutiny. New, more restrictive laws,
including Maine’s Forest Practices Act, which regulates clearcutting, soon followed. (In the early 1980s, 80,000-100,000
acres of forest were being clearcut each year in Maine. Today,
Left: Recent years have seen a surge in damage north of the border. Center: The
devastation left by the last budworm outbreak, when an estimated 20 to 25 million
cords of spruce and fir were killed. Right: If spruce budworm arrives, there is unlikely
to be another state-wide government response. This time around there are wood pellet
and biomass markets to supply if smaller trees need to be harvested.
LEFT TO RIGHT: MAINE FOREST SERVICE. STEVE SCHLEY/SEVEN ISLANDS. DAVE SHERWOOD
response. With millions of acres – and millions of dollars worth
of timber – at the front lines, industry aligned with state and
federal government to initiate the largest, most expensive spray
program in the United States. Synthetic chemical pesticides,
including trichlorfon, carbaryl, and fenitrothion were broadcast-sprayed across Maine’s forests – notoriously wet forests that
are crisscrossed by streams and rivers and dotted with pristine
lakes and ponds. Rising costs and public protest eventually led
to a sharp decline in public funding and a swap to Bt (Bacillus
thuringiensis), a more targeted biological pesticide with lower
toxicity to humans and wildlife.
“We were the bad guys back then,” acknowledges Pat Flood, a
former operations manager and forester for International Paper.
“And we were making things worse.” Flood, now a Maine sena-
Today, the industry is bracing for the worst.
“We have had no choice but to blow the whistle and get
people alarmed,” said Denico. “If this outbreak isn’t as bad as
it could be, great; but if it is, then we’ll be ready.” A long-time
forester for Plum Creek, one of the largest landowners in Maine,
Denico recalls the previous outbreak all too well: “There wasn’t
a green needle left. The forest was dying.” ”
Together with researchers at the University of Maine and landowners, the Maine Forest Service is putting together a blueprint
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
31
for a more thoughtful, measured response – ahead of the budworm’s arrival. But there are still more questions than answers.
Is the forest of today more, or less, vulnerable to a budworm
outbreak? Is spraying the best approach? Can the markets
handle the sudden influx of wood that might result from an
increased harvest? In this day and age, is any level of spraying economically, or politically, feasible? Who will fund the
response? What role should the state play? What lessons can be
gleaned from past outbreaks?
Then And Now
Some 18 million acres was treated for spruce budworm during the late 1970s and
early 1980s in Maine.
32
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
JERALD E. DEWEY/USDA FOREST SERVICE/BUGWOOD.ORG
To the untrained eye, the forest along Baxter State Park’s
winding Perimeter Road seems peaceful and timeless. There is
no hint of the war that took place here just four decades ago.
But to the professorial Mott and his wife Ginny, who both spent
years here researching the previous outbreak, these forests are a
textbook in budworm biology.
In 1970, this corner of Baxter, only recently protected, was
much like the rest of the Maine Woods: a vast, largely uninterrupted swath of mature spruce and fir dotted with bow-legged
moose, pristine brook trout ponds, and surprisingly few roads
despite its proximity to Boston and New York. Weak markets
through the middle of the twentieth century, difficult access, and
rudimentary logging equipment limited harvesting to only the
biggest, most valuable trees. Maine Forest Service records showed
nearly 130 million cords of standing spruce and fir across the
landscape in the mid-1970s – much of it in big, mature trees that
were more than 60 years old. It was, says Mott, an almost perfect
feeding ground for the largest budworm outbreak on record.
“Today, we’re dealing with a forest that is drastically different
in age and composition from any previous outbreak,” explained
Mott as he bumped his Subaru wagon along the gravel road.
This is Mott’s first lesson of the day: Less mature softwood
means less food for the budworm. “An outbreak will likely be
much less severe this time than last,” he said.
Maine Forest Service data confirm Mott’s observation:
Spruce and fir volumes have dropped by nearly half statewide
since the early 1970s, to around 70 million cords. And the trees
are younger, often by 20 years or more.
Farther down the road, along Nesowadnehunk Stream, once
an important river-driving thoroughfare, Mott pulls off the road
and he and Ginny admire healthy stands of mixed yellow birch,
paper birch, northern white cedar, sugar maple, red maple, balsam fir, and red spruce. “There’s far less continuous conifer now
than prior to the 1970s and 1980s outbreak, and much more
mixed wood,” he observes.
Lesson #2: Spruce and fir, when mixed amongst hardwoods,
are more resistant to budworm, which tends to thrive only in
areas where its favorite foods are most concentrated.
Mott points out other subtleties along the way, easily overlooked by the layman. He is eager – even exuberant – to share
his hard-earned wisdom. On a shady, north-facing slope, he
enters a pickety thicket of softwood – dense, dark, and seemingly impenetrable. He grabs a young fir tree and offers it as a
hint of what is to come.
Fir, explained Mott, was a minor component of the precolonial northern forest, but decades of “cherry-picking” the
most economically viable species of each logging era – from
mast white pines of the mid-1800s to the old-growth red spruce
the late-nineteenth century – has left plenty of growing space for
the much more tenacious and competitive fir, long considered
a “weed” but now more common in the remaining softwood
stands than spruce. Since the last outbreak, the fir, despite being
more susceptible to the budworm, has outcompeted the spruces
and is now dominant in many of the remaining softwood stands
– for the first time ever.
Lesson #3: More fir means the budworm isn’t going away.
This, says Mott, is likely as true inside Baxter State Park
– where spraying was less vigorous and no logging took place
following the budworm – as it is outside, on private lands, where
vast acreages were protected with chemical pesticides before
nearly a decade of intensive salvage harvests.
Which brings Mott to Lesson #4: There is no single cure-all,
no one perfect solution or management approach.
“I’ve been around long enough to know better,” he said.
To Spray, Or Not To Spray
With millions of dollars’ worth of timber on the stump in
Maine – and many questions still unanswered, landowners,
policy-makers, and environmentalists are already on edge. Fear
of the unknown, explains Lloyd Irland, a former Maine state
economist who helped direct the state’s massive spray program
in the 1970s, contributed to the intensity of response last time.
“This time, there will be a much better-informed forest
community,” said Irland, who, in 1987, helped to draft a “time
capsule” document to ensure that lessons from the past outbreak
wouldn’t be lost. “We’ve already had three or four hundred people together in a room talking about budworm – before we even
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
33
have brown needles on trees in Maine. That’s an extraordinary
difference.”
Like military veterans for peace, Irland, Denico, Struble, and
Mott, and others who lived through the 1970s outbreak, take the
threat seriously – but this time, their approach is tempered by
experience and wisdom.
No one envisions a broad-based, state- or federally-funded
spray program like last time – and all agree there’s no money, or
political will, for it anyway. “We aren’t recommending the state
get involved with a spray program, except to monitor what goes
on and work with the pesticide control board to ensure that
landowners use appropriate pesticides” said Denico.
Even pesticides have changed dramatically in the past 50 years.
Mott recalls the anguish he felt when a Canadian fisheries biologist
approached him with a handful of writhing salmon parr – victims
of a DDT spray program he’d helped lead in New Brunswick. This
time, he advocates careful, small-scale spraying with Bt, the much
more benign, narrow-spectrum organic pesticide.
The landscape has also changed. Today, a more diverse group
of landowners, including NGOs like The Nature Conservancy
and the Appalachian Mountain Club, as well as private investors, logging contractors, and a few remaining industry landowners, have created a checkerboard of management practices
– one likely less uniformly susceptible to a budworm outbreak
– and less likely to unite behind a single strategy. “Our recommendation will be to let landowners individually, or collectively,
do battle themselves,” said Denico. “Any spray program will be
much more targeted.”
Costs may also prove prohibitive. In the 1970s, spraying cost
$5 per acre or less. Today, that price could be as high as $40 to
$60, according to recent figures from similar spray programs
in Pennsylvania and Quebec. “Landowners will have to look
at their high-value stands and decide how much risk they’re
willing to accept,” explained Pat Strauch, director of the Maine
Forest Products Council. Strauch acknowledged that his members are on high alert. “It doesn’t matter who the landowner is,
this will be a big deal. But, as a whole, I think we’re in a better
position this time than last.”
For starters, he said, remaining pulp and paper mills now
prefer hardwood to spruce and fir – making the industry less
vulnerable to an outbreak. The existing road network, built
in the 1970s and 1980s – as river drives ended and budworm
salvage ramped up – will keep costs down should landowners
need to salvage dying timber. Targeted spraying with biological
pesticides like Bt can help buy time. Presalvage in areas where
severe outbreak is imminent will ensure that valuable wood
doesn’t die on the stump. And many landowners have been
purging fir from their ownerships for decades, seeking to favor
the less vulnerable spruce.
Strauch has faith that industry can devise new ways to use
the abundant fir that could flood the market should trees begin
dying en masse, as in the 1970s. “Historically, we’ve been very
good at finding new opportunities,” said Strauch, who has
been tasked with helping organize the industry response. “The
beauty of Maine is that we have markets for everything.” He cites
34
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
Forester and research scientist Gordon Mott helped lead Maine’s war on spruce
budworm during the 1970s. The experience has given Mott, now 82, a different
perspective on the forthcoming outbreak.
wood pellets and biomass, both of which can take advantage of
smaller trees, as two examples.
But Strauch acknowledges that politics could be as big a
factor in decision-making as biology or economics. Many environmentalists are already watching. Jenn Burns Gray, of Maine
Audubon, and Cathy Johnson, of the Natural Resources Council
of Maine, said their organizations – two of the most prominent
in Maine – had yet to take a position but are learning. “We’re
waiting, and watching, like everyone else,” said Johnson.
Jym St. Pierre, of Restore: The North Woods, an environmental advocacy group, said he and others will keep a much closer
eye on any spraying or salvage proposed. “We literally waged a
military-like campaign on the budworm back then. In the midst
of that war, we swept aside a lot of important environmental
issues, saying ‘Look, we don’t have time to think about these
things right now,’” he said. “But this time will be different.”
Calm Before the Storm
In Baxter State Park, the budworm has yet to arrive, quiet
still pervades, and the din of politics is faint. Pheromone traps,
which use sexual attractants to lure budworm moths, are
scattered across the landscape here and throughout northern
Maine. They have shown a sharp increase in budworm activity
in recent years – but still far short of an outbreak.
Mott makes one last stop at Nesowdnehunk Field, a vast
spruce and fir “flat” near the cool, wet base of Mt. Katahdin. He
forces his way through a thicket of balsam fir spaced tightly as
jail bars. A faded strip of flagging flutters from a branch. “I think
this is it,” he declares. “Plot #1.”
It’s an old research plot where he and Ginny had studied the
budworm’s devastating impact on Baxter’s spruce forest – and
its subsequent conversion to fir. Today, it’s hard to tell one bend
in the road from another. It all looks the same – miles of fir
thickets with almost nothing growing in the understory but
clubmosses, club-handled bolete mushrooms, the occasional fir
seedling, and a few bracken ferns and pin cherries.
In many ways, acknowledges Mott, it resembles a graveyard.
