Pamphlets

Tax Issues

Introduction

As many forest owners realize, managing a forest costs money, time & labor.  The additional costs from taxes create one of the most influential challenges in holding onto one’s property. 

Burdensome taxes can lead to:

• Parcelization from selling part of or entire parcels
•  
• Liquidation of long term goals & objectives for immediate income
  • Cutting only the best trees and leaving the worst growing stock for the future
• Loss of Property Owner Options by selling some of the rights of ownership (easements)

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Sugarbush Management

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Forest Insect & Disease Management

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Self-Help to Overcome Silvaphobia

Silvaphobia:  A Fear of Cutting Trees Many landowners own & manage vegetable gardens.  Vegetable gardens require weeding and care every week.  In the summer and fall they can produce a sizeable harvest if managed properly.  Mistakes made are easily reconciled since plants are sown and harvested each year. On the other hand, trees live much longer than humans and the influences we may have on them can have lasting effects into the future.  These effects can last even after the current landowner is gone.  As a result, many landowners may choose to abandon cutting altogether, even when management may be necessary.

It can take up to 60 years for a stand of trees to reach this size.  Cutting the right ones matter.

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Roads & Trails

Introduction What if you want to cross-country ski on your property in winter or hike and inspect in summer?  What if you need to remove logs or stone from your property with trucks?  These questions, as well as countless others, reveal the utility in having a road system on your property.  For a broad spectrum of landowners, a thoughtfully designed road system enhances the use of their property.  Even if you do not design the road yourself, knowing these basics will help you work better with your Forester or Excavator when planning a road.

Building a good road involves: Proper Placement Avoiding obstacles Meeting slope limits for intended use Up front planning and forethought minimizes future headaces

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What to Do When a Logger Knocks

Typical Scenario

The Jones' own a farm in Delaware County.  As they were working one day, a truck rolled up the driveway.  Out jumped a man who introduced himself as a logger working nearby.  He said that every day he drives by the Jones’ place and admires the quality of their forest.  Mr. Jones replied that he likes his woodlot but doesn’t really know what it is worth.  The logger offered to walk through the woods with the Jones, and the three of them took off.  The logger showed them cherry, red oak, and sugar maple, and said the mills are paying top dollar for these species.  He then made an offer to Jones.  They started thinking of the property taxes they pay and the improvements they want to make.  They never knew that their trees were worth anything.  Thanking the logger, the Jones' said they would call him in a couple days.

This foregoing scenario takes place every day throughout the state and the Catskill Region.  There are some things that a forest owner should know before agreeing to selling their timber.

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Improve Your Woodlot by Cutting Firewood

Introduction

Over the centuries, wood has been a major source of fuel and heat.  Our forefathers revered wood and used it to fill every need from heating their homes to making tools.  They made maximum use of the back woodlot.

The choice of wood for fuel was not only logical, but a most natural one, for trees are a renewable resource.  They can be harvested periodically without permanent disturbance to the natural environment.

Only in the last fifty years or less has wood lost this important role.  As a nation, we shifted to the convenient fuels: oil and natural gas.  Ironically, it is our heavy dependence on these nonrenewable resources that created the shortages and exorbitant prices of today’s energy crisis.  Consequently, wood has come into its own again, as more and more people look to the woods for the traditional source of heat.

The renewed use of wood for fuel creates an opportunity to correct some of our past mistakes.  Our woodlots have been mismanaged, overcut, or often neglected.  Past cutting practices left our woodlands with an overabundance of crooked, diseased, and otherwise unsaleable trees.  These hamper the growth of the more desirable individuals, the straight, and healthy trees that are needed for lumber and veneer.  To establish a good forestry program, the first step is to remove these less desirable trees for fuelwood, especially those trees that compete with the best crop trees.

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What is High-Grading?

I heard of a stable where, after each race, they sell the top horses and breed the losers.  Soon that stable had some pretty slow horses. If you sell your best trees and leave the runts, you accomplish the same thing.

Diameter-Limit Cut Removal of trees equal to or larger than a certain diameter.  These are the fastest growing, healthiest trees.  The smaller, poorer growing trees are left behind.

Selective Cut Larger trees are selectively removed from the stand to create space for the smaller trees to grow.  In rare instances, this may be beneficial only if the smaller trees have not lost their health & vigor.

In both methods, a majority of the trees that are highest in value are removed before they reach their full economic maturity.

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Forest Succession

Unraveling the Story of Our Forest

Disturbances in Our Forest

Forests are constantly changing.  They change because of disturbances caused naturally or by humans.


