Magazine Series

“Follow the money” was Deep Throat’s advice to Woodward and Bernstein as they investigated the Watergate break-in, and it has also been the watchword for people trying to…

These prices are for #1 hardwood logs, at least 8 feet long, with three clear faces and a minimum 12-inch top diameter. In the timber world, this is a log of average quality, not a prime…

For the last 45 or so years, I have had to travel to be in the company of a tuliptree, as this species thrives only in more southern climes – from southern New England south to central…

Wily, non-native plants that outperform native species and proceed to carpet the forest and field are all too familiar nowadays. Most of us have seen understories of European buckthorn or…

Not that long ago, in the days before chainsaws, work in the woods was done with an axe and a crosscut saw. While this era is only 50 years behind us, crosscut saws are now viewed by most as a…

Early September is not yet luminous with brilliant foliage, and there’s no reliable tracking snow. Yet for deer hunters and naturalists alike, there’s a palpable excitement in the…

When they arrive each spring, displaying color and song and romance, birds are faithful to their given names. Chestnut-sided warblers have chestnut sides. Indigo buntings are indigo. And…

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, service foresters working for the state or for cooperative extension marked a lot of timber sales for landowners. I was one of those foresters in New York, and I…

Sherman Hollow, where I live, was undoubtedly originally made habitable to humans by beavers. The road now cuts through this valley and along the drainage that runs between steep hills. A…

When Richard Winter builds a coffin, he needs a few basic measurements – the occupant’s height, width, and weight – but he also wants to know the person’s name. The…