Letters to the Editors - Spring 2008
Tree Care
To the Editors:
In “The Yard Maple” story in your Winter 2007 issue, Stephen Morris relates how Bruce Cameron explained that sugar maples “start breaking apart in chunks when they reach a certain age, how they die from the center out.”
There is a reason for this.
When sugar maples grow in a natural setting, the terminal leader maintains a constant rate of growth, and competition from surrounding trees keeps the lateral branches from becoming too big.
Transplant a young maple into a lawn, however, and the resultant loss of roots causes a reduction in the growth rate of the terminal leader (transplant shock) and a clustering of lateral branches just inches apart, until the leader resumes its normal growth rate. Apical dominance is lost by the central leader, and the cluster of lateral branches, exposed to abundant sunlight, eventually form the massive limbs uncharacteristic of a forest-grown tree. (Indeed, you can estimate how tall the tree was when planted by the height of this cluster of limbs.) The central leader gets choked out by these lateral limbs and dies, leading to decay and a hollow trunk. Now that the structural integrity of the tree has been compromised, the stage is set for the lateral limbs to “start breaking apart in chunks.” Throw in some narrow crotches with included bark, which are naturally weak and prone to splitting, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
As the article pointed out, pruning and cabling can help prolong the life of an old maple. But if you really want to do right by your tree, prune it when it’s young. Prune to maintain a single trunk – no forks that will eventually develop into long, narrow, failure-prone crotches. Make sure lateral branches are evenly spaced along the trunk – at least 12 to 18 inches between limbs. If any of the lateral limbs start to develop too quickly (their diameter should be less than half that of the trunk), they should be “subordinated” by pruning to slow their growth in relation to the trunk. It is far better to prune trees aggressively when they’re young than to have to deal with much bigger issues in a mature tree.
While you’re at it, don’t forget to cut any girdling roots encircling the trunk.
As far as wild apple trees are concerned (Winter 2007 Tricks of the Trade), you only need to do three things: give them light, give them light, and give them light. Few people have the ability or know-how to properly prune an apple tree, and overly aggressive pruning or fertilizing can do more harm than good. Abundant growth does not necessarily translate into abundant fruit. And contrary to Carl Demrow’s advice not to waste your time on a tree that has not produced fruit in the last few years (he says, “your sweat equity will not change that”), most apple trees will again produce fruit if given adequate light (see above) and suitable weather conditions. Shade and wet weather can both affect fruit production.
Kurt Woltersdorf, Sanford, Maine
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Tree Care
To the Editors:
I look forward to the arrival of your magazine and read it from cover to cover. I am writing in regard to Carl Demrow’s article, “Tending Wild Apple Trees for Wildlife.” As a professional arborist who has been pruning and releasing apple trees for 35 years, I take issue with some of Mr. Demrow’s practices. First, I remove all encroaching trees and shrubs well past the apple tree’s drip line. Next, I prune out all dead wood, making proper cuts. The importance of proper pruning cuts cannot be overemphasized. An excellent source of information on this topic can be found at the International Society of Arboriculture’s website: www.treesaregood.com/treecare/pruning_mature.aspx.
Then, leave the tree be for an entire year. All that wonderful sunlight streaming in now can be a shock to a tree. The following year, thin the tree by removing parallel branches and thinning the crown. Never remove more than 20 percent of the live growth in one year. Topping is not an accepted arboricultural practice. Severe topping results in weak top growth as well as a setback in fruit production. Doing a little pruning every other year will ensure your tree’s health and productivity.
Fertilize with composted manure, or better yet, an organic formula such as North Country Organics Pro-Gro. Follow the directions on the bag. Then, apply a 3-inch layer of mulch composed of chipped-up hardwood branches, also called ramial chipped wood, out past the drip line. This type of mulch has been found to have the most nutritive value. Leave the tree’s trunk free of the mulch. Your trees and the wildlife they feed will appreciate all your efforts.
Eric Johnsen, Plymouth, Vermont
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Spruce Burls are Rare
To the Editors:
As usual, Virginia Barlow’s Winter 2007 “Species in the Spotlight” was both informative and interesting. I have only one quibble with this one on white spruce trees (Picea glauca): the paragraph on the tumors of unknown etiology (highlighted by the illustration) should have made it clear that those burls are a rarity in this wide-ranging species, being found almost exclusively on occasional white spruce trees growing within a few hundred yards of the Atlantic Ocean, essentially between southern Newfoundland and southern Maine. In fact, the observed presence of these burls in landlocked Vermont is a curiosity that deserves to be studied.
It should also be noted that such spruce burls are not limited to white spruce, as stated, but also grow in a similar fashion on occasional Sitka spruce trees (Picea sitchensis), especially along the Pacific coast of Canada.
