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Making Paper at the Old Groveton Mill

Author and Northern Woodlands contributor Jamie Sayen recently released a new book entitled You Had a Job For Life, published by University Press of New England. It’s the story of the…

Harvesting the Fruits of Time

A Primer on Apple Tree Release and Grafting Techniques In the early nineteenth century, John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman sallied forth from Leominster, Massachusetts, to sell and…

Woodworking Schools - and Their Students - Look to the Future

On a Tuesday morning near the end of the school year, a half-dozen students move purposefully through the woodshop at St. Johnsbury Academy. Machines whirr, and the sweet scent of sawdust…

Miracles of Beauty

“Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others.” -WILSON BENTLEY,…

Adirondack Logging: The Early Years of Mechanization

There’s a lot of talk in the forest industry these days about “mechanized logging.” Some lament the passing of an era – the loss of the sounds of a revving chainsaw, a…

What’s in a Name? Tree ID for Ordinary Mortals

“Do not be afraid to go out on a limb…that’s where the fruit is.” Anonymous Here I am, going out on a very long limb, freely admitting that despite living among trees,…

Easy Wood, an Opinionated Reflection

Castle Freeman wrote here recently [“Easy Wood,” Autumn 2017] about his prolonged tussle with a major limb that had separated from an old butternut tree in his backyard...a job…

What Cats’ Eyes Tell Us About Their Souls

A predator’s physical senses determine the manner in which it hunts. Wild canids, for instance, favor their sense of smell – you can see this as they trot along the hedgerows,…

Biocontrol: It’s Bug Versus Bug in the Fight Against Invasive Species

The mixed hardwood forest on the edge of the town of Dalton in western Massachusetts looks healthy to the untrained eye, but the researchers from the University of Massachusetts who visited…

Snakes on an Island

On an early spring evening in March 2017, a large crowd packed a public meeting in Ware, Massachusetts, to discuss a controversial proposal to establish a rattlesnake colony at the nearby…