Bob, That's interesting news. The West River basin in the vicinity of Newfane and west and north of Dummerston has some similar characteristics to the Deerfield River basin, so it may be worthy of a further look. Not much public land there, though, so access could be an issue.
As a side note, there is a newly posted small state forest holding in Charlemont, off North River Road by the town dump. It probably had some nice pines that were cut recently, but there are still some 125' pine and 112' hemlock. There is a small area (60'x 120' small) that has a couple very large oaks (93'h x 9.2'c) among hemlock and black birch trees and a nice old forest feel (no stumps), between and among areas that were clearly harvested. It is downstream in a parallel watershed to the Catamount site. John On Nov 24, 9:32 am, Bob <[email protected]> wrote: > John > > Come to think of it, I think your 120 hemlock is a first for > Vermont. We have one to 125 in NH. It is on the super Claremont site. > > Bob > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Nov 23, 2009, at 7:24 PM, John Eichholz <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Bob's call to map the 140' pines of Massachusetts got me out to > > measure a few candidate trees I have been watching. I actually found > > 4 new trees in that class, at 3 new sites. > > > #1 and #2 are roadside trees along Avery Brook in Heath. They just > > entered the 140' class at 140.1' and 140.5', but the 140.1' pine has > > the additional feature of being much larger than I thought. Crossing > > the brook, I measured the girth to a whopping 11.75' at 4.5' high. I > > didn't get the girth of the other, which is a double perched on the > > banks of the brook. > > > #3 is found in a nice pine grove in Highland Park, in Greenfield. I > > measured it from 3 different places, all to over 140' but averaging > > 140.5'h x 7.6'c. I think this is the second 140' pine found in the > > Connecticut River valley of Massachusetts. A second tree within a few > > feet of the first measured to 139' x 8.3'c. > > > #4 is located on private land, in Dummerston, Vermont, in a nice > > drainage leading to the West river. I measured it to 140.0'. In the > > same cove I found a 120.3' hemlock. I will be going back to that site > > soon! > > > One additional find to report is a pair of shagbark hickories in > > Catamount State Forest. The first approximately tied the site record > > at 113.5' and the second broke the record at 116.0'h x 4.9'c. The > > find brings the Catamount Rucker index to 116.2. > > > On the debit side of the ledger, I went to Ash Flats to reconfirm the > > 133' bitternut hickory. Unfortunately I can confirm that it blew > > over. I did find a 126.7'h x 5.5'c red oak high up the slope above > > Ash Flats, but saw a lot of oaks, maples, birch, and ash blown down, > > most of them larger specimens than those left standing. It does seem > > that in addition to wind and ice we must add soil saturation to the > > agents of tree mortality. I have been finding lots of blow downs > > dating from this summer's 6 weeks of rain and saturated soils, as > > evidenced by finding leaves still attached to the branches and tip up > > mounds located in obvious collector areas for soil moisture. These > > have included old, large hardwoods in sheltered cove settings, so they > > are seeing unusual conditions I guess. > > > -- > > Eastern Native Tree Societyhttp://www.nativetreesociety.org > > Send email to [email protected] > > Visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en > > To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -- 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]
