Knots and Bolts

As I was waiting at the shop the other day to pick up my chainsaw, I heard strong words up ahead in line: something about the government and the EPA and ethanol. When my turn came at the…

While those of us in the print world don’t readily admit it, there’s power in television images that just can’t be replicated in words and still photographs. In light of…

In a state dense with timberland, Maine’s district foresters have a serious challenge providing landowners with timely information about good forestry practices and changes in state law.…

Three hundred million years ago, dinosaurs roamed the land. The earth they inhabited was hot and humid and covered in vast, swampy forests that today would seem most bizarre. Some of the…

The big buzz this spring in maple sugarmaking circles involves the new check-valve spouts that many sugarmakers with vacuum systems are trying for the first time. The spiles were invented by…

Stewardship Stories - Readers Share Their Ideas and Projects In the fall of 2007, with support from the U.S.D.A.’s Wildlife Habitat Improvement Project (WHIP), we installed seven vernal…

As communities in the Northeast look for green fuels to replace coal and oil, they are exploring options in woody biomass, including plantings of shrub willow. Our forests will certainly play…

They’ve been compared to oversize antlers, bones, or fantastic teeth. If you’ve ever seen the remains of a stump fence, you probably have your own description. The stump fence is…

The onset of spring brings many changes to our part of the world. The longer days and higher temperatures entice plants to emerge and trees to bud. On our lakes, the ice begins to melt. We…

Crossing a four-lane highway that sees 50,000 vehicles a day can be a daunting task for an animal. So a group of organizations and individuals in Concord, Massachusetts, teamed up with…

While conducting a study of old-growth trees at Huntington Forest in Long Lake, New York, research specialists Steve Signell and Colin Beire came across a fairly nondescript, fallen hemlock…

Given an estimated around-the-globe average of 100,000 of them per cubic meter of soil, it seems astonishing that springtails (the tiny creatures often called “snowfleas”) are…

“It’s a weird time in the wood industry,” said Bob De Geus, wood utilization specialist with Vermont’s Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation. He paused then,…

The adult emerald ash borer (EAB) is a beautiful, metallic-green beetle, too pretty, it would seem, to be so deadly. And yet, in its larval form, the EAB has killed millions of ash trees since…

When the first week of November rolls around, drivers are more apt to notice dead deer along the sides of highways. You may have heard that hunting is the cause – that hunters scare deer…

On our Mill Prices page in the Summer 2009 issue, we presented a chart showing the sawlog value of red maple versus sugar maple. Our caption suggested that the dollar amounts on the left-hand…

Russian olive, Norway maple, Japanese honeysuckle – in terms of flora alone, the Northeast is inundated by exotic invasive guests that just won’t go home. But what about people in…

Have you noticed a few more wisps of gray of late? An ache in your joints? Crow’s feet clawing around the corners of your eyes? If so, you’re well on your way to becoming a victim…

The hiking trails throughout the Northeast provide affordable recreational and educational opportunities for everyone, but it’s easy to forget how much effort goes into constructing and…

Even if we shun the leggy creatures that make them, we marvel at the geometric precision and dew-frosted beauty of spider webs. There is nothing so elegant, so versatile, and so perfectly…