The fallen spruces – the last vestiges of the precolonial oldgrowth forest – remain only as soft, moss-covered humps on the
forest floor, like the headstones of another era.
But Mott isn’t overly sentimental. As a forester, he views
budworm as part of the natural cycle, a reality in the Acadian
forest no different, really, than wet springs or cold winters. It’s a
perspective gained during previous outbreaks.
Lesson #5: “Budworm happens,” he said.
Dave Sherwood is a Maine-based environmental journalist.
This article was supported by Northern Woodlands magazine’s Research and Reporting
Fund, established by generous donors.
DAVE SHERWOOD
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
35
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38
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
THAT SIGNATURE LOOK
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE DOCTRINE OF SIGNATURES
By Allaire Diamond
LOOKING CLOSELY AT PLANTS, we can learn a lot –
about local habitat, climate, hydrology, wildlife, and soils. For
example, succulent leaves indicate that a plant may thrive in
sandy soil or endure periods of drought; thorns hint that the
plant is selective about who gets access to its fruits; and dark
red, bad-smelling flowers suggest that the plant relies on carrion-feeding insects to distribute its seeds.
For thousands of years, people have also used a plant’s
appearance to divine its medicinal properties. A broad concept
called the “doctrine of signatures” holds that features of plants
resemble, in some way, the condition or body part that the plant
can treat. So, bloodroot’s scarlet roots could treat diseases of the
circulatory system, or mandrake’s resemblance to male genitalia
means it could be used to treat infertility. The plant’s common
name often speaks to this associative thinking.
The doctrine of signatures has probably existed as long as
people have looked at plants. Dioscorides, who practiced and
wrote about medicine in ancient Rome, was one of the first to
describe a signature in the year 65: “The Herb Scorpius resembles the tail of the Scorpion, and is good against his biting.”
Prominent medieval European physicians named the doctrine
and developed it further, believing that God included signatures in plants during creation to tell people how to use them.
The Italian doctor Guilielmus of Saliceto referred to signature
qualities in a treatise on medicinal plants published in 1290,
and British physician Thomas Browne wrote in the 1640s that
“there are two books from whence I collect my divinity: besides
that written one of God, another of his servant Nature – that
universal and public manuscript that lies expansed unto the eyes
of all.” The Swiss physician Paracelsus popularized the concept
in Europe in the first half of the sixteenth century.
Plant signatures were being interpreted on other continents,
as well. They are a cornerstone of traditional Chinese medicine,
dating back millennia, and ethnographers have documented the
concept in a variety of Native American tribes, in traditional
communities in Israel, and elsewhere. It is a complex and universal impulse to apply signatures to plants, and this has taken
many forms across time and cultures. People have interpreted
signatures through the resemblance of a plant part to the organ
it treats, the similarity of plant color to the color of symptoms,
and by equating plant action to medicinal action (see the explanation for saxifrage below.). The idea has strong foundations
in oral history and traditional healing, which can be intensely
localized or even individualized.
In every era, the doctrine has had its skeptics. While plants
have a cornucopia of medicinal properties, historically assigned
signatures very rarely corresponded to them. Herbalists have
criticized the doctrine as being a poor stand-in for deeper knowledge of plants and plant medicine. It is notable that, even as the
doctrine of signatures gained popularity as a Christian concept in
medieval Europe, herbalists and traditional healers were among
those persecuted for witchcraft, and their evidence-based knowledge of plants was driven underground. Dutch physician Rembert
Dodoens wrote in 1583 that the doctrine “is so changeable and
uncertain that it seems absolutely unworthy of acceptance.”
The doctrine of signatures may not hold any medical water, but
it generates a fascinating web of stories that point to a universal
connection with the plant world. My research turned up citations
ranging from oblique references in arcane English to complicated
phytochemical analyses. Instead of finding one coherent narrative,
it felt like my search turned up echoes of herbal thinkers through
the ages, some with massive experience and others just starting
out, respected doctors of the time and mothers telling their children to avoid a plant’s bright red berries, whispers around a fire
and leaf fragments floating in oil, ready to be tinctured.
Ethnobotanist Bradley Bennett writes that the doctrine of
signatures seems to function more as a mnemonic for remembering plants than as a technique for discovering effective plant
medicines. So when we see the plant whose roots have red sap,
we know it as bloodroot, the same way that we recognize the
creepy fruits of white baneberry, or doll’s eyes, and know we are
seeing Actaea pachypoda.
How do we incorporate the doctrine of signatures into our
current relationship with plants? As I learn about historic signatures, I become a more literate reader of the landscape. Though I
won’t be snacking on saxifrage leaves to pass a kidney stone anytime soon, I value how these echoes of human lore and botanical
understanding make my walk through the woods richer.
Allaire Diamond is a conservation ecologist with the Vermont Land Trust. She lives in Jericho, Vermont.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
39
ISTOCK
AMERICAN GINSENG
Panax quinquefolius
Ginseng is an Anglicization of the Chinese word
for “man-root” or “man-essence,” and its
Latin genus name Panax means “cure-all” or
“panacea.” The plant’s signature is easy to
divine: its root looks like a man and is therefore
thought to aid and strengthen all parts of the
body. According to some sources, ginseng has
been valued in China for over 5,000 years, and
American ginseng has been exported to China
since the early 1700s. Today, the price for wild
ginseng is around $550 per pound, which
helps explain the plant’s relative rarity in
North America.
SPLEENWORTS
40
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
FOREST AND KIM STARR
Ferns of the genus Asplenium
Ferns reproduce by spores, which are produced
and held in organs called sori. In many species,
sori resemble rows of quotation marks on the
backs of fertile fern fronds. In ferns of the genus
Asplenium, the sori look like spleens. Spleenworts
are small, delicate ferns often found growing on
cliffs, ledges, or outcrops; species in our region
include wall-rue (Asplenium ruta-muraria) and
maidenhair spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes),
pictured. The plant has long been used
medicinally and was thought to treat spleen
disorders by European espousers of the doctrine
of signatures. References also exist for their
traditional medicinal use in Hawaii, Malaysia,
New Zealand, and India. Pharmacognostic
studies confirm that at least some species
have medicinal compounds.
STEVEN KATOVICH
MAIDENHAIR FERN
Adiantum sp.
I have long associated this lovely plant with cool,
breezy rich forest slopes, but I was intrigued when
my research turned up a doctrine of signatures
reference from traditional peoples of Galilee in Israel
and the nearby Golan Heights. Apparently, this plant
has been used for hair problems and to combat fear.
Its fronds tremble – perhaps fearfully? – in the
wind. The plant was decocted and either drunk or
poured on the hair.
SAXIFRAGES
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Livelong saxifrage (Saxifraga paniculata) and early
saxifrage (Micranthes virginiensis)
Ecologists get excited when we come across cliffs
or ledges, because we know that we’re likely to
find a variety of small, specialized plants that are
able to grow in very little soil, and that often thrive
on minerals that precipitate directly out of the
rock. Medieval doctors got excited by ledges, too,
but for very different reasons: they were seeing a
pharmacopeia of kidney medicines. It was thought
that plants that could “break” rock in order to
grow could also be useful in breaking apart kidney
stones. Italian physician Guilielmus Saliceto wrote a
treatise on kidney treatments in 1290, and he used
the term saxifrage to refer to a variety of plants,
including those in the modern genus Saxifraga,
the alpine plant Dryas octopetala, and ferns in the
genus Asplenium (more on those on opposing page).
The word Saxifraga derives from the Latin saxum
(rock) and frangere (to break). The purported kidney
application may also have come from the European
species Saxifraga granulata, whose small granular
structures resembled kidney stones. The genus
has some interesting North American species,
including early saxifrage (Micranthes, formerly
Saxifraga virginiensis) which grows commonly on
ledges and exposed rock and may provide essential
food to support blueberry-pollinating bees outside
of blueberry-flowering season. Even more apropos
to the genus name, livelong saxifrage (Saxifraga
paniculata), pictured, grows on calcium-rich rock
and secretes dissolved lime through pores ringing
its leaves. If you’re hiking to see it in the boreal
outcrops of our region, bring plenty of water to help
head off any kidney troubles.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
41
HEPATICA
Hepatica acutiloba, Hepatica americana
For centuries, people have turned to this small
rich-woods perennial with hopes of healing hepatic
(liver-related) ailments. Its lobed leaves turn purplish
as the season progresses, and so in color as well
as shape resemble the lobes of the liver. In the late
1800s, gatherers combed the mountains of the
southern United States searching for hepatica
leaves to sell to purveyors of patent medicines such
as Dr. Roder’s Liverwort and Tar Sirup, and Beache’s
Vegetable Syrup. Medicine-makers bought around
450,000 pounds of hepatica leaves in 1883 alone.
As consumers failed to see results, these medicines
gradually ceased production and hepatica
populations rebounded. It remains a fairly common
early spring wildflower in rich or limey woods.
42
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
NORTH CAROLINA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY / PHOTOGRAPHER TOM HARVILLE
Taraxacum officinale / other species worldwide
Dandelions are eminently adaptable. Native to
Europe and Asia, they’ve dispersed and settled
easily across the world’s varied landscapes, and
have been incorporated into most medicinal
cultures, from the deserts of India, to Mexico and
the Peruvian Andes, the mountains of Turkey, and
the forests and clearings of native North America.
Tenth-century doctors in the Middle East mentioned
dandelion as a liver and spleen treatment, and
the genus name combines the Greek taraxis,
“inflammation,” with akeomai, “curative.” Another
French moniker is pissenlit, “bedwetter,” referencing
the plant’s traditional use as a diuretic and also one
of its signature properties: the stem yields a liquid
when broken. Dandelion’s yellow color was also
thought to signal its efficacy for jaundice and other
liver disorders. Traditional Chinese medicine applies
the doctrine of signatures slightly differently: it
asserts that plant roots can be used to treat internal
ailments while the above-ground flowers, leaves,
and seeds can better treat external conditions,
such as upper-respiratory problems. The scientific
literature supports these and many other powers of
dandelion: some sufferers of inflammation, cancer,
diabetes, allergies, liver disorders, blood clots, and,
yes, urinary troubles have found relief in this
ubiquitous plant. Yet despite an English common
name that derives from the French dent-de-lion,
“lion’s tooth” (referencing its serrated leaves), I
could find no mention of its use in feline dentistry.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
DANDELION
IVO SHANDOR / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT
Arisaema triphyllum
Few plants are as odd and recognizable as Jack-in-thePulpit. Its flower-bearing spadix (Jack) sits enclosed in a
sinuous, petal-like spathe (the pulpit). It seems to have
inspired a variety of religious imagery in early European
settlers, who couldn’t decide if it signified good, evil, or
just the ridiculousness of the church as an institution:
in addition to naming pious Jack, the plant has been
called devil’s ear and priest’s pintel, or penis. At least one
source from 1778, possibly referencing that last name,
records its use for urinary tract or bowel problems. Other
names for this common plant include brown dragon and
dragon-root. Irritating calcium oxalate crystals in its root,
or corm, caused painful stinging when handled raw.
