Letters to the Editors - Summer 2005
New York Tax Law Revisited
To the Editors:
I read with interest John Sullivan’s comments in the Winter 2004 issue of Northern Woodlands (“New York Tax Law Not All Bad”) about land-use taxation as it applies to forestland. This is an area that I have focused on over the years. I believe most of the northeastern states currently have property-tax mechanisms available to address the taxation of forestland. However, forestlands should only qualify when being used for timber production in a sustainable manner. Of course, the applicant must carefully comply with the provisions of the law.
There is no question that the services required of open-space land make them more profitable to the taxing authorities than most other uses. Housing naturally is the most unprofitable and in fact is generally a loss, due to the high cost of services associated with its needs: schools, fire, police, and road maintenance, to name a few. There is a strong argument for reducing the tax on open space further, as it provides so many benefits to the public-at-large and habitat for much of our wildlife, for which the forestland taxpayer is not compensated – in fact, it remains overtaxed. On forestlands where the owner has additionally placed a conservation easement on the land, an even greater benefit to the public accrues. Generally, the landowner is not adequately compensated for the value to the public of these easements, and he should be.
Another argument that Mr. Sullivan addresses is that in order to have forestlands qualify for current use or land-use-type assessment, the applicant must prove that this is what he wants to do by having an adequate, approved forest management plan. If he represents development interests that are in reality using the laws as a subterfuge to “park” their land at an advantageous tax status until they cash in with a very profitable conversion, the penalties should be raised high enough to discourage this practice entirely.
Robert French, Hopkinton, New Hampshire
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Forest Patriarchs
To the Editors:
I would like to thank Chuck Wooster for his parting comments in the Spring 2005 issue of Northern Woodlands reminiscing about old sugarbushes. Having spent many days afield in the woods of New Hampshire and Maine, I too have often found myself stopping to admire an aging sugarbush and the remnants thereof. A particular one comes to mind located in Hill, New Hampshire. I was checking on one of my logging operations one day where we were doing some extensive ice storm salvage in a 60- to 70-year-old red oak stand. As I was walking along the skid trail toward the sound of the chainsaw, I was surprised to stumble onto a small pile of bricks. While it struck me as an odd place to find them, I did not take much time to stop and investigate. However, when 20 yards down the trail I came to another small pile, my curiosity was aroused. As I held one of the fragments of brick in my hand and began looking around, I noticed the numerous big old “wildlife” trees that we had retained in the stand. Lo and behold, they were all aged sugar maples, patriarchs from a bygone generation.
As I looked back down at the brick, I couldn’t help but think of the hands that had built these small arches on this rugged New Hampshire hillside some 100 years ago. . .or was it 150 years ago? I also couldn’t help but be a little disappointed that I had not previously seen them and made an effort to protect this small archeological site. But I guess, as with the men and women who once occupied this land and tended this sugarbush, those bricks have returned to whence they came….By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return. (Genesis 3:19).
Stephen Gauthier, Falmouth, Maine
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Blazing Boundaries
To the Editors:
I hope that none of the abutters to my woodlots read the article “Reading Your Boundaries” in the Spring 2005 issue of Northern Woodlands. I don’t want my trees 10 feet from the boundary line to be blazed.
I have been blazing boundaries for 50 years, but I was taught by old woodsmen that we were to blaze only the side trees we could reach with an axe while standing on the line. Austin Cary in his Woodsman’s Manual, first printed in 1909, states this very fact. This would mean that only trees within about 3 feet of the line should be blazed. In dense timber, I would not blaze trees even that far from the line, as the only reason for blazing trees is to well-define the line.
Those trees that are bisected by the boundary line are owned in common with the abutter. These line trees are more valuable as monuments and should be retained to define the line. The trees on either side of the boundary line belong to the respective owners and can be cut without the abutter’s permission. I try to leave most of the side trees also, as it is expensive to survey a boundary line after the blazed trees are removed. Also, leaving a buffer of trees along the boundary line keeps the line shaded and prevents the growth of underbrush, which can hide the line and make boundary line maintenance more difficult and expensive.
Fred A. Huntress, Jr., Poland Spring, Maine
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Forest Contract
To the Editors:
I was happy to see David Brynn’s Another View in the Spring 2005 issue, entitled “Forest and Forest Friend Contract.” Brynn started Vermont Family Forests (VFF), and I am writing in support of VFF’s model of forest management. As a landowner with over 450 acres in active management, I found myself dissatisfied with the status quo of loggers on my land, in essence, working for the mills and not for me, the forest manager. My B.S. in forestry taught me that the goals of silviculture can best be achieved in partnership with loggers, as long as ecological and economic considerations are addressed.
VFF fully addresses my concerns in that it promotes a sustainable partnership between the landowner, the logger, and the mill. By emphasizing local participation, VFF is a boon for consultants, loggers, and Vermont mills and wood-products producers. As a result of this, the dollars generated will circulate locally and compound in value.
As the oft-quoted Alexis De Tocqueville, the author of Democracy in America, noted, “Americans form association in order to channel the individualistic inputs of our society to enable people to serve a cause greater than ourselves.” Vermont Family Forests is just such an association.