Natural Disturbances

• Wind Damage
• Ice Storms
• Pathogens (insects & disease)
• Defoliation of leaves from Forest Test
• Caterpillars
• Fires ignited from lightning strikes
• Flooding by beavers
• Soil Moisture Levels:  trees growing under wet conditions are more susceptible to uprooting

Human-Related Disturbances

• Clearing for living space
• Burning for enhanced crop production
• Fire enhances growing space for plants that produce fruit & nuts
• Enhances habitat for harvesting wild game species for meat, clothing and utensils
• Pasturage
• Harvesting for Wood Products

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Firewood Management

Why Burn Firewood?

1. Rising heating cost
2. Meet other management goals
   
   • Wildlife Habitat Enhancement
   • Timber Stand Improvement
   • Sugarbush (Maple Syrup) Management
   • Forest Health
3. Sense of self-sufficiency
4. Exercise (No need for gym memberships)

Other Hidden Costs

Firewood costs usually do not include:

• Your labor (Firewood makes you warm three times:  Cutting, Splitting, Stacking)
• Danger of felling trees

Hidden Benefits

"A long straight row of firewood standing in the yard in springtime is like money in the bank."

By removing the right trees, you can:

• Improve value of timber of residual stand
• Enhance wildlife habitat
• Enhance forest health

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The Myth of Waste

An Agricultural Past

Our ancestors were people who came from communities surrounded by vast fields in order to support various types of livestock.  Each parcel of land was separated from the next in a checkerboard fashion representing a neat mosaic of settled, cultivated, and taxable land.

An Industrial Nature

Coupled with our agricultural heritage is our industrial nature to maximize utility minimize waste.

When our ancestors arrived in what seemed to be a vast forest, much of it was perceived to be messy, unsettled, uncivilized, cluttered, and in desperate need of some picking up.

What To Do With All that Wasted Wood Left in the Forest?

“I’m having a timber harvest and I want to use as much of the tree as possible.  Can we get someone to buy the tops for firewood?”

“I did get some timber stand improvement in my forest.  Do you know of anyone who might buy the wood on the ground?  It seems like such a waste.”

“I had some wildlife areas opened in my woods.  I wish I hadn’t wasted all those trees!”

The Myth of Waste

Trees left to rot after some kind of disturbance may seem messy and/or a waste, but actually can help benefit your forest in many ways while satisfying some forest management goals and objectives.

 

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Introduction to Woodlot Management

Where to Start...

                ...Why Did you Buy the Property?

Wildlife Aesthetics Recreation Peace & Quiet Family Farm Nuts & Berries Apple Orchard Maple Syrup Timber Hunting Summer Refuge Firewood Removal

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The Importance of Riparian Forests & Streams

Riparian Areas

DEFINITION: A riparian area is a 3-dimensional ecotone of interaction that includes the terrestrial & aquatic ecosystems, that extends down into the groundwater, up above the canopy, outward across the floodplain, up the near slopes that drain to the water, laterally into the terrestrial ecosystem, and along the water course at a variable width.  

• Riparian areas include some of our most productive farm and forest lands.  These are also places where most of us live, work & play, and offer the most diverse habitats for wildlife.  
• The probability of a function being riparian increases as we move closer to the waters edge.  The waters edge may be of a stream, pond, vernal pool, lake, bog, or wetland.  
• The probability of materials and energy influencing a riparian zone increases depending upon slope, vegetation (age and size), geology, soil, historical and current land use.
• Figure 1 illustrates how as we move closer to a stream, we are more likely to affect ecological functions around the stream or water body.
  
  

Figure 1.  Probablity of Being Riparian

Ecological Services (Functions) Provided by Forests in Riparian Areas

Again, riparian areas provide the link between land and water.  Forests in these areas provide a healthy link between land and water because they significantly influence the flow of material, energy, and nutrients between the 2.  These links can be referred otherwise as Ecological Services. 

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New York State's Most Important Steward

Forest landowners control the future of the forest resource in the Catskill Region.  We own about 90% of the forested land in the six counties of Delaware, Greene, Otsego, Schoharie, Sullivan, and Ulster.  Whether you own 5 acres or 5,000 acres, our aggregate actions have a significant impact on forest health and productivity.  We must recognize our responsibility, both to our own woodlots and to the region’s forests.  We serve our own and the forest’s best interest, both economically and environmentally, by practicing proper forest management.  The following suggestions can help lead you down the road to good stewardship. (1) Understand why you own forest land People own forest land for a variety of reasons.  Some live in their forests, some retreat to them on weekends.  Each will relate to his or her land in a special way.  Before you take any action on your land, you must understand this relationship.  Make a list of the values that you derive from your land, such as birding, hunting, recreation, timber, firewood, income, and producing fresh water.

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What is High-Grading?

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