Magazine Series

Many of us foresters have experienced the frustration of seeing our work come to naught because forestland we’ve been managing gets subdivided or because a new landowner was more…

If you’re building a log cabin or some other sort of log structure, your instructions will likely tell you to peel the logs first. Peeling the bark off logs increases the longevity of…

Pollen is to trees what sperm is to animals. It carries the tree’s male genes; it is the male fertilizing unit of woody plant reproduction. Typically, pollen appears in spring as a…

Plants in the wax-myrtle family – notably bayberry and sweet gale – are known for their fragrance. But sweetfern may be the most aromatic of all. On hot, sunny days, the scent is…

Most of the time, a male ruby-crowned kinglet is a fraud with feathers. When he appears, neither ruby nor kingly, you may wonder how he got his name. Pale green and gray, small and fleeting,…

Beechwood fires are bright and clear If the logs are kept a year. Chestnut’s only good, they say, If for long ’tis laid away. Wood as fuel has been so important for so long that it’s…

The prices reported here are those that log buyers—mostly sawmills and wholesalers—are paying for logs. Because these are prices paid for delivered wood, landowners need to adjust…

The scene opens with six women standing in a forest clearing. Chainsaws rest on the ground at their feet. Some of the women wear helmets. Some of them wear chaps. One of them (me) is staring…

Ah, mushrooms. For the wild mushroom hunter, making a fungi foray into a forest erupting with golden chanterelles, bursting with radiant oyster mushrooms, and scattered with black trumpets is…

On a crisp, early morning in October, a small group of naturalists made their way down a winding trail through an isolated state forest in Derry, New Hampshire, to visit a lone American…