Site Discussions

I have land in Tioga Co, NY with a population of white pine among other needle leaved evergreens.  Having tried a variety over the years we settled on white pine. We would top promising trees as they were growing to fill them out.  They were easier to trim and the aroma was wonderful. Best of all, @ my wife, is that they did not drop needles.

“Godfrey mighty!” exclaimed Danny, “We got us a cat spruce.  It stinks!” 
It was 1973, my first Christmas in Maine.  I was teaching in a two room schoolhouse.  Twelve special needs children ages six to seventeen.  We trudged out back of the school looking for a tree worthy of our 12’ ceilings, finally deciding on the best shape we could get from the slim pickings in a coastal woods.
  The peculiar odor became more evident as the tree warmed up and the days wore on.  Still, it was beautiful with lights and hand-made ornaments and strings of popcorn for the birds. 
  On the last day of school before vacation, we stripped the tree of ornaments and considered the best way to get it outside.  The school had huge, double hung windows, no storms in those days.  We looked at the tree.  I looked at the kids and then at the window. 
“Yes!” they cried almost in unison as the same thought ran through our heads.  So out the window it went.  Thus began a tradition that lasted the next five years of the school’s existence.  Not a cat spruce, of course, but pitching the tree out the window as our finale to Christmas in our school. 
Years later, when I would ask my former students, “What was one of your favorite memories of our school?” invariably it would be, “Pitching the tree out the window.  And that gosh all mighty smell of that cat spruce.”
From then on we were always careful to get a balsam fir so we could enjoy the clean, spicy aroma.  It is for that reason my favorite Christmas tree is a fir.

Balsam fir, no contest - for the fragrance and the fact that it’s native, as Jackie said.  And maybe for nostalgia too - growing up we always had a balsam fir.

Risking heresy, I have to admit my favorite Christmas Tree is no longer my native Balsam Fir, nor the ever popular Fraser Fir.  I dispise Colorado Blue Spruce, and only tolerate White Spruce.  My favorites list includes Nordmann Fir (from Europe), Concolor (Rocky Mountains) and Korean Fir.  All these I like because they are virtually pest free (yes, I’m a grower) and have color or fragrance that customers find appealling. 

As one who generally prefers native species in landscaping, and would like to keep exotic invasives out of my woodlot, I can’t say the natives can compete with my favorite Abies arizonica (Corkbark Fir) when it comes to color, shape and beauty.  My mentor in the business, Bob Girardin, calls them “Blue Alpine Fir” so people can remember them.  They grow slowly, can be susceptible to late frost damage, but darn, they are beautiful.

My vote goes to Balsam Fir, a beautifully fragrant tree that holds its needles and is also native to the northeastern US.  A true Northern Woodlander!  I made the mistake of cutting a White Spruce one year and kept looking around the room for where the cat had peed.  But it was the tree that smelled bad.  It had a bird’s nest in it, though, so that was some compensation.

i love this article

I own a 321 acre farm and can say without question the management program of the state is a disaster. In the forty five years we’ve been here, not once has a biologist visited. During that same period of time the deer population based on actual sightings has gone from twenty-five to thirty deer a day to maybe 4 per month on a good month. We used to have twenty five hunters stay with us and hunt our properties and now there are none. This has also impacted our income. This year I planted a new alfalfa piece and not one deer came to graze during the entire year.

You can’t compare PA or CT to VT. They are different in may respects, among which are milder winters, longer growing seasons and different soils. You should do your comparing to places like NH or ME. Also you can’t do a deer study sitting in front of a computer entering bogus information into a model.

If you want a true study, get out and meet with landowners, put out cameras, walk the area (more than once) and talk to hunters, loggers, farmers. Also invest some money with landowners for food plots, and habitat improvement. True management is more than issuing licenses, permits, tags and generating phoney information. True management takes work and cooperation with the landowner.

Apropos of all this… a press release from the Massachusetts DFW came in today asking for help in a NE cottontail survey:

Beginning this winter, the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (DFW) will be conducting a statewide survey of cottontail rabbits to assess the distribution and population of New England cottontails (Sylvilagus transitionalis), the only cottontail rabbit species native to the northeastern United States and rarely seen. Two kinds of cottontail rabbits are found in Massachusetts, the common non-native Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) and the New England cottontail. Division biologists are asking for the help of hunters, highway department workers, animal control officers, and other interested citizens across the state to provide DFW with cottontail carcasses or intact cottontail skulls for the survey.

Carcasses or intact cottontail heads should be placed in a plastic bag and frozen until they can be dropped off at a DFW District Office, DFW hatchery, or DFW’s Field Headquarters in Westborough. Please include a note with contact information, date of collection and detailed location information such as town, street or land parcel. A marked topographic map or GPS coordinates are ideal, but any detailed location information will greatly aid biologists.

