Rare is the day when all the resources that a tree needs are available in abundance. And for jack pine, a far more frugal and less aggressive species than, say, sugar maple, survival depends on…

I was in the passenger seat, being driven up a driveway by a real estate agent in 1995. I looked southward through the open car window toward a wide valley encircled by beautiful mountains and fell in…

Modern chainsaws are the product of 40 years of evolution. Manufacturers’ continued focus on safety and productivity has produced saws that have a number of safety features that might not be…

Imagine yourself driving into a North Country town one afternoon and finding a business there that employed 92,771 people and turned out $14.4 billion in manufactured products. You’d probably…

It’s only natural to take a human-centered view of the world. Through this lens, Lyme disease is a ferocious malady that is on the march north. In New Hampshire, researchers recently found that…

Tom Powers, a retired Air Force tech sergeant and a member of the Peru Town Council, keeps an eye on a wide range of issues that affect this northeastern New York town – zoning problems, the…

Acid rain leaches calcium and other nutrients from forest ecosystems. In places where soil calcium levels are naturally low, where acid rain inputs are high, or especially where both these conditions…

Reports are increasing about the impact of world-wide deforestation on global warming. A correspondent for the U.K. news magazine, The Economist, for example, wrote in a special edition titled…

Counting fishers in the rugged terrain of New York’s Adirondack Mountains is tough on scientists – and on the fishers. A new technique, which identifies fishers through prints of their…

Also called birch bracket, this distinctive fungus only grows on birches, looks like nothing else that grows on birches, and is very common. Also in its favor from the human perspective is that it is…

Tree bark can act as a record of all sorts of events: lightning, fire, mechanical scrapes, and even the brief spark of youthful passion, carved with pocketknife, complete with heart, arrow, and…

Sheldon and Penelope Pennoyer will tell you they moved to their hilltop land in Greenfield, New Hampshire, because they wanted their boys to do farm chores. Back when their first child was born,…

Knots in trees occur where a branch has been surrounded by continued growth of the bole. When the bole is sawn into lumber, or peeled to make veneer, the branch sections included in the lumber or…

“The arrival of the emerald ash borer is seemingly imminent, and there are no known methods of control,” warns Peter Smallidge of New York’s Cooperative Extension service at Cornell…

Travel north beyond the rocky coastline of Maine, beyond Baxter State Park and the mighty Mt. Katahdin, through the industrial forests that have sustained generations of Maine loggers and their…

Unless you are a fanatical birder, you may not be able to differentiate between the five species of brown thrushes found in northern New England and New York. All have wings and backs of varying…

As oil prices climb to once unimaginable levels, and we watch electricity prices continue their upward march, entrepreneurs are flocking to biomass energy. Using wood to create energy is nothing new…

It’s my pleasure to tell you about a special honor bestowed by the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, on the founders of Northern Woodlands. Steve Long and Ginny Barlow received the…

With a small investment in feeders and seed, we can attract colorful visitors throughout the stark, white winter. But feeders can also attract a number of uninvited guests to the table. Bird seed is…

Counting trees accurately is an essential skill for people working in the woods. Does a woodlot contain valuable timber? Are the trees growing densely or sparsely? Which tree species are dominant? A…