Following a different interpretation of the signature
concept, this stinging was thought to be effective in
treating painful boils and bites, including snake bites.
Rafinesque (1828) reported that this plant was said to
kill snakes, and that Native Americans were said to be
able to handle rattlesnakes after “wetting their hands
with the milky juice of this plant.” A 1928 ethnography of
the Meskwaki tribe describes it being applied to snake
bites. It’s not clear whether the dragon names reference
this particular use, or are describing the serpentine
appearance of the “pulpit,” or both.
UPLAND BONESET
7SONG
Eupatorium perfoliatum
There is still no cure for the common cold, but an
effective herbal remedy may be growing in a wet meadow
near you. Boneset’s signature is instantly recognizable: its
opposite leaves fuse around the stem, like broken bones
knit back together with a scar. Only vague accounts hint
at the plant’s being used to heal fractures, though; more
references cite its use in treating fever, flu, and cold.
The nineteenth century botanist and scholar Constantine
Rafinesque wrote in 1828 that the common name derives
from boneset’s use in treating “breakbone fever,” or
dengue fever, a mosquito-borne illness whose symptoms
include intense bone pain. A bitter tea made from the
leaves apparently had curative effects. Millspaugh wrote
in 1892 that “there is probably no plant in American
domestic practice that has more extensive or frequent use
than this. The attic, or woodshed, of almost every country
farm house, has its bunch of dried herb hanging …ready
for immediate use should some member of the family …
be taken with a cold.” More contemporary scholars
and studies have, in fact, found that boneset has some
effectiveness in treating fevers. Another common use of
boneset, also called thoroughwort, was to promote bowel
movements, and the stem growing “through” its fused
leaves can also represent this action.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
43
CHRIS EVANS / BUGWOOD.ORG
COMMON AND
GLOSSY BUCKTHORN
Rhamnus cathartica (pictured)
and Frangula alnus
As we wring our hands over the invasive growth of
these small trees, it may be helpful to consider the
value of buckthorn in other cultures. Buckthorn’s inner
bark/sapwood sports an intense yellow hue and it,
along with the plant’s unripe berries, yields a yellow
dye. Accounts exist of people boiling the bark in ale
to treat jaundice (a liver disorder that makes skin turn
yellow), and people in the Israeli regions of Samaria
and Galilee have reported that drinking a decoction of
the bark has been used to treat hepatitis.
COMMON MILKWEED
Asclepias syriaca
Break a stalk or leaf of milkweed and sticky white
sap oozes out. This plant and others in its genus have
been used by people on both sides of the Atlantic for
millennia. Milkweed’s sap and soft, flossy seeds have
long been used to dress wounds; many parts of the
plant are edible with some preparation; stem fibers
have been used for cordage; and the silky seed floss
has traditionally been used as a mattress and pillow
stuffing and even, in World War II, in life preservers.
In some places, milkweed pods are still worth about
55 cents a pound. The plant also has been used
to stimulate milk production in new mothers.
Ethnographer Frances Densmore spent time with
the Chippewa tribe and reported in 1928: “During
confinement [after childbirth] take half a root, break
it up, and put it in a pint of boiling water, let it stand
and get cold. Whenever a woman takes any liquid
food, put a tablespoon of this medicine in the food.
This remedy was used to produce a flow of milk.” Its
leaves have been used as a female contraceptive by
Native Americans (sometimes decocted and taken
internally, sometimes applied externally). Conversely,
monarch butterflies use the plant to improve
reproductive success. Monarchs become
toxic to predators by feeding on the poisonous
white milkweed sap.
DAVE MANCE III
44
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
A Consulting Forester can help you
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
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Redstart Forestry
Juniper Chase, Corinth, VT 05039
(802) 439-5252
www.redstartconsulting.com
Paul Harwood, Leonard Miraldi
Harwood Forestry Services, Inc.
P.O. Box 26, Tunbridge, VT 05077
(802) 356-3079
harwoodforestry@gmail.com
Anita Nikles Blakeman
Woodland Care Forest Management
P.O. Box 4, N. Sutton, NH 03260
(603) 927-4163
woodlandcare@tds.net
Ben Hudson
Hudson Forestry
P.O. Box 83, Lyme, NH 03768
(603) 795-4535
ben@hudsonforestry.com
Herbert Boyce, ACF, CF
Deborah Boyce, CF
Northwoods Forest Consultants, LLC
13080 NYS Route 9N, Jay, NY 12941
(518) 946-7040
nfc@frontiernet.net
M.D. Forestland Consulting, LLC
(802) 472-6060
David McMath
Cell: (802) 793-1602
dmcmath@kingcon.com
Beth Daut, NH #388
Cell: (802) 272-5547
bethdaut@gmail.com
Gary Burch
Burch Hill Forestry
1678 Burch Road, Granville, NY 12832
(518) 632-5436
garyeburch@gmail.com
Alan Calfee, Michael White
Calfee Woodland Management, LLC
P.O. Box 86, Dorset, VT 05251
(802) 231-2555
info@calfeewoodland.com
www.calfeewoodland.com
Fountain Forestry
7 Green Mountain Drive, Suite 3
Montpelier, VT 05602-2708
(802) 223-8644 ext 26
Andrew.carlo@fountainsamerica.com
LandVest Timberland
Management and Marketing
ME, NH, NY, VT
5086 US Route 5, Suite 2, Newport, VT 05855
(802) 334-8402
www.landvest.com
Meadowsend Timberlands Ltd
Serving NH & VT
P.O. Box 966, New London, NH 03257
(603) 526-8686
www.mtlforests.com
Jeremy G. Turner, NHLPF #318
(603) 481-1091
jgturner@tds.net
Ryan Kilborn, NHLPF #442
(802) 323-3593
rkilborn@tds.net
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.
Richard Cipperly, CF
North Country Forestry
8 Stonehurst DrIve, Queensbury, NY 12804
(518) 793-3545
Cell: (518) 222-0421
rjcipperly@roadrunner.com
Calhoun and Corwin Forestry, LLC
41 Pine Street, Peterborough, NH 03458
(603) 562-5620
swiftcorwin@gmail.com
www.swiftcorwin.com
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
northwoodsforestry@gmail.com
Scott Moreau
Greenleaf Forestry
P.O. Box 39, Westford, VT 05494
(802) 343-1566 cell
(802) 849-6629
glforestry@aol.com
Haven Neal
Haven Neal Forestry Services
137 Cates Hill Road, Berlin, NH 03570
(603) 752-7107
hineal@peoplepc.com
David Senio
P.O. Box 87, Passumpsic, VT 05861
(802) 748-5241
dsenio@charter.net
Jeffrey Smith
Butternut Hollow Forestry
1153 Tucker Hill Road
Thetford Center, Vermont 05075
(802) 785-2615
bhollowforestry@gmail.com
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
jwadsworth@wadsworthwoodlands.com
www.wadsworthwoodlands.com
Wayne Tripp
F&W Forestry Services, Inc.
Glens Falls & Herkimer, New York
(315) 868-6503
wtripp@fwforestry.com
Kenneth L. Williams
Consulting Foresters, LLC
959 Co. Hwy. 33, Cooperstown, NY 13326
(607) 547-2386
Fax: (607) 547-7497
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
45
Rising From the Ashes
46
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
Maine’s Native American basketmakers
have brought a tradition back to life.
By Joe Rankin
or Jeremy Frey, of Maine’s Passamaquoddy Indian
tribe, weaving ash baskets is a family tradition. He
learned to create baskets from his mother when he
was 22. His grandmother also wove baskets. Other
family members did, as well.
Frey tells people this when they stop at his booth at
Native American arts fairs. He loves to share the details
of how he collects ash logs, pounds them to separate
the fibers, splits the ash splints. How he turns wooden molds
for his baskets. How he comes up with designs, spends hours
upon hours hand-weaving to get a particular look, incorporating porcupine quills, perhaps, or sweetgrass.
“When you teach people, they’re more likely to appreciate
it,” said Frey. You’re not just selling a work of art then, you’re
selling a tradition, a story. “You’re selling the purity of it. It
gives more credence to what you’re doing.”
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THERESA SECORD
Philomene Saulis Nelson sells her baskets on Indian Island, Maine, circa 1940.
Inset: Great-granddaughter Theresa Secord continues the family tradition.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
47
Today, Frey’s baskets are avidly sought by collectors.
They’re displayed in museums, including the Smithsonian,
and in galleries and collections around the country. In 2011,
he won best-of-show at both the Santa Fe Indian Market,
the largest Native American arts festival in the world, and
the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market in
Phoenix. This past August, he won best-of-show in the basketry division at Santa Fe. His creations routinely fetch thousands
of dollars.
A Heritage Restored
The black ash tree occupies a unique spot in the culture of
Maine’s Indian tribes. Tradition holds that the Wabanaki – the
People of the Dawn – are the progeny of the tree. It is said that
Glooscap, hero of the tribes’ creation stories, shot an arrow at a
black ash and from the wound in the tree’s bark people flowed
out like a river to populate the world.
Stories aside, there’s no doubt that the black ash (or brown
ash, as it’s commonly known in Maine) has helped sustain the
Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Micmac tribes for generations. The tree has a unique property: once its bark is removed,
the tree can be pounded along its length until the growth rings
separate, producing perfect ash splints that can then be planed
and split and resplit, producing pliable yet durable weaving
material as wide as a man’s belt or as fine as dental floss.
Exactly how far back ash basketry goes is hard to determine.
MARY RANKIN
48
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
Ash baskets don’t fare as well in terms of archaeological preservation as, say, pottery. But there’s no doubt that the eastern woodland
Indians took advantage of natural materials found in the woods
– ash splints, sweetgrass, birch bark, spruce roots, or cedar bark
– to make strong and beautiful baskets. And it’s been done for a
long time, said Julia Clark, the curator of collections at the Abbe
Museum in Bar Harbor, which is devoted to the Wabanaki.
At first, utilitarian baskets likely held sway, but as Maine’s
cachet as a tourist destination began developing in the mid1800s, fancy baskets – purely ornamental works – became
important, said Clark. “Fancy baskets fed into a Victorian-era
fascination with ‘exotic’ peoples, and the basketmakers were
pretty savvy. They saw what wealthy collectors wanted and tried
to incorporate those style elements into their work. A lot of
baskets would have matched the stuff in a Victorian home.”
Basketmaking became an essential part of the economy in
some native communities. “They weren’t making a killing by
any means,” said Clark, “because they weren’t selling them for
very much. But for some families it was a critical source of
income. They would work all winter to harvest and process the
ash and sweetgrass and make baskets.”
Jennifer Neptune, a Penobscot basketmaker and the executive director of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, said
the tribes have a “special relationship” to the black ash. “It has
sustained our communities. Ash baskets paid for people to go
to school, paid for clothes, paid for food. Some people went to
college with basket money,” Neptune said. “It fed us when there
weren’t animals to hunt and the rivers were dammed up and we
couldn’t fish for salmon anymore. It
was basketry that fed our people.”
But in the late twentieth century, the
popularity of Wabanaki ash basketry
waned. By the early 1990s, there were
only about 30 active Indian basketmakers
in Maine, and their average age was 63.