When I was a young seasonal field biologist I worked for Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, conducting some of the first research on cottontails in southern Maine (in 1998). At that time there was still a 6 a day bag limit! Hard to believe now. Having come and gone from my native Maine several times over the last decade or more I’ve been watching this issue with great interest. Rather than a species focus it would be most useful to discuss what’s necessary to benefit an entire suite of early successional species, including the NE cottontail, the American Woodcock, the Ruffed Grouse, golden-winged warblers, willow flycatchers, among others. This will require a new management paradigm that many New Englanders are likely unfamiliar with (your recent article on Woodcock captured this nicely). I encourage landowners to think about developing early successional habitat on their property through programs like the New England-New York Forestry Initiative. According to the NRCS “$2,000,000 in federal funding through the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) is available to assist Maine forest land owners with forest land planning and management under the New England-New York Forestry Initiative.” http://www.me.nrcs.usda.gov/news/News_2011ForestryInitiativeSignup.html
Thanks for sparking such good discussions, NW!

Thanks to Chris for forwarding this interesting article to me.  The folks in Maine are to be congratulated for their vision and thoughtful approach to preserving the memory and the essence of such a majestic old natural treasure.  Herbie’s beauty has not been lost completely.  Maybe no longer as a tree, but now as surviving works of outstanding craft and objects of art for many geneations to admire and cherish.
The story is interesting, touching and heartwarming.  Thanks for an article well written.
Larry Ludke

This comment came in as a Letter to the Editor.

Great article, and I enjoyed following the link.  As a New England Cottontail Rabbit Volunteer in NH, I can describe the shrublands habitat of the rabbit, home to an incredible array of flora and fauna, to some as interesting as the forests of New England.  I have been very interested to learn from UNH Cooperative Extension’s Emma Carcagno that recent estimates relate to forestry practices, land conservation and habitat restoration:  Every six acres of protected (or reclaimed) shrublands gives a native New England ecosystem an opportunity to rebound from decades of habitat destruction, and an endangered species has a chance to show its fuzzy face.

Mila Paul

I’m a graduate student at UNH who has been studying this rabbit for the past two years. In response to Barbara’s question about which rabbit species she has, they are almost impossible to tell apart unless you have them in your hands, and even then it’s pretty tricky. However, Lyme is so far north that you are more likely to have snowshoe hares than either cottontail species. The easiest way to tell is that hares turn white in winter. If you see your rabbits in the middle of winter and they are still brown, you might have a cottontail. In that case, you should call the Fish and Game Department with your sighting.

I’m a strong supporter of endangered and threatened species (and the Endangered Species Act), but I have mixed feelings about the NE cottontail because much of its decline is attributable to the reversion of pasture to forest in Maine.  So, its higher populations in the past was larger an artifact of human development.  On the other hand, every species (and subspecies) is important in terms of its contribution of genetic diversity and its place on Earth, so I hate to see it the NE cottontail disappear. So, I guess that makes me a supporter of your call for landowners to help.

Drew

P.S. I’d participate on our 125 acres, but we’re a bit too far north to realistically help, something that might change with global warming!

When I was a graduate student at the University of Virginia in the 1980’s, the graduate offices were located in the basement of an un-airconditioned building.  Hardly anyone could tolerate the dank spaceand in part due to the super-abundance of silverfish.  Yuck.  I appreciate their evolutionary niche, but am happy to not see them around my house!

I have noticed a large drop in rabbit numbers over the 40 years we have been here,
although I don’t know which specie of rabbits we have.  How can one tell which is which - am I looking at the smaller New England or the larger Eastern?  We have a 4,000-acre preserve here in Lyme and have started cutting out the large trees in some of the old grown-up pastures.  That will help with rabbit habitat - but for which rabbit?  Does it matter?

My vote is saying/writing UTILIZE instead of USE.  Using three syllables to do the work of one adds nothing, but seems a pathetic attempt to be saying something more important than you are.

It may be slightly off topic, but there are three other things that make me cringe: using ” ” to stress a word or to call attention to a particular word, using an ‘s to indicate a plural, and writing ect for etc.  Are the schools teaching nothing today? Do those teaching know the differences?

Respectfully, I disagree with your view Bill. You have a list of words you wish to expunge from the language, which seems petty to me. As for the word “critter” being disrespectful to animals, they don’t care about words, that is a human trait.

Well, thanks Bill.  The next time I shrink away from the unexpected sight of a silverfish, I’ll remember how long they’ve been successfully inhabiting this precious Earth of ours.  I’ve always thought it important to have respect for one’s elders, so respect them I shall.

I agree with you, Bill. The word is a bit too cute and may not have been the best choice. Rather than delete it, though, it might be more fun to see what words other people hate. An informal poll of folks in the office revealed that people here hate boy/girlfriend (unless it refers to a prepubescent friend), the overuse of the word “actually,” any nouns-turned-verbs like “impact,” and the c-word that isn’t “critter.” I don’t want to ignore the cottontail questions but word geeks should feel free to chime in on this as well.

This comment came in as a Letter to the Editor for the printed magazine.

Will the editor and writers please refrain from the use of the word “critter”?

It’s a regionalism. It’s substandard. Hasn’t this word been worn out lately? It belongs in the list with leper, loser, loner, shirker, and the n-word. It tries to be cute. It demeans.  It disrepects the animal, which should be held in higher regard, awe really.

That’s my two cents.

Bill Morrison
Wolcott, Vermont