As we age, we get smarter but we feel dumber, one of those human condition quirks that poets are always pondering. Country singers from Kenny Rodgers on up have lamented the ignorance of youth (“If I knew then what I know now . . .”), but the flip side of this coin is that age brings with it the startling realization that a lot of what you thought you knew turns out to be just plain wrong. Rather than feeling vindicated, you begin to feel insecure and wonder what other bunk you’ve been telling people for years.
These feelings can be particularly acute when you work in media, a profession that involves telling lots of people lots of things all day, every day. Here’s an interesting little story along these lines that happened to me recently.
So there I was in our sugarbush, on a virgin ridgetop that’s never been tapped. The forest is dominated here by 10- 16-inch maples. Interspersed between the maples are – well, were – a few king red oak trees – big, straight fellas with boles that would make a veneer buyer lick his chops. We marked the oaks to be cut, and called in our friend Eddie Legacy to fell the monsters in such a way that wouldn’t take out a swath of young, maple crop trees.
Anyway, the particular stump you see in the above picture was one such tree. It was 32” in diameter at breast height. Two weeks ago, if I had been touring the sugarbush with a school class and was asked how old the tree was, I would have studied it for a second and said: “150 years.”
Seems reasonable, right?
Well, stumps don’t lie, and this big bruin wasn’t a day older than 70. Shows you what good light and a good site can do. The tree also serves as a hopeful message for landowners who are trying to grow big timber – be patient, perhaps your trees are growing faster than you think.
Check out the piece we did in 2007 on where, and why, the trees grow tall, straight, and fast in our region:
http://northernwoodlands.org/articles/article/where_the_trees_grow_tall_and_straight/
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