Elders weren’t passing on their skills. The
craft was in danger of being lost.
Concerned about that trend, basketmakers
from the four Maine tribes formed the Maine Indian
Basketmakers Alliance in 1993. The group began putting on
workshops for kids and created an apprenticeship program that
paid master basketmakers to mentor younger generations. The
Alliance began arranging shows and exhibits and helping basketmakers with marketing.
Now there are some 150 active basketmakers from the four
tribes, and the average age has dropped to 40. Meanwhile, prices
have gone up, with basketmakers getting hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for their works.
This year, five tribal basketmakers from Maine competed in
the juried show at Santa Fe. In addition to Frey’s best-of-show
in basketry, former MIBA Executive Director Theresa Secord, a
Penobscot, won first place and Sarah Sockbeson, also Penobscot,
an honorable mention.
Traditions and Innovations
The revitalized basketry tradition has
spawned a burst of creativity. Today,
basketmakers are experimenting
with new forms, finishes, and materials; they’re looking to other arts for
inspiration, as well as back into the
tribes’ basketry tradition to incorporate
older techniques.
“I’ve always tried to develop my own style
based on innovation,” said Frey. As part of that, “I’ve kind of
made everything smaller. I tighten everything up, bringing the
standards closer together and making the weaving tight. I often
use silhouettes as my inspiration. Not flat areas, but curves.
They harken back to the feminine form, with a graceful sway
and angles.”
Frey said he works with different embellishments, including
porcupine quills, a traditional material. This year he turned a
wooden handle out of a burl and incorporated it into the top for
a tall basket to take to the Native American Fair in Bar Harbor.
That is not traditional. But the basket sold for $20,000 – before
the sale even officially opened.
At her booth at July’s Bar Harbor show, Sarah Sockbeson
snapped photos of her works with her camera phone before
Above: This miniature (3-inch diameter) green curly basket by Sarah Sockbeson incorporates brown ash, sweetgrass, and antler. Below, from left, Gabriel Frey, a Passamaquoddy,
weaves a basket handle. The braided ash detail of a Jeremy Frey creation. Sockbeson shares the Native American tradition of basketmaking with a new generation.
PHOTOS COURTESY ABBE MUSEUM, BAR HARBOR, MAINE EXCEPT AS NOTED
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
49
MARY RANKIN
50
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
gently wrapping the sold items to send off with customers. Many
of her baskets feature deer antler handles. She slices the antlers
into cross-sections, then carves and polishes each one, drilling a
hole through the center. “Each handle is kind of unique for the
basket,” Sockbeson said. Sockbeson gives careful attention to
color combinations and uses a fiber-reactive dye developed for
dyeing textiles. “I like the vibrant colors and I like the modern
look on something that’s really traditional and natural.”
George Neptune, a Passamaquoddy basketmaker and the
museum educator at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, said he’s
turning his baskets into sculptures. One piece incorporated a
raw piece of log with woven flowers on the basket and hummingbirds woven from ash appearing to sip from them.
“They’re all slight adaptations on traditional methods I’ve
been taught,” Neptune said. “I’m kind of taking traditions and
putting my own spin on them. I guess I get inspired from what
I see around me and what I see in nature.”
Neptune admits his works draw mixed reactions. “Some collectors really, really like it. Others think it’s kind of crazy.”
While black ash splints and sweetgrass are staple materials,
more artisans are experimenting with others, including birch
bark and the soft inner bark of the eastern white-cedar, both of
which were once primary weaving materials. Sockbeson paints
scenes on birchbark that she incorporates into the tops of some
of her baskets.
“It’s fun to play around with new things,” Sockbeson said.
“Some of them never make it out of the workroom. If I’m
experimenting, I’ll usually do one and see what kind of reaction
it gets. I think natives, in general, have always used what they
had available for materials. This is just the evolution of that.”
Neptune said much of the experimentation today is by younger weavers, though traditionally, Indian basketmakers have been
an innovative lot. It sometimes happens that a basketmaker will
try something “and feel like they’re being
super innovative” only to later come on
an antique basket that incorporates
the same technique or material, she
said. “They were pushing it back
then, too, in terms of creativity,
with new styles and ideas.”
But Clark said the more avant
garde basketry is drawing in
new collectors who wouldn’t
have been there based on the
previous styles.
JoAnne Fuerst, of Mount
Desert Island, has been collecting
Wabanaki basketry for decades.
At the Bar Harbor show, she was
thrilled to walk away from Jeremy
Frey’s booth with a miniature point
vase. “I have pieces by many, many
basketmakers,” she said. “But this is my first Jeremy Frey.”
The small vase is tightly woven in black and white. Fuerst
mused that it has something of an oriental aspect to it, acknowledging that it “pushes the bounds of my collection, which is
about half traditional nineteenth century and half modern. For
many years, I resisted the more modern basketry because I was
into the ‘authentic’ tradition. But I came to realize that it’s an
evolving art. The work that the really good people are doing at
this point is so good that I really wanted to be part of it.”
Ash Under Assault
While part of the evolution in basketmaking is attributable to
borrowing ideas from other art forms and cultures, including
other tribes in North America, another part is more practical:
the black ash’s days may be numbered.
The emerald ash borer has now been found in two dozen
states, including New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and two
Canadian provinces. The borer is in the back of every Maine
Indian basketmaker’s mind, evidenced by the educational posters at the Bar Harbor show.
“The irony is that we’ve kind of broken into the art market
scene nationally, and now we’re threatened with emerald ash
borer that could destroy our resource,” said Neptune.
The Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance is working with the
Maine Forest Service and the University of Maine to find ways
to slow the spread of the bug and to make contingency plans
for when it does arrive. Under the auspices of the University
of Maine’s Senator George Mitchell Center, the partners are
mapping black ash stands, looking at whether long-term preservation of harvested ash trees is possible, and saving ash seed.
They’re also making videos that show “basket tree” selection, processing, and weaving techniques
– a recorded legacy that could be used to
bring the art back generations hence if
the ash is wiped out and subsequently
restored.
“We have a deep, profound, and
spiritual relationship with this tree,
and we feel we have a responsibility
to do what we can to save it,” said
Neptune. Because black ash exists
in pockets rather than scattered
throughout the landscape, “some
people are hopeful emerald ash
borer may not spread as fast in
Maine. Right now all we have is
hope.”
Joe Rankin writes on forestry, natural history, and
sustainability from his home in New Sharon, Maine.
Left: Jeremy Frey’s basketmaking style emphasizes small, tight weaves. His baskets are among the most highly prized by modern collectors. Above: A brown ash “work basket”
(this one for potatoes) by Richard Silliboy.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
51
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Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
53
T H E
O V E R S T O R Y
Story by Virginia Barlow
Illustrations by Adelaide Tyrol
Eastern Hemlock
Tsuga canadensis
If you stop for a while in a dense old hemlock forest, dark and still, it may seem like
an eternal place, a place where nothing has changed or ever will. The small needles are
tightly packed, layer after layer, until almost no light reaches the forest floor. Needles
carpet the ground and there is very little sound. But these dear trees, far from being
timeless, have experienced catastrophes in the past and now face almost certain disaster, perhaps even complete extinction in the near future.
The culprit is the hemlock woolly adelgid, a tiny but deadly aphid-like insect that
arrived from Japan and has spread relentlessly since the 1950s. It’s easily dispersed by
wind and birds, not to mention people, and in 1985 it made a beeline for much of New
England, perhaps after being blown across Long Island Sound by Hurricane Gloria.
Eastern hemlock and Carolina hemlock, a more southern species, are equally susceptible and, unless something unexpected happens, in a few decades they will no longer
be a significant part of the forest. But this is not the first hit they have taken.
Eastern hemlock headed north during the retreat of the last glacier, beginning
about 10,000 years ago, and by 8,000 years ago it was flourishing as never before – or
since. But then something cataclysmic happened. By looking at the pollen record,
researchers at Harvard Forest discovered that, very suddenly, 5,500 years ago, Eastern
hemlock almost disappeared throughout its range, which covers the colder parts of the
eastern U.S. and Canada. Many possible causes have been suggested – among them an
insect outbreak, disease, drought, climate change, or a combination of the above – but
the available evidence is inconclusive. For whatever reason, during a span of about
1,500 years there was almost no hemlock in the Northeast. Then, just as mysteriously,
it staged a dramatic comeback that lasted until the arrival of Europeans.
New settlers were a plague to hemlock. Trees that weren’t felled to make room for
agriculture were stripped of their tannin-rich bark, which was used to tan leather. At
one time, there was a tannery in almost every village. Much more leather was used
per person in the pre-plastic era: for saddles, harnesses, shoes, boots, coats, and belts
for both trousers and machinery. At first, tanning was a cottage industry but by the
late-nineteenth century, leather-making was the fifth largest business in the country.
Although oak bark was a more common source of tannin in the southern states, in
New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, the industry depended on hemlock. The
bark was stripped from trees from the first full moon in May till the last full moon in
August and allowed to dry until the ground was frozen and heavy wagonloads could
be moved without miring in wet soils. Four to six trees yielded a cord of bark, and a
cord treated 200 pounds of sole leather. Tanned leather and hemlock bark extract were
also shipped to Europe and South America.
In the federal government’s 1877 Report Upon Forestry, Franklin B. Hough observed,
“It is a matter of common experience that extensive areas once covered with a heavy
growth of hemlock, as, for example, in Greene and Ulster Counties, New York, have,
within a period comparatively recent, been wholly or nearly exhausted of their tanning
materials, and that extensive tanneries in many places have been wholly abandoned,
their owners, if continuing the business, being compelled to seek new localities.”
An 1893 story in The New York Times tells the same tale: “A tannery is like a flea.
It is always on the jump. It is built as cheaply as possible, so that when the supply of
54
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
bark gives out it can be abandoned and a new
tannery put up or dug out somewhere else.”
That “somewhere else” was usually on
a river, since tanneries required a lot
of waterpower to grind the bark
and it was handy to send all of the
polluted effluent downstream. Fire
often swept through the debrislittered forest following a hemlock
harvest, which further degraded the site.
Synthetic tanning materials began to be used in the 1880s, too late to save most of
the Northeast’s hemlock groves. Now, chromium salts are used in over 90 percent of
leather production.
Hemlock is both slow growing and slow to recolonize a denuded forest, so it’s taken
the species a while to reclaim its lost ground. Still, over the past 100 years, hemlock has
become a large part of the forest in the Northeast.
In areas yet to be infested by hemlock woolly adelgid, hemlock is still increasing
its share of the forest, and its benefits here are huge. Its dense growth keeps steep
slopes from eroding and shades and cools streams. Deer winter best nestled under
hemlock stands in winter, where the thick blanket of needles overhead greatly reduces
snow depth and wind chill and moderates nighttime low temperatures. Wild turkeys,
grouse, and other animals hunker down in hemlocks, too.