Arthur H. Westing, Putney, Vermont
The Editors respond: We should have mentioned that these galls do not occur throughout the range of white spruce, though they are reported from some faraway places. But hereabouts it is a different story, and we often wish these burls were a rarity. They are truly a notable affliction in east-central Vermont. As along the Maine coast, where there is white spruce, there is white spruce gall. Indeed, as Arthur Westing says, this is a curiosity that deserves to be studied.
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Don’t Discount Genetics
To the Editors:
I always read my Northern Woodlands with considerable interest. This winter’s article “Where the Trees Grow Tall and Straight” caught my eye. However, this forest ecologist with 34 years of experience sees things slightly differently.
This article contains quite a bit of conjecture, primarily when individuals expressed their beliefs as to why certain distributions exist. The reasons given in most instances were environmental. What the article ignored was genetics. For example, in the distribution of red oak it was stated that “south of New England, not all red oak is red oak.” Come on now! Though southern red oak was also mentioned, that is a different species entirely. The change in perceived quality of red oak as you go south is a genetic factor. Red oak hybridizes with black oak. There’s more black oak the farther south you go. Therefore, there’s more introgression of black oak genes into the red oak population the farther south you go. This impacts the perceived quality of the red oak.
Another example of genetic influence is found in black cherry. This species has a more limited distribution on the landscape than either red oak or sugar maple. Although the distribution maps for all of these species lead one to believe they are homogeneously distributed on the landscape, they are not. A species like black cherry is often only found on certain small microsites. Given that, you can find little clusters of cherry that are “tall and straight,” but you can also find clusters that are short and/or crooked. Since they are clustered in distribution, genetics plays a major role in their growth characteristics. Such clustered populations are more likely to cross-pollinate within the population than with trees in other populations. Hence, “tall and straight genes” are more likely to stay in the very local area where the “tall and straight” are already growing.
Certain logging practices can lead to the elimination of desired “high quality” traits that are sought. High grading does precisely that. If all the “tall and straight” individuals with high-quality wood are removed and crooked, butt-rotted individuals are left behind, then which ones are going to reproduce with one another? Not the straight and tall – they went off to the mill. Crooked and diseased trees must be culled early so that the desired individuals are left behind to reproduce more of the desired genotypes. Site characteristics are important, but let’s not forget that genetics is equally important.
Let’s also not forget that the best sites were put under the plow in the late 1700s and early 1800s and still remain under the plow. Trees grow best on the deep, well-drained loams that are currently more likely to be in corn and soy than in “tall and straight” high-quality trees.
Franz Seischab, Honeoye Falls, New York
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A Home Run
To the Editors:
Kudos to you for hitting another home run with your Winter 2007 issue! You produce an awesome magazine every time. As an educator, I am finding more and more ways of using your publication to teach both science and reading in my classroom. In this issue, you featured my favorite author, Dave Mance III, in A Place in Mind. What a wonderfully written story. No one combines the beauty and ecology of the outdoors with personal experiences that all can relate to the way Mr. Mance does. He writes with the imagery as well as educational value of an Aldo Leopold.
Last year while reading “Living with Beavers” in your autumn issue, I realized that I knew the beaver expert, Skip Lisle, from my younger days of playing semi-pro baseball. I contacted Skip to congratulate him and to inquire about the possibility of him coming to visit my classes. Skip accepted the invitation and put on an incredible presentation. We had him back again this year and he is now a part of our curriculum. Thank you, Northern Woodlands.
Pete LaFlamme, Bennington, Vermont
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Ashes to Ashes
To the Editors:
I read, with interest, the article “Little Hogback’s New Owners” by John Elder in the Winter 2007 issue. Perhaps Little Hogback’s owners would be interested in my method of extending the concept of wood burning to include returning material to the forest floor. I use a Hardy wood furnace, which makes hot water that is pumped to the house and my shop. I also fixed a heat exchanger to make domestic hot water when the furnace is in operation in the winter. We have a farm, which is my source of wood, and I take ashes from the furnace back out to the woods and try to distribute them over the landscape as best I can. I keep three five-gallon pails handy, and when one is filled, I let it sit for about a week. Then, as a final test, I plunge my hand into it to make sure there are not hot spots before taking it back to the woods. I just thought this might be the ultimate extension of the land stewardship ethic, one that a group of people could engage in.
Russell Seaman, Rougemont, North Carolina
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Life-Sized Praise
To the Editors:
Thanks for offering for sale Lynn Levine and Martha Mitchell’s new book, Mammal Tracks and Scat: Life-Size Tracking Guide. This is a really cool book. It helps a non-naturalist such as myself identify mammal tracks by their movement patterns, then their group (rodent or cat), then narrow it down to the actual species by comparing the prints I find with the life-size illustrations in the book. The writing is easy to understand, and it’s a snap to compare the prints in our field with the pictures. I can also identify the animals’ droppings by comparing them with the illustrations in the book. The pages are waterproof, so I don’t have to worry about placing them against snow or wet ground. The book is thin and very light and it fits easily into a backpack or even into a larger coat pocket.
