Re: [SG] trees

><< I hope you own the land from which you're digging tree seedlings.  That's
> illegal on BLM or National Forest or Park property, and it's darned sure
> illegal from tree farms operated by lumber companies.  Margaret L >>
>
>In the body of this message the writer mentions seedlings from her camp.  I
>think the point is missed here.  I, too, owned a camp in the Adirondacks for
>years and have done the same thing.

In northern Pennsylvania and upstate New York, "camp" usually means a cabin
or shack in the woods used as a summer retreat.  It may be illegal if the
property is NFS or PS (there is little BLM land in the east), but is it
immoral?  What would be the fate of those few seedlings anyway?  Most of
the tens of thousands of tree seedlings in each acre of established forests
are doomed to dwindle away or to be eaten by deer or rabbits.

This thought was prompted by the events of the past year, in which two
neighbors have cut every single tree from their properties.  In both cases
the trees were healthy, well-spaced shortleaf pines about 35-40 years
old--beautiful trees that with their high crowns provided dappled shade for
their owners' lawns and houses.  In one case, an older couple was
frightened by an unscrupulous "tree service" that the trees would fall on
the house in the next ice storm (already having weathered without damage
the two biggest ice storms in 20 years), and in the other case, a young
family who just bought the house didn't want to rake up the fallen needles.
They moved here from the north and have not yet spent a summer on their
(now) unshaded lot.  I would gladly have raked up the needles and carried
them next door to mulch my own azaleas!

Further down the street, new houses are being built on lots that have been
cleared of every trace of forest vegetation, including fine mature oaks and
hickories, and had their topsoil scraped off.  The folks who buy these
houses will undoubtedly as their first bit of landscaping plant a few
spindly trees of inappropriate species, for which they paid a fortune at a
nursery.  Stuck in the hard red clay left by the "developer," they will
grow slowly, if at all.

So I can't get too excited about someone rescuing a few seedlings from an
almost inevitable dwindling doom in the forest and adding them to our
already tree-depleted suburban landscape.

Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(804)223-6172
FAX (804)223-6374
email<bills@hsc.edu>
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