It’s not uncommon for hardwood stands to be dotted with single trees or small
patches of hemlock, and these provide cover and nesting spots for many birds, most
notably the black-throated green warbler, but also the black-throated blue warbler,
Blackburnian warbler, yellow-rumped warbler, and junco. Porcupines sit high in the
trees in winter, eating bark and twigs. Deer sometimes make good use
of the litter of branches that the porkies drop. Snowshoe hare and red
squirrels also eat the foliage, and mice eat the seeds.
Hemlock’s ability to live in deep shade is legendary. A seedling
can sit in near darkness, almost comatose, waiting patiently for one
of its giant neighbors to succumb. One seedling, measured with a
microscope, grew less than half-an-inch in 60 years. Two- to threeinch diameter saplings sometimes are approaching their
200th birthdays. But after that lucky day, even the frailest
little hemlock can spring to life and grow rapidly – and for
a long while. Though not eternal, 400-year-old stands that
somehow avoided the axe and saw are not uncommon. The
oldest recorded hemlock was 988.
The shadow of doom that hangs over this graceful conifer is saddening indeed.
It seems likely that history will repeat itself and this species will soon vanish
from New England’s forests. For now, we can simply appreciate it: icon, symbol
of permanence, protector of streams, haven for deer. And hope that this time it
doesn’t take 1,500 years to recover.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
55
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Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
57
FIELD work
By Joe Rankin
At Work Mining Timber
with Tom Shafer
Tom Shafer’s business is mining trees. It’s
not really harvesting; maybe re-harvesting.
“Recovering a forgotten forest” is his company motto. He likes to think of it as mining.
And Shafer’s not just selling lumber to panel
offices and bars. He’s selling history. He’s selling green.
Shafer, a former stock trader, and his business partner, Steve Sanders, founded Maine
Heritage Timber in 2010 to exploit a vast trove
of sunken logs in Quakish Lake in the economically ailing North Woods town of Millinocket.
It is a long way from Wall Street, but it’s apparent talking
to Shafer that the man has a passion for his product. And, in a
sense, he’s still selling, just not stocks.
Quakish Lake covers 1,000 acres. For over a century, it served
as a vast holding pond for the Great Northern Paper Company’s
huge mill. Millions of logs were floated into it to await the
pulping process, and many of them sank. Bathymetric surveys
show the lake holds an estimated 750,000 to 1,000,000 cords of
wood, both hardwood and softwood, said Shaffer.
While many of Maine’s lakes have a wooden legacy of the
great river drives lying in the mud of their bottoms, there are no
others like this, Shafer said. “It’s the honey hole of honey holes.”
Shafer and Sanders began by getting a raft of permits and
permissions from the owners of the mill, from the state, from
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, from the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, and from Katahdin Forest Management,
which owns the right-of-way. “It was an extensive process,”
PHOTOS COURTESY OF MAINE HERITAGE TIMBER
58
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
Quakish Lake was dammed up and grew to about 1,000 acres in 1899. Log drives
used the lake to move millions of logs during this era, but many of those logs sank
and never made it to the mill.
Shafer said.
The original business plan called for selling most of the logs
for paper pulp, with a small milling operation to turn the best
of the best into lumber. But with the closing of the local Great
Northern Paper Company pulp mill right around the time
Maine Heritage Timber was getting started, the partners had to
retool their business plan and became a producer of “heritage”
lumber for use as paneling and flooring, with scraps and low
quality offcuts sold as biomass.
The lake’s timber is a product of the log drives of the 1800s
and 1900s. Much of it is virgin timber, with tests showing that
some of the trees began growing as early as 1500. Most of the
softwood is spruce and fir in four-foot pulp lengths. The hardwood is mainly tree-length stuff that was felled and left to be
covered by water when a dam was put in and Quakish Lake was
expanded from 400 acres to 1,000 acres in 1899, Shafer said.
“The thing I find most interesting is it was basically a
natural resource that is coming out in log form. You have this lost
product that has been underwater, in some cases for 150 years.
And the only thing that’s happened to it is time and water
have transformed the patinas in the wood into something that
others try to duplicate with chemicals, but find it difficult to do,”
said Shafer.
Instead of feller-bunchers and forwarders, Maine Heritage
Timber has a fleet of 11 (10-by-40-foot) barges, 15 industrial
sized waste containers, a tugboat, and an excavator with a log
loader-type grapple. The excavator and containers are parked
on the barges and towed into the lake. The excavator fishes the
An excavator outfitted with a log-loader grapple pulls wood from the lake bottom. Logs
are stacked up and smaller pieces placed into a container. Maine Heritage Timber
operates 11 barges like this on Quakish Lake.
logs from the water and puts them into the containers. Then
they’re towed to shore and loaded onto trucks for the mile-anda-half trip to the company’s sawmill.
Once there, the logs are loaded onto a shaker screen to scrub
off the worst of the mud and rocks and put through a debarker.
“It’s a process that’s extremely labor intensive. It takes five men to
run that,” said Shafer. Logs smaller than five inches are set aside
for chipping. The good stuff is sawn 1.375 inches thick. It then
goes to Pride Manufacturing in Burnham, Maine, for drying.
While the retrieval and milling are unconventional, it’s in the
drying that things get especially tricky.
Robert Rice, a professor of wood science and technology
at the University of Maine’s School of Forest Resources, worked
with Shafer to develop drying schedules for the lumber.
Compared to freshly cut green wood, submerged wood isn’t
supersaturated with water, Rice said. The tree’s cells, after all,
can only hold so much.
“But, depending on the depth to which they’ve been sunk,
some of them are subject to decay over time,” Rice said. Deeper,
colder water inhibits decay; wood from shallower, warmer
waters will still see some decay. Quakish is a relatively shallow lake and much of the wood shows some deterioration. But
it’s the decay that makes it unique, and it can be a challenge to
preserve its integrity in the drying process.
“We approach the drying fairly carefully so that any defects,
or character as Tom would call it, within the log is preserved,”
said Rice. Tests showed that the lumber needed extra time in the
dryer to avoid what Rice describes as a “pressure cooker” effect,
where evaporating water simply destroys the fibers.
“We go slowly and dry the wood more carefully,” said Rice.
“The final temperature is about the same, the ramp rate to get
there will take us an extra day or two compared to normal
spruce-fir dimension lumber we would dry in a kiln.”
The resulting product is not structural by any means, but a
unique decorative lumber, said Rice.
Maine Heritage Timber offers two types of product: wall
paneling and a line of flooring created by resawing the lumber
and then bonding the thinner stock to half-inch structural
plywood at a flooring mill in West Virginia.
So far, the main customers have been restaurants, offices,
and bars. “We’ve found our sweet spot is the commercial
side of things,” said Shafer. “We even offer a line of conference
tables just rolled out last spring.” Their products have been
installed in restaurants in Bangor, Bar Harbor, and the Sugarloaf
and Sunday River ski resorts in Maine, and they’ve filled
orders from California to Boston and Fargo, North Dakota, to
Jacksonville, Florida. “We’re a nationwide supplier of millwork
and customized heritage wood,” Shafer said.
The wall paneling sells for $5 to $7.50 a square foot; the
flooring can be $8 to $12, depending on species and width.
Shafer said that’s “kind of middle of the road as far as price,”
when compared with similar products.
The wood salvaged from the lake bottom is srubbed of mud, debarked, sawn into
boards 1.375 inches thick, and then slowly dried.
When he’s talking up his line of products to prospective customers, Shafer isn’t just selling them a wall covering with a nice
patina, though. He’s selling them the whole Paul Bunyanesque
story: the vast virgin forests, the tough lumberjacks toiling in
deep snow, the daring log drivers dancing across a river of logs
on calked boots, and the old growth trees resurfacing more than
a century after the people who felled them died. “The story
makes it so powerful. People love to tell stories, and our story is
100 percent true,” Shafer said.
He also pushes the “green” product angle. After all, he said,
you can’t get any greener than bringing up logs preserved at the
bottom of a lake. “We save a thousand acres of forestland from
being cut every year we operate,” Shaffer said.
Another green selling point: Maine Heritage Timber is also
restoring Quakish Lake, now “nothing but a landfill of wood.”
And another: They sell their waste as bark mulch and biomass
fuel. “As far as being sustainable and a green project, well, there
is nothing greener than what we do. It really is that simple,” he
said. And, by the way, they’re creating badly needed jobs in a
historic paper mill town without an operational paper mill.
So far, they and their investor have sunk (no pun intended)
four million dollars into the project. Annual operating costs
about one million a year; last year, revenues covered about
$600,000 of that, said Shaffer. They hope 2015 will be their
break-even year.
Maine Heritage Timber has already removed about 25,000
cords of wood from Quakish Lake. Even accounting for
increased production, Shafer figures there’s 20 years worth left
in the Quakish wood bank. “It’s not going to run out soon,” he
said. “But once it’s gone, it’s gone.”
Joe Rankin is a forestry writer. He lives in central Maine.
Wagner Forest Management, Ltd., is pleased to underwrite Northern Woodlands’ series
on forest entrepreneurs. www.wagnerforest.com
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
59
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Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
61
Northern Forests – Timber, Recreation, Estates
Merrill Mountain Forest
343 Acres
South Hiram, ME
Exceptional views from this
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with power. Homestead, timber
and subdivision opportunities.
Close to Sebago Lake;
within an hour of Portland
and White Mountains.
$363,000
Burnt Mill Forest
1,310 Acres
Saratoga County, NY
Quality Adirondack timberland
with favorable, hardwood
species and high percentage
of sugar maple and yellow
birch sawlogs. Gently-sloping,
low-rolling foothills terrain
ideal for cost effective
harvest operations.
$1,070,000
Bloomfield Ridge Forest
729 Acres
Bloomfield, VT
Spectacular views of White
Mountains and the surrounding
region from this ridgetop parcel.
Southern exposure, numerous
building sites and welldeveloped internal road system.
A private and serene parcel
adjacent to conserved land.
$550,000
Maine & New Hampshire
Patrick Hackley (866) 348-4010
Vermont & New York
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(518) 668-5880
Ellenburg Forest
2,062 Acres
Ellenburg, NY
Sugar maple and yellow birch
investment forest with abundant
growing stock and strategic
proximity to regional (US and
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Further information on these
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Trusted Professionals in Timberland Brokerage for Over 30 Years
62
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
up COUNTRY
By Robert Kimber
Flummy
I know several men who are excellent cooks. I’m sorry to say I
am not one of them. But let me be clear: my failure to achieve
distinction in the kitchen is not rooted in disdain for the culinary
arts. I have nothing but admiration for all those cooks, male
or female, who are not just talented dilettantes who put on an
occasional festive meal now and then but who – like my wife
– perform at a high level over the long haul, day after day, year
after year.
Cooking well calls not just for the craftsman-like virtues of
discipline, persistence, attention to detail, but also for the artistic
imagination to combine seemingly incompatible ingredients
into a hitherto unknown taste treat, a kind of fresh gustatory
metaphor. Faced with Rita’s ability to work that kind of magic
and conjure savory meals out of just about nothing, I realized
early in our marriage that I stood little chance of ever catching
up with her. So I decided to leave the cooking entirely in her
hands; almost entirely, I should say, because there are a couple
of staple items in our diet that she leaves to me. The most
important of these is flummy, and if I haven’t produced one for
quite a while, Rita will remind me that it’s high time I did.
