Magazine Series

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Sherman Hollow, where I live, was undoubtedly originally made habitable to humans by beavers.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…

Managing the Legacy Forests at a Birthplace of Conservation At first glance, the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vermont, seems like your typical national…

Each autumn, deciduous leaves transform the northern forest into a cheerful collage of oranges, reds, yellows, purples, and greens. Yet beneath this fleeting canopy grow longer-lasting and…

Indicator plants are peculiar to a certain place. Though they aren’t necessarily rare, they don’t grow just anywhere. They tolerate only a narrow range of growing conditions, so…