What I especially like about the book is that it invites the reader to get inside the mind of the animal. I can “become the animal I am following” by imagining that I am its size, then I can ask questions about the animal’s path and gait, thereby understanding its intentions. Without this book, I would never have thought to do any of this when coming upon animal tracks.
The book is ideal for boy and girl scouts, students, and adults who want to get closer to the lives of animals. It takes almost no time at all to learn to use, and it offers a knowledge that many of us would never think to pursue. I can well imagine every scout troop and school library having a copy.
Bob Sherwood, Dummerston, Vermont
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A Grand Vision for the Region
To the Editors:
We hear a great deal about forest maladies such as parcelization, fragmentation, conversion to suburban or resort development, and divestiture to corporations having no forest ethic or interest. It was therefore refreshing to read about an initiative occurring in the region around Maine’s Moosehead Lake in the Winter 2007 issue (Another View, by Alan Hutchinson). Here, a group of NGO collaborators worked in concert to greatly modify a Plum Creek proposal involving at least three of the four maladies listed previously. The author points out that the groups are working to bring about the protection of 431,000 acres in a manner that will sustain the values, traditions, and character of the region. He points out that this area “connects with existing conservation lands to form a two-million acre network of conserved lands stretching across Maine’s North Woods, linking the St. John River, Moosehead Lake, and Baxter State Park.” Bravo! Note please the above italicized words: region, network, and linking.
Somewhat similar, if even larger scale, initiatives are underway, such as the Greater Northern Appalachian Bioregion and the Northern Appalachian/Acadian Bioregion. There are efforts, for instance, to link nature-friendly land management between Tug Hill, the Adirondacks, the Green Mountains, and Mounts Sutton and Orford in Québec. These efforts are being fostered by various conservation groups that have been linked under an umbrella organization called Two Countries, One Forest (2C1Forest), whose executive officer is in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
These and other overtures are pieces in a large-landscape jigsaw puzzle that spans political, geographic, and institutional boundaries but coalesces around the Greater Northern Appalachians. It represents a vision of a regional identity. This identity is given expression in an icon such as the International Appalachian Trail from Gaspé Peninsula to the New York State border and south. An east-west icon is the Northern Forest Canoe Trail from the Central Adirondacks through Vermont, New Hampshire, Québec and into northern Maine.
At a November 2007 meeting in Montreal, under the 2C1Forest umbrella, scientists presented maps and data that showed the increasing human footprint on the area and the related threats, such as invasive species and climate change. But they also presented opportunities to maintain or restore a connected network of working forests, sustainable farming, and protected conservation areas that can move the bioregion forward toward greater resilience to these threats and toward maintaining the values of open land that we all cherish.
I hope that Northern Woodlands readers will adopt the unifying vision of the 2C1Forest coalition and work with the local or national organizations that partner in this ambitious and worthy venture (see www.2C1Forest.org).
Larry Hamilton, Charlotte, Vermont
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Stating the Obvious?
To the Editors:
I just read the Winter 2007 Discovery “Thinned Thickets Lose Hare.” Hares, being food for many, are obviously an important part of the Northern Forest’s food chain. I do not understand why a university study was conducted in order to state that pre-commercial thinning of fir thickets is detrimental to hare populations. When the jacket is unbuttoned, heat escapes and the elements are allowed in. Institutions of higher learning would find common sense to be beneficial and economical.
Jane LeBrun, Chester, Maine
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The Worms Move In
To the Editors:
We read with interest the Winter 2007 Discovery, “Worms on the Move, Thanks to Us.” This is the third reference to the concept of voracious worms that has caught our attention. Our niece studying geology at Brown University first introduced us to the idea a few years ago. It didn’t readily sink in. Then came the Jamestown article in National Geographic, May 2007. And now your article, which brings home what we are seeing in our primarily oak, maple, ash, and hickory forests here in Avon, New York. The previous year’s leaf cover is completely gone by August, leaving a mostly bare forest floor, reminding us of a livestock paddock. The National Geographic article mentions that worms are also responsible for eating tree seedlings. Couple this with the overpopulation of white-tailed deer, and we have big changes happening. There is essentially no forest ground cover. There are very few young trees with a trunk size below two inches in diameter, the perfect size for a buck to scrape his antlers on. There were brambles in open places. Now we can walk unfettered through our woods. As a child, 40 years ago, this was impossible. We are doing occasional selective logging, but I see no difference at the forest-floor level. Only the nearby established survivors take up the canopy space.
I am not going to easily accept that our forests will be a completely different ecosystem within my lifetime. However, between the damage done by deer and earthworms, there are no generations of trees to replace the giants we are seeing there now.
Thanks for bringing this study to our attention. I don’t see a remedy, only an opportunity to marvel as we watch nature change around us.
Clara Mulligan and Peter Watson, Avon, New York
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