Flummy (etymology uncertain) is the Labrador trapper’s trail
bread. I learned how to make it from Horace Goudie, the last
of the Height of Landers, those amazingly skilled and rugged
trappers who traveled each September 200 miles upstream on
the Grand River (designated on maps now as the Churchill
River) to reach their hunting grounds on the Labrador plateau.
On a canoe trip down that same Grand River undertaken in
the fall of 1990 to celebrate Horace’s retirement from guiding at
age 68, we Yankees cajoled Horace into showing us, on a warm,
sunny layover day, the fine points of flummy-making.
The ingredients: three cups flour, a rounded tablespoon
of baking powder, a scant teaspoon of salt, a scant cupand-a-half of water. The total absence of shortening
is one thing that separates flummy from bannock or
biscuit. But another thing Horace stressed is that
success with flummies is “all in the mixing.”
Okay, so you stir the dry ingredients
together as you would for any old batch of
biscuits. But then you dig a deep well into
the center of the mix and pour the water in.
With a spoon, you slowly peel the flour from
the sides of the well into the water, stirring
and peeling, until you can’t stir anymore.
Now you start folding the remaining flour
in from the sides and working it down
into the dough with your fingers, half
folding, half kneading. Handle the dough
only enough to round it into a ball you can
pick up and flatten out into a round cake pan or frying pan, the
bottom of which you have dusted with flour before you even
started mixing the dry ingredients. The flour works like grease
or oil to keep the flummy from sticking to the pan.
Next, you bore a hole into the middle of the dough with your
trigger finger and set the pan over a low enough campfire that
you don’t burn your dough but not so low that the dough won’t
bake and rise. After 15 minutes or so, or whenever the flummy
is baked firm enough to hold its shape, you turn it over and
jiggle the pan often so that the flip side won’t burn. In the winter,
when you’re cooking on a tent stove, you control the baking
temperature by sliding the pan around on the stove to find the
exact amount of heat you need.
A little scorching on one side or the other can be tolerated, but the one cardinal flummy sin is soggy dough left in
the middle. The Labrador adjective for this baleful condition
is “dunse,” etymology again uncertain. The “u” in this word is
pronounced somewhere between the “u” in “dunce” and the “e”
in “dense,” which would suggest that anyone who produces a
dunse flummy is a dense dunce.
Having an oven in our kitchen at home, I haven’t hesitated
to use it in pursuit of the perfect flummy, and I offer herewith
my prize-winning recipe: two cups all-purpose white flour and
two cups whole wheat, a heaping tablespoon of baking powder,
a teaspoon of salt, and a tad under two cups of water. Bake for
25 minutes at 450 degrees; turn it over for 10 more minutes at
350, and perfection is yours. Note, however, that a four-cup
flummy is – in my experience – best reserved for oven baking at
home because it takes a lot of time and attention to get it baked
through over an open fire.
And remember: should you ever produce a failed flummy,
keep Horace’s admonition in mind next time and stick
religiously to his mixing routine, complete with poking a hole
in the middle of the dough before baking. The magic
is all in the mixing.
Robert Kimber has written often for outdoor and
environmental magazines. He lives in Temple, Maine.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
63
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Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
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Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
65
D I S C O V E R I E S
By Todd McLeish
Go Jump in a Lake
66
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
KELLY BAUMANN
The Clean Air Act, passed more than 40
years ago, continues to provide positive
outcomes. The latest good news comes
from a University of New Hampshire
environmental scientist who reports that
lakes throughout New England and the
Adirondack Mountains are rapidly recovering from the effects of acid rain. His
research was published last summer in
the journal Environmental Science and
Technology.
William McDowell, director of
the New Hampshire Water Resources
Research Center, said that water bodies
in the region “were under assault from
the large quantity of acid going into the
lakes and watersheds” prior to the Clean
Air Act. Emissions of sulfur dioxide and
nitrogen oxide were converted into sulfuric acid and nitric acid in the atmosphere
and subsequently deposited on the land
and lakes when it rained or snowed.
But McDowell’s analysis of data collected
since 1991 (he looked at 31 sites in New
England and 43 in the Adirondacks)
showed that sulfate concentrations in
rain and snow declined by more than
40 percent in the 2000s, and sulfate concentrations in lakes are declining at an
increasing rate. Nitrate concentrations
are also declining rapidly.
“Long-term monitoring of lakes in
New England started in the early 1980s
to document whether the Clean Air Act
works to clean up lakes,” McDowell said.
“And the answer is, yes. They’re becoming less acidic and the water chemistry
has improved to become more hospitable
to lake biota.”
According to McDowell, several factors
work together to reduce the acidity of
lake water. Recently, rain and snow falling
directly into lakes has been less acidic.
This “replacement effect” is bolstered by
soils filtering out acids before they reach
the lakes. “The water is getting more and
more pure in many of our lakes, so we’re
getting to the point where it’s challenging
to even measure it,” he said.
Not every lake is improving at the
same rate – local soils and bedrock have
an effect on a lake’s recovery rate – but
almost all are improving. Whether the
water quality in the lakes is back to
“normal” is uncertain, since there is no
water quality data prior to the 1980s.
“It also gets complicated because some
lakes are clean and clear and others are
naturally brown with organic acids that
come in from vegetation and wetlands,”
McDowell said. “There is no one condition that is considered normal.”
While McDowell believes that the long
term monitoring of lakes in the region
has proven the effectiveness of the Clean
Air Act, he and his colleagues plan to
continue monitoring lake water quality
to assess future changes to the environment. He is particularly interested in
learning how climate change affects water
quality, speculating that a longer ice-free
period may lead to anoxic conditions and
increased algal blooms.
The Case for Snow
Trees sequester carbon from the atmosphere and play a key role in mitigating
the effects of climate change. But a study
by researchers at Dartmouth College
found that from a climate perspective,
forestation isn’t necessarily a good thing
Adam Baumann sampling Lonesome Lake in the White
Mountains of New Hampshire, with a view of the northeastern extent of Franconia Notch and the Mt. Lafayette
ridgeline.
in all cases. They concluded that deforestation may provide greater climate benefits in some areas than leaving trees
standing. Their study, published in the
journal Climatic Change, is the first to put
a value on albedo, a measure of the snow’s
ability to reflect the sun’s energy.
“In many areas where snow is frequent,
the overall climatic influence of the high
albedo from snow may counteract the
cooling benefits of carbon storage,” said
postdoctoral researcher David Lutz.
Lutz and colleague Richard Howarth
agree that sustainable forestry practices
provide important climate benefits in
forests with high growth rates. But at
high latitudes where snowfall is common and timber productivity is low, an
open landscape with a large field of snow
can have a cooling effect by reflecting
incoming solar energy, outweighing the
value of lost carbon storage. They suggest
that snow-cover albedo be factored into
existing and proposed carbon trading
programs, like the California Greenhouse
Gas Cap-and-Trade Program run by the
California Air Resources Board, which
they say is already generating forest car-
bon projects in New England.
In their study, the researchers created
what they call an integrated assessment
model that places an economic value on
timber, as well as on albedo and carbon,
and examined how these values would
affect forest harvesting rotations in the
White Mountain National Forest. Their
results suggest that the value of albedo can
shorten optimal forest rotation periods
significantly compared to scenarios where
only timber and carbon are considered.
In high-elevation areas near tree-line that
receive substantial snowfall, and where
forests grow slowly, the optimal forest
size from a climate-cooling perspective
is near zero.
The researchers recognize that deforestation may have significant negative
effects on biodiversity, wildlife habitat,
and other ecosystem services, so they recommend that forest managers consider
those factors when working to maximize
timber production, carbon storage, and
albedo at mid- and high-elevation forests.
“My hunch is that the working forest concept with sustainable management practices is the best option for our region,”
said Howarth, “taking into account the
diverse values associated with forests and
the links between communities and landscapes. But the science of how forests
interact with climate is an important
piece of the puzzle, and that’s more complicated than a simple focus on carbon.”
Lutz and Howarth are now expanding
their model to evaluate more than 500 forest sites across New Hampshire to include
many different tree species, varying elevations, and differing amounts of snow cover.
They also plan to incorporate a wide range
of other forest values into their model,
from shelter and foraging habitat for wildlife to recreational, cultural, and aesthetic
values. “We’re adding these aspects one at a
time at the moment,” Lutz said. “From that
standpoint, we are far from making any
prescriptive statements about what forest
owners should or should not do.”
Fur-Bearings
CHRIS MAZZARELLA
Detecting small mammal prey beneath a
thick covering of snow is among the more
challenging skills that some predators
must develop to survive New England
winters. Most use exceptional hearing
and an acute sense of smell. According to
a researcher in the Czech Republic, red
foxes also use the Earth’s magnetic field to
orient themselves when hunting.
Red foxes jump high to surprise prey
from above in a behavior called “mousing,” and when doing so, according to
Jaroslav Červený, a wildlife biologist at
the Czech University of Life Sciences,
they strongly prefer to pounce in a northeasterly direction. He said this directional
preference enhances the precision of their
hunting by aligning themselves with the
Earth’s magnetic field.
Červený recruited a team of 23 hunters
and biologists who observed 84 different
foxes make nearly 600 mousing jumps in
a variety of locations throughout the year
and in all kinds of weather. They found
that the foxes were successful at capturing their prey 73 percent of the time
when pouncing toward the northeast and
60 percent of the time when jumping in
the exact opposite direction. But their
success rate declined to 18 percent when
pouncing in any other direction. (When
red foxes can clearly see their prey, directional heading obviously plays an insignificant role in their hunting success.)
“Mousing red foxes may use the magnetic field as a range finder or targeting
system to measure distance to its prey and
thus increase the accuracy of predatory
attacks,” wrote Červený in the journal
Biological Letters. “A fox that approaches
an unseen prey along a northward compass bearing could estimate the distance
of its prey by moving forward until the
sound source is in a fixed relationship
to the magnetic field. This would consistently place the fox at a fixed distance
from its prey, allowing it to attack using a
highly stereotyped leap.”
This explanation is plausible, he says,
because the Earth’s magnetic field tilts
downward at a 60- to 70-degree angle
in the northern hemisphere, so as a fox
inches toward the sound of a mouse, it is
looking for the point at which the angle of
the sound matches the angle of the magnetic field. That’s when it knows precisely
how far to leap.
The physiology of how a fox’s magnetic
detection sense operates is uncertain, and
Červený has been unable to prove it even
exists, but he believes that he has ruled
out all other environmental explanations.
And he knows that many other creatures
can detect magnetic fields, including
birds, bats, sharks, and turtles. He determined in a 2008 study, for instance, that
cows and deer must have the same ability,
since they tend to align themselves in a
north-south direction, and their alignment is disrupted by the magnetic fields
coming from high-voltage power lines.