Chris Johnson, Lincoln, Vermont
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Hard as Nails
To the Editors:
I have a suggestion for Paul Sachs, whose letter in the Spring 2005 issue indicated that the difficulty of driving nails into black locust made it virtually useless for any use where nailing was needed. Farmers in Central New York told me (a promoter of black locust for fence posts) that dropping the fencing staples into a container of oil before trying to drive them into the wood worked pretty well. The extra trouble taken was more than offset by the durability in use. Perhaps Mr. Sachs and others attempting to use this species with nailing might try that approach.
Larry Hamilton, Charlotte, Vermont
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From the Bog to the Deck
To the Editors:
I hope that Newman Gee, who Andy Kekacs wrote about in the Spring 2005 story, “From the Bog to the Sea: Maine Logger Harvests Stumps for Ships’ Knees,” had a chance to read Arthur Krueger’s Letter to the Editors on tamaracks in the same issue. If so maybe he (Gee) can improve his profit margin by using his tamaracks’ upper trunks for making rot-resistant (un-pressure-treated) planking (with his portable band saw) instead of selling the trunks for pulp.
Alden Blodgett, Springfield, Massachusetts
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Public Land Debate Continues
To the Editors:
I just finished reading two Letters to the Editors in your Spring 2005 issue, one by Jim Northup of Forest Watch and another by Jamey Fidel of the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC), the National Wildlife Federation’s Vermont affiliate organization. These letters, both in response to Putnam Blodgett’s “No! To Congressionally Designated Wilderness” in Winter 2004, were, to say the least, infuriating.
Both letters grossly misrepresent and are confusing as to what their authors’ organizations stand for. But I’ll clear this up. I can tell you Forest Watch and VNRC are not the reasonable guys for a balanced approach as they attempt to cast themselves. Let’s start with Forest Watch, and their surrogate here in the Virginias. Go to their website and all you read about forest management on public land is appeal, appeal some more, and then they sue. It doesn’t matter what the Forest Service proposes, they oppose it. Northup’s lip service to sustainable forestry is pure baloney, as Forest Watch makes a living fighting even minor timber management projects for wildlife habitat. According to Forest Watch, by their actions, it’s never okay to cut trees on public land.
While VNRC does not actively appeal and sue like Forest Watch, their education and advocacy are aimed at the same thing in the form of wilderness and other no-management initiatives. Philosophically speaking, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them.
At one point, Northup tells us “national forests have an important role to play in timber production” and then turns around and states that all needs for timber and for wildlife that require early successional forests should be shouldered by private landowners – which is false and elitist. Despite the double talk, both Northup’s and Fidel’s outfits simply don’t want any active forestry on public lands – just the lower biodiversity that “old growth” and wilderness foster.
Americans who want a healthy balance of wildlife habitat, timber management, inclusive public access, and true biodiversity on public lands have every right to expect the Forest Service to use a combination of sound forest, wildlife, and social science to implement an acceptable multiple-use policy. Alternatively, Forest Watch and VNRC pride themselves on posing toxic threats to this goal by continuing to manipulate and pervert any public process to advance their scurrilous agenda at the expense of an often under-informed public. They are shameless.
Dennis LaBare, Upper Tract, West Virginia
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Blackfly Breeders Association
Editors’ Note: The following letter was sent to Northern Woodlands for Bill Amos in response to his Spring 2005 article, “In Praise of Black Flies.” We thought you might enjoy it:
Mr. Amos:
The Spring issue of Northern Woodlands arrived just in time for me to take your article on black flies to the Maine Blackfly Breeders’ Association (MBBA) convention in Machias and read excerpts from it. Your praise of the black fly was appreciated by all 72 members present, so much so that we made you a member of the MBBA. Your certificate of membership is enclosed.
Maynard Clemons, Belfast, Maine
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Ebb and Flow
To the Editors:
Virginia Barlow’s editorial in the Spring 2005 issue of Northern Woodlands evoked fond memories of walks in the woods I have taken. Like Virginia, I, too, delight in coming across a stone wall or cellar hole out in the middle of nowhere. In a few cases I’ve been blessed to find the cellar hole when the dooryard apple tree was in bloom. It isn’t hard to imagine what life might have been like for that hard-working family on their hillside farm.
The FW Beers Atlas of Windsor County was published in 1869. It shows that Norwich had 20 school districts, that is, 20 one-room schoolhouses scattered across the landscape. Hartland had 21 school districts. There had to be enough families living across the landscape to justify all those different schoolhouses.
In 1840, just one generation before Mr. Beers published his atlas, the population in Norwich was 2,218. It started dropping precipitously right after that and fell to a low of 1,092 inhabitants in 1920. Norwich didn’t surpass its 1840 peak until the 1980 census. The cycles of history ebb and flow. Right now, we’re in a period of growth as folks from ‘away’ are attracted to this region to retire or to work. The retirees have jumped right into community life and we’re blessed to have civic-minded employers offering good-paying jobs. The growth we’re experiencing undergirds the social fabric in measurable ways. Yet how do we maintain the strong economy without paving over the region? I think Virginia Barlow got it just right when she said the balance has to be forged in the crucible of civic discourse when “housing advocates and land conservationists work together, and with the whole community….Open land and desirable housing, considered together, can strengthen rural communities.”
Len Cadwallader, White River Junction, Vermont
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