Josh,
In doing research for the book that Will Blozan, jack Sobon and I wrote entitled 'Stalking the Forest Monarchs' I came across an account of a giant tuliptree near what is now Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest that yielded 20,163 board feet at the mill. That is the highest one tree figure I've seen. I have no idea how accurate the figure is . I think a giant tuliptree in the Smokies yielded 18,000 board feet, if I remember correctly. I believe they have a photo of it at the Oconoluftee Visitor's Center. Of course, these trees were the statistical outliers, but they illustrate what was there at least to an extent in those early forests. Th e giant trees could have been half rotten and still yiel ded several thousands of board feet per tree. Although it is mature second growth instead of old growth, t here are a number of acres of Mohawk Trail State Forest here in western Mass with over 100,000 board feet per acre. If that sounds unreasonably high, w e're talking about a place that has 86 white pines over 150 feet in height and well over 200 over 140. M ost are in pri me condition. The majority of canopy pines have DBHs ranging from 25 to 40 inches, w ith a not insignificant number of trees with DBHs of 41 to 43 inches . At least 17 have DBHs of 44 inches or more with the top now at about 48. The average density of mature pines in Mohawk is around 75 trees per acre and in some places the number is higher than that. There are at least 3 acres that I've identified with basal areas of over 300 square feet per acre. Again, this is mature second growth. In today's short rotation mentality, there is no way such standing volume would survive without a lot of protection. People forget what the land can produce in a period of about 130 years if left alone or managed carefully. In terms of bonafide old growth, when it was in prime condition, Hearts Content in PA was described as having well over 100,000 board feet per acre. A small area had close to 200,000 . I don't know if that was standing volume or projected mill volume. I suspect the former. Regardless, m odern day lumbermen mostly fiddle around with matchsticks. They have no clue. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Josh Kelly" <[email protected]> To: "ENTSTrees" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, May 3, 2009 2:25:23 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [ENTS] Re: Kalanu Prong, Greenbrier, TN GRSM 4-21-2009 Will and Steve, I've got to disagree with you about the extent, quality and merchantibility of Southern Appalachian forests pre-commercial logging. The map from the 1905 Report to the President by Rhoades and Ashe shows approximately 20% of the Southern Blue Ridge in primary forest condition with extensive areas of inventoried old-growth in coves estimated to cut over 25,000 board feet to the acre. Anomolous areas, like Cataloochee Valley, NC and Shady Valley TN were documented as having groves of standing timber averaging over 100,000 board feet/ acre. I have a copy of the 1905 map that can be burnt to a CD, or better yet, posted on the ENTS website. The most productive areas of forest were logged and converted to agriculture long before 1905. I think that pre-European settlement, the Southern Blue Ridge was 80% forested (minimum), with at least 3/4 of that meeting contemporary concepts of old-growth. Those numbers are based on a maximum carrying capacity of 200,000 stone-age amerinds in the 10 million acre area, assuming the 20,000 residual amerinds in 1837 represented a 90% population reduction due to diseases and warfare. I acknowledge that my estimates are conjecture and I stand by them as about as accurate as anyone else could come up with. Today, the Southern Blue Ridge is 75% forested with about 3% of the area meeting an inclusive definition of old-growth, and most of the remaining old-growth on low productivity sites. The population of the Southern Blue Ridge today is nearing 2 million, with 1.1 million in western NC alone. Joe, 1,000 years ago was apparently near the dawn of agriculture in the Southern Blue Ridge, and so the forest cover then would have likely been even greater and more impressive than in 1492 A final thought: with trees like the Trail's End Poplar scaling 2,200 cubic feet of wood, a solid tree of similar dimensions could easily have sawn 12,000 board feet, even with the realitively wide kerfs of the early 20th century. I have seen whole coves of trees in the Smokies and Unicois where almost every tree would saw more than 2 thousand board feet. Kalanu Prong is an exceptional site by today's standards, but 1,000 years ago, there were many coves with similar elevation that had not yet been ravaged by civilization. Josh On May 3, 8:28 am, "Will Blozan" <[email protected]> wrote: > Steve, > > In general, you may be correct. However, there are many, many fine examples > of oak and tuliptree that predate the chestnut blight by centuries. Based on > current day surrogates in the southern Appalachians (all I am speaking for) > I would figure high quality tuliptree was probably not too hard to find and > oak a bit more challenging. Of course, all depends on your definition of > high quality. I bet much of the first cut in the mountains was wasted > "junk". Hollow trunks, curved boles, short trunks, heavy limbs, etc. I often > look over an old-growth forest cove and think there is virtually nothing > merchantable (as in sawn timber) in it. How did anyone make money? > > Will F. Blozan > > President, Eastern Native Tree Society > > President, Appalachian Arborists, Inc. > > _____ > > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Steven Springer > Sent: Sunday, May 03, 2009 8:09 AM > To: [email protected]; [email protected] > Subject: [ENTS] Re: Kalanu Prong, Greenbrier, TN GRSM 4-21-2009 > > My hunch is that we would be impressed with the specimen American chestnuts > and be hardpressed to find a quality oak or yellow-poplar in the Appalachian > mountain range (American chestnut being the dominant hardwood before the > blight). > > (What do you think regarding dominant hardwoods through the Appalachian > range, Will?) > > Steve Springer > > _____ > > From: [email protected] on behalf of Will Blozan > Sent: Sun 5/3/2009 6:30 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [ENTS] Re: Kalanu Prong, Greenbrier, TN GRSM 4-21-2009 > > Steve, > > How is your last sentence supposed to read? > > Will F. Blozan > > President, Eastern Native Tree Society > > President, Appalachian Arborists, Inc. > > _____ > > My hunch is that we would be impressed with the specimen American chestnut > trees and be hardpressed to find a quality oak yellow-poplar in the > Appalachians mountain range. > > Steve Springer > > _____ > > From: [email protected] on behalf of Joseph Zorzin > Sent: Sat 5/2/2009 8:21 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [ENTS] Re: Kalanu Prong, Greenbrier, TN GRSM 4-21-2009 > > Question for Bob and Will and the others. Roughly speaking, what percentage > of the forests of the East - if we could go back a millennium- would appear > to us as "old growth"?? > > Of course there have always been fires, storms, clearings for villages, etc. > I'm just trying to get a sense- if we could go back and wander around the > forests- would they be filled with gigantic trees, thus looking very > different from now, or not? > > Joe > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: [email protected] > > To: [email protected] > > Sent: Saturday, May 02, 2009 9:11 AM > > Subject: [ENTS] Re: Kalanu Prong, Greenbrier, TN GRSM 4-21-2009 > > Will, > > A phenomenal report as usual. It would be great to have a list of all the > 20-foot circumference trees in the Smokies. Information in email > communications becomes too scattered. Anyway, thanks for the great reports. > > Bob- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