But red foxes are the first animal believed
to use this “magnetic sense,” as Červený
calls it, to capture a hidden meal.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
67
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Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
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70
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
71
Ad Index
A. Johnson Co............................................ 64
Allard Lumber Company ............................ 10
BayState Forestry Services ........................ 52
Berry, Dunn, McNeil, & Parker ................... 69
Betsy Rogers-Knox Botanical Art .............. 69
Britton Lumber Co., Inc.............................. 61
Cersosimo Lumber Co., Inc. ...................... 64
Cersosimo Lumber Mill .............................. 57
Champlain Hardwoods............................... 60
Chief River Nursery .................................... 71
Classifieds .................................................. 36
Colligan Law, LLC ...................................... 26
Columbia Forest Products ......................... 37
Consulting Foresters .................................. 45
Econoburn .................................... back cover
Farm Credit ................................................ 61
Fountains Forestry...................................... 72
Fountains Land........................................... 62
Gagnon Lumber, Inc. .................................. 56
Garland Mill Timberframes ......................... 52
Hull Forest Products................................... 64
Innovative Natural Resource Solutions ...... 53
Itasca Greenhouse ..................................... 70
Land & Mowing Solutions, LLC ................. 72
LandVest .................................................... 26
LandVest Realty .................insde back cover
Lie-Nielsen.................................................. 62
Lyme Green Heat ....................................... 10
Lyme Timber............................................... 69
Maine Forest Service.................................. 52
Massachusetts Forest Alliance .................. 68
McNeil Generating...................................... 71
Meadowsend .............................................. 57
N.E.W.T.: Northeast Woodland Training ..... 26
NE Forestry Consultants, Inc. .................... 65
NE Wood Pellet .......................................... 60
NEFF........................................................... 12
New England Forest Products ................... 70
Newcomb, NY ............................................ 52
Northern Timber ................. inside front cover
Northland Forest Products ........................ 61
Oesco, Inc. ................................................. 53
Ohana Family Camps ................................. 12
Sacred Heart University ............................. 62
Scotland Hardwoods.................................. 71
Sustainable Forestry Initiative .................... 10
SWOAM ...................................................... 56
Tarm USA, Inc. ........................................... 65
The Taylor-Palmer Agency, Inc. .................. 53
Thomas P. Peters II and Associates ........... 65
Timberhomes, LLC ..................................... 10
Vermont Agricultural Credit Corporation .... 71
VWA ............................................................ 70
VWACCF..................................................... 57
Wells River Savings Bank........................... 70
Winterwood Timber Frames ....................... 60
Woodwise Land, Inc. .................................. 68
Find all of our advertisers easily online at:
northernwoodlands.org/issues/advertising/
advertisers
72
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
TRICKS of the trade
Story and Photos by Brett R. McLeod
Small-Scale Charcoal Production
After bucking this year’s firewood, I found myself with a
collection of odd-shaped ends and crotches, perfect for
charcoal-making. Charcoal is essentially wood that’s been
“cooked” in the absence of oxygen, a process known as
pyrolysis. After a few hours in the kiln, what you’re left
with is nearly pure carbon that’s energy-rich and perfect
for grilling, or even firing up a forge. Based on how much
you’re looking to make, this same process can be scaled
up (using large metal drums) or down (using small paint
cans), consistent with the method described below.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Step One: To make charcoal you’ll need two barrels: one
to hold the charcoal (the crucible), and a second larger
barrel to contain the fire (the kiln). For this project, I used
a 10-gallon metal trash can as the crucible and a 40-gallon
metal trash can as the kiln. Drill a half-inch-diameter
vent hole in the crucible lid and approximately 20 vent
holes of the same size around the base on the kiln, evenly
spaced. (Photos 1 & 2)
Step Two: Fill your crucible with split chunks of hardwood about four inches long. (This batch was a mix of
American beech and sugar maple.) Pack the wood tightly
and to the top of the can (the photo shows just the first
layer of these small pieces) to minimize air space. Replace
the lid, crimping the edge with a hammer. (Photo 3)
Step three: Prepare the kiln by stacking two courses of
firewood in the bottom, the first perpendicular to the
second; this will form a base with good air circulation
for the fire. Next, place the crucible inside the kiln on the
prepared base and pack wood slabs between the crucible
and kiln. (Photos 4 & 5)
Step Four: Light the kiln fire and maintain even heat for
3-5 hours. You can stack additional firewood on top of the
kiln; just make sure the crucible vent is clear. (Photo 6)
Step Five: As the charcoal nears completion, you’ll notice
a short flame shooting from the crucible vent. Maintain
the fire until this flame dies out, then plug the hole with a
wet rag, and allow the kiln and crucible to cool. (Photo 7)
Step Six: Finished charcoal, ready for your next BBQ.
(Photo 8)
Brett R. McLeod is an associate professor of Forestry & Natural Resources at
Paul Smith’s College.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
73
wood LIT
Beetles of Eastern North America
By Arthur V. Evans
Princeton University Press, 2014
Thanks to the recent rapid compilation of insect
photos at www.bugguide.com and other websites,
identification of insects has never been easier. Art
Evans has taken advantage of these resources
and, working with these photographers and a
number of beetle specialists, he has produced a
well-edited book that provides a comprehensive
treatment (560 pages) of the beetles of eastern
North America.
The core of the book is the description of beetle
families, where each family is introduced, characterized, and compared with other similar families,
and their habitat/collecting techniques are discussed. Following this introduction, there are one
to many photographs of commonly encountered
species. This section of the book is particularly
strong due to the excellent photos, which nicely
combine the diversity within the family with the
more commonly seen species in eastern North
America. Associated with each photo is a paragraph discussing the biology, distribution, and
distinguishing features of the species.
For those who already know a bit about
beetles, this is a wonderful resource when you
have a specimen or photo inhand, as you can
look through the pages in a relevant section and
quickly narrow the possibilities down to the likely
family. If uncertain about a specific family placement, you can read through the notes describing
families that are similar in appearance and see
if you can find a better fit. If you are more of a
beginner, there is a very nice introductory portion
of the book where the commonly used anatomical
terms are explained and well-illustrated, together
with an extensive treatment of beetle biology,
behavior, collecting and photographic techniques,
and how to begin a collection. The key to families is short, emphasizing the more commonly
encountered and easily recognized families, but
associated with each of these keyed families is
74
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
a list of other families that have a similar appearance, together with their relevant page numbers
in the section on family treatments.
As Evans points out, in eastern North America
there are 115 families of beetles holding around
15,000 species, and his book treats only 1,409
of them. Many beetle species are small and only
a coleopterist will ever see or be able to identify
them; understandably, there is no single resource
that covers all of these species. This book does
an admirable job of introducing beetles and their
biologies at the level of family, and through the
photographs treats many of the more distinctive
genera while providing an opportunity to quickly
identify many of the beetles that naturalists will
encounter.
It is valuable to more experienced naturalists
in that it also covers the families dominated by
LBB’s (little brown beetles), that become more
commonly encountered as interest in beetle
diversity grows. This is a wonderful book for
beginners working with insect biodiversity, for
use in schools, and for naturalists. It is by far
the most complete and useful book in providing
an introduction to beetles and their biologies for
eastern North America. The one disadvantage is
that at 8x10 inches, it is too large to be used as a
pocket field guide, though it will fit comfortably in
a backpack.
Donald S. Chandler
Keeping the Wild: Against the
Domestication of Earth
Edited by George Wuerthner, Eileen Crist,
and Tom Butler
Island Press, 2014
“Is the great purpose of our species to steal the
lives and homes of millions of species and billions of creatures?” asks David Johns, one of the
writers featured in Keeping the Wild: Against the
Domestication of Earth. For Johns and the others
who contributed to this collection of essays, the
answer is obviously no. They take on the “neogreens” in the conservation community who
promote the concept that wilderness is only a
social construct and the idea that humans can be
rambunctious gardeners in charge of domesticating the planet.
Keeping the Wild is an anthology of essays
that present a countervailing case on behalf of
wild nature. There are three sections: Clashing
Worldviews, Against Domestication, and The Value
of the Wild. The scene of battle is well set by coeditor Tom Butler (of Vermont) in his passionate
yet reasoned and clear introduction.
The essays are written by scientists, philosophers, writers, academics, and conservation
activists from North and South America, Europe,
and Australia. Inevitably, when twenty-two authors
are focused on the same issue there is some
redundancy. But the wide variety of voices keeps
the reader attentive. Names that may be familiar
to readers of Northern Woodlands include Terry
Tempest Williams, Roderick Nash, Dave Foreman,
George Wuerthner (also from Vermont), Michael
Soulé, David Ehrenfeld, and Harvey Locke. They
are not arguing for pristine wilderness, though
we can certainly use some of that, but rather for
“wild lands,” where, if human management is
present, it mimics natural processes as much as
is feasible. It is to a large extent self-willed. They
also argue for restoration of lands degraded by
human exploitation in order to reclaim something
of nature’s native biodiversity and resiliency. They
feel that the neo-greens should have more humility,
for we have been and continue to be fallible
gardeners.
In making their cases, the writers frequently
cite the positions and counter the arguments
made by those on the forefront of the so-called
Anthropocene movement, including Peter Kareiva,
Emma Maris, Stewart Brand, and Dan Botkin.
These are folks who argue, essentially, that nature
in the twenty-first century will be a nature that we
make; we will become gods, so we might as well
get good at it. If you subscribe to this premise, you
should read what the other side has to say.
The so-called conservation movement has
always had its differing factions, but the neogreens are opening up a major division in the
ranks. They are postmodern deconstructionists. If
you, like me, have been fuzzy on the meaning of
this appellation, the fine essay by Harvey Locke
is a must read. It behooves us all to ponder and
understand the consequences of a gardened
world for our humanity and for our fellow beings
on this small, blue planet. Is it ethically appropriate for the behavior of one species to exercise the
power of life and death over millions of others?
If I am judging the readership of Northern
Woodlands correctly, the vast majority has experienced and love wild lands, but they also believe
that good science-based management of some
land squares with their belief in care for the Earth.
I think they will find this book immensely stimulating and will add strength to that ethic.
Larry Hamilton
Walden Warming: Climate Change
Comes to Thoreau’s Woods
By Richard B. Primack
University of Chicago Press, 2014
Most news about climate change focuses on the
dramatic and the exotic: melting glaciers, rising
sea level, the loss of polar bear habitat. Boston
University field biologist Richard B. Primack
makes it more real for us. He brings it right into
our backyards, right now.
Primack was well established as a tropical
botanist when, a decade ago, he decided to seek
evidence of climate change closer to home. He
was thrilled to discover that Henry David Thoreau
collected data, created tables, and made observations in his journal, recording first-flowering dates
for 300 different species in a wide area around
Walden Pond from 1851 to 1858. Primack set out
to follow in Thoreau’s footsteps – walking miles in
the fields and woods of Concord, Massachusetts,
to collect comparative data.
In Walden Warming: Climate Change Comes
to Thoreau’s Woods, Primack uses Thoreau’s
detailed records as the starting point to take
readers through a series of investigations about
how higher temperatures have affected plants,
birds, insects, and other life in the Northeast. The
flowers and birds Primack tracks – from a lady’s
slipper to a bobolink – are ones we know well.
Climate change doesn’t feel far off at all.
Assisted over several years by his undergraduate and graduate students, Primack discovered
that plants are now flowering weeks earlier than
they did in Thoreau’s time. Some species have
declined and some have disappeared. And the
changes aren’t just with the flowers: his research
includes ice-out dates, the effects on migratory
bird arrivals, and many other topics. (Bird-watching was uncommon in Thoreau’s time, and his bird
data are the oldest collected in Massachusetts.)
Although Primack has written for scientific journals, Walden Warming is for those of us who love to
walk in the woods, for botanists and birdwatchers,
for those who would like a better understanding
of how climate change is affecting our immediate
environment. With an engaging narrative style,
Primack shows readers how he works and how
he approaches research challenges.
Primack frequently quotes from Thoreau’s
iconic Walden, as well as from the writer’s journal.
He understands Thoreau and doesn’t get caught
up in the mythology around him. “Thoreau was
not (as some have made him out to be) a radical,
antisocial individual who shunned humanity and
saw value only in wild places. Walden Pond itself
was not a wilderness by any stretch of the imagination…. Thoreau’s point in going to Walden was
not so much to avoid being around people – and
if you read his journals, you find that for all his
solitary walks, he did still interact regularly with
the local residents – but to find solitude when he
wanted it, the company of the natural world when
he wanted it, and still maintain a connection to
society because he wanted it.”
Primack envisions two future worlds: the one
we appear to be headed toward, and one we
could still have. Despite reporting disconcerting
trends, his final chapter is a call to action and
includes steps we can take to become observers
and to join observer networks.
Many of Thoreau’s neighbors viewed him as
a loafer and questioned why a Harvard graduate would not pursue a “serious” career. His
on-again, off-again great friend Ralph Waldo
Emerson lamented that Thoreau “had no ambition.” “[I]nstead of engineering for all America, he
was captain of a huckleberry-party.” Thoreau was
very aware of his critics, commenting, “If a man
walk in the woods for love of them half of each
day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer;
but if he spends his whole day as a speculator,
shearing off those woods and making earth bald
before her time, he is esteemed an industrious
and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!” So, in the
end, Thoreau gets the last laugh. More than 150
years later, we are still reading what the “captain
of a huckleberry-party” had to say, and he is still
arguing for preservation.
Tom McKone
Hardwood
Ash
say ash
a fire laid
with three logs
because a fire must have
something to aspire to
third log on top
to catch
this silence
the fire needs to burn
the fire needs to burn
up
sometimes I’m just split wood
sometimes I’m what’s caught
a quiet thing
trying to say
ash
again
JODY GLADDING, from Translations from Bark Beetle (Milkweed Editions, 2014)
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
75
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Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
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Kenneth and Deborah Morse
Bambi Jones and Tracy Moskovitz
James K. Mossman
Suzanne Motheral
Richard S. Mulligan
Michael and Jane Newman
William Nichols
Timothy Ojala
John and Suzanne Olson
Daniel R. Ouimette
Robert and Sharon Payeur
Roland A. Payne
Jean B. Peelle
Dennis and Christine Perham
Julia Peterson
Gloria Switalski and Victor Piekarski
Joan W. Pierce
Joseph A. Poland
Elaine Kellogg and Peter Pope
Sally Schlueter and Richard Prescott
John L. Preston
Marie and Keith Raftery
Donald and Carol Randall
Shanna Ratner
Jan and Bob Reynolds
Stephen D. Reynolds
Mary Richards
Warren Richardson
Chris Rimmer
Jean F. Roberts
Andrew A. Robinson
Milton A. Robison
Robert Reiber and Mary Ann Rogers
Elizabeth P. Rouse
Paul D. Sachs
Sage Mountain
Robert Sandberg
John H. Sanders
Gary D. Sargent
Tom Seeley
Marc R. Shnider
Christine Brown and Henry Sienkewicz
Theodore P. Simmons
C. G. Simpson
Steven D. Singer
Edith and Thomas Sisson
Nancy and Robert Smith
Torrey and Ben Smith
Michael J. Sorenson
Kermit and Hazel Spaulding
Kate Seeger and Dean Spencer
Raymond Spink
Gregory Stathis
Kenneth and Rebecca Staveski
Pamela Steiner
Jean B. Stephan
Laurence Babcock and Virginia Stone
Carl A. Strand
George and Jannine Sutcliffe
Walter P. Sword
Jean C. Tandy
John and Jane Tarnauskas
Theresa and Harold Taylor
Pamela A. Taylor
Thorncrag Nature Sanctuary
Ralph and Nancy Timmerman
Tin Mountain Conservation Center
Robert K. Tracy
Robert L. Van Hoof
Geoffrey and Patricia Vankirk
John and Mary Vass
Alane Vogel
Hilary Wallis
Carrie Kerr and Dick Warner
Tom Warner
Glenn R. Washburn
Stephen W Webster
Henry and Linda Webster
Marjorie A. Wexler
Richard and Lavohn Weyrick
Kelly Wheatley
Ruth B. Whipple
John G. Whitman
Timothy Wiley
John and Christine Wiley
Phoebe K. and Roy C. Williams
Nancy Brunswick and Edward Yargeau
Micki Colbeck and Carl Yirka
Joseph Zuaro
the outdoor PALETTE
By Adelaide Tyrol
So It Goes, 2012, 18’ x 10’ x 2’, poplar, wire
“The closer the connection we feel to nature, the more we’re likely to stand up and defend it.”
Charles Johnson
How do hundreds of sawn discs hanging from a ceiling evoke a sense of being in the woods? I
don’t know, but Elizabeth Billings’ assemblages mirror the patterns of nature in an uncanny and
profound way.
Consider “So It Goes,” an installation that hangs in the stairwell leading to the South Royalton
Legal Clinic at the Vermont Law School. The clinic provides free legal services to low-income
local residents, and Billings wanted to design a piece that would impart a sense of nature, light,
and playfulness to the building. The installation reflects that intent by inviting the viewer into a
world of organic matter that is dancing through the air, animated by the moving perspective of
the viewer and the changing light. The hundreds of poplar rounds trace a musical path in the
aerial environment – one is reminded of the hammers and strings of a piano. You can nearly hear
a clackity-clack as you pass beneath it.
When asked how she describes herself as an artist, Billings explains that she was trained as a
weaver – both in the U.S. and Japan – and uses this knowledge to inform her work with wood,
fabric, wire, and string. Her artistic practice is clearly inspired by the rhythm of weaving and the
rhythms of nature. Fittingly, she chooses to work primarily with natural, sustainable materials.
As you approach and then pass beneath “So It Goes,” you feel surprised, uplifted, and also
encouraged to be part of this complex visual symphony. An otherwise unremarkable stairwell in a
public building has been transformed.
Elizabeth Billings may be reached through her website: elizabethbillings.com. She maintains a strong exhibit record both nationally
and internationally. Her work, both solo and in collaboration with Andrea Wasserman, can be seen at the Burlington International
Airport, Philadelphia International Airport, through the Vermont Law School, and at The City University of New York School of Law.
Call for entries: Send us your Outdoor Palette submissions. Contact Adelaide Tyrol at (802) 454-7841 or atyrol@ostudio.com for details.
Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
79
A PLACE in mind
Andrea Lani
On New Year’s Day of the first winter we lived on our land, I put our son, Milo, into a little blue backpack and took him for a walk in the woods. The day was warm and sunny. Melting ice dripped from
the eaves and the softening crust of snow yielded to my footfalls.
I followed my husband’s snowshoe tracks from our house down to the river. Deer tracks mingled
with the trail, crisscrossing in the elaborate embroidery of the animals’ winter travels. The trail led us
across an old field, into deep hemlock woods, and along the bank of the Eastern River, a shallow and
narrow rivulet, milky-green with new ice, its surface slushy and puddled.
Today our trail loops back up from the river, through a young fir wood, and along a bony ridge
back to our house, but that first winter it ended in a clearing at the base of a big white pine, a sentinel
left behind as a seed tree, perhaps, when the land was clear-cut 10 or 15 years before we came to it. A
thick coverlet of needles carpets the ground at the base of the tree, deterring the wild raspberries that
spring up everywhere else that sunlight penetrates our woods. Only a few scrappy low-bush blueberries
grow in the clearing, and we have talked of putting a picnic table there or setting up our tent and
camping, but we never have. We spend most of our time in the woods farther downstream, where the
river bank slopes gradually to the water and big fallen willows make crossing possible, but not easy.
During the brief windows in early spring and late fall, when it is both warm and bug-free enough to
sit still without shivering or slapping, I rest my back against the thick base of the tree and breathe in
sun-warmed pine air, but otherwise we merely pass by on our way to somewhere else.
As Milo and I approached the big pine that first New Year’s Day, I noticed from a distance that one of
the broken limbs low on the trunk angled upward in a shape that resembled an owl. Scoffing at myself,
I raised my binoculars to my eyes and saw, to my surprise, that it really was a barred owl.
“Milo, look,” I whispered as we edged closer. “There’s an owl in that tree.”
I knew Milo had seen the owl when he laughed out loud. As we neared the tree, a deer bounded
out of the clearing, but we barely noticed, our eyes fixed on the owl.
“Hold it?” Milo said.
“No, you can’t hold the owl. Just look.”
We walked within 10 feet of the tree, crossing to the other side of the clearing and looking up at the
sleepy bird. Occasionally, the owl squinted open his dark eyes and monitored our progress.
“Owl, nap,” Milo said. “Eye.”
We stood, backs arched and craning our necks, watching the owl for 10 or 15 minutes, until Milo
said, “Bye-bye, owl,” letting me know he was ready to go home.
As we walked back past the tree, Milo’s sippy cup fell out of my pocket onto the snow, and the owl,
fed up with our disturbance, spread his wings and flew off to another perch.
“All gone, owl,” Milo said.
Since that day, we have called that big pine Owl Tree, even though we’ve never again seen an owl
in its branches. Milo is nearing his thirteenth birthday and the top of his head reaches my eyebrows
when we stand toe-to-toe. I just noticed this winter that Owl Tree, too, has grown in our 11 years on
this land.
“I wish we had measured it when we moved here,” I say, and my husband, once an arborist, talks of
diameter at breast height and basal area. But I imagine a kind of white pine growth chart, like the animal
poster with a ruler down one side, on which we’ve ticked off our children’s height every six months.
Milo and I take a walk one afternoon in early spring, to see the ice start to break up on the river.
We stop alongside Owl Tree on our way, look up into her high branches, note the fresh needles
littering the ground at her roots.
“Help me measure Owl Tree,” I say, and wrap my arms around the trunk. Milo reaches around
from the other side. Our hands just overlap. I want to stay here, holding Owl Tree with my son, but
Milo will indulge his mother’s whims for only so long. We let go of the tree and walk along the river,
a brown ribbon of water threaded between sharp banks of ice, then turn and follow the trail home.
Andrea Lani is a human ecologist, public servant, and writer. She lives with her husband and three sons on 20 acres of woods and fields
in central Maine and can be found online at www.remainsofday.blogspot.com.
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Northern Woodlands / Winter 2014
Northern Woodlands WINTER 2014