more surges in Montana...
 

On Jul 10, 12:37*pm, wrote:
On Jul 9, 4:21*pm, " wrote:



On Jul 9, 3:26*pm, jeff miller wrote:

wrote:
On Jul 8, 4:42 pm, jeff miller wrote:

Nationwide forest inventory data now show that a
trend decrease in the nation's aggregate forest land area has occurred
since the 1960s. From a peak of 762 million acres in 1963, total US
forest land decreased by 13 million acres by 2002. While the area of
forest land in most states remained stable during that period, or in
some cases increased, several of the Southern states, as well as the
Pacific coast states, experienced a substantial reduction in forest land
area (Smith et al. 2004).

Just a reality check, isn't that a 1.7% reduction over 40 years?
Or 0.04% per year?

Based on some of your other links (I admit to not having time
to do much more than skim most of them) it appears that most
of the forest land loss has been privately owned land being
converted from forest to agricultural use.
* * *- Ken

look closer at the number of acres being lost annually in agricultural
regions of the south...don't you think that is an awful lot?

Not to be too flippant, but why do I care if farmland in the south
gets
converted to urban land?

I don't like urban sprawl, but it's not like it's wilderness being
lost.

i agree,
*it is the privately owned forests and farms being lost. *the forest
service is doing a good job of reforestation and management in the nc
public lands, as are the nature conservancy groups, imo.

Going back to the original point in this, as long as it's just private
land
changing hands and the public land is being managed well, what's the
issue?
* *- Ken- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

What if the farmland were in your part of Oregon? Do you care about
that? How about Sauve Island? Would it bother you if it were covered
with condos, Intell hives, Schlock-o-mats, and CarFarts?

Dave
Man does not live by bread alone.

Everywhere we live was once covered by forests,
prairies, etc. The building I'm working in and the
home I live in were both farms not that long ago.
Not too long before that they were both "wild".

It's private property. If we cared enough, we'd donate
all our money to the nature conservancy and/or
complain loud enough for our local city/county/state
government to pony up and buy it.

Where I live, we have an urban growth boundary,
specifically to limit the urban sprawl. Lots of complaint
about it. Dinky house lots, too close together, raises
house prices, causes congestion, etc.

If people actually cared, they could lobby for similar.
From what I can tell, most people elsewhere love their
local carfarts, walmarts, etc more than farmland.
- Ken

more surges in Montana...
 

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:26:05 -0700 (PDT), wrote:


You missed the point. Some dirt is better than other dirt for growing
things. All things equal, it bothers me more when the better dirt goes
out of ag.

No, I think you missed my point. *To use your words, if an ag business's
(family farm or ADM) land, parcel A, is "better dirt" for growing "Y"
crop - for whatever reason: you say so, it's located close to the
market, it's literally "better" dirt, etc. than another available parcel
B, but the profit from the sale of parcel A for a non-ag use, combined
with the lessened profit after acquiring and farming parcel B, is the
economically advantageous move, then, well, it is the economically
advantageous move. *Therefore, the "best dirt" for ag use at that time
is being used for ag and the "best dirt" for whatever parcel A is being
used is being used for that purpose at that time.

TC,
R

Boy oh boy. I can see now how little I know about farming, or
economics in spite of grad school.

Or perhaps, because of it...

I really didn't understand that it all comes down to a formula and numbers.

Oh, there's the chicken bones, cheap cigars, and rum, too...

And I had no idea that it was
so easy to project future prices, the future weather, the policies of
foreign governments, upstream flooding, the availability and prices
of futures contracts, labor availability and immigration policies, war
and peace.

Aside from the nonsensical nonsequiturity of your comments above, I
specifically made no comments about future value and I purposefully used
the phrase "at that time" with regard to value to indicate that I was
not speaking of any value other than present value.

If I had known that it was possible to reliably predict all
these factors, plug them into a formula and out would come all the
right answers I could have shared these techniques with others. Maybe
even changed the course of history.

Yeah, you'd have been a regular John Maynard G. Krebs...

I see now that what I studied in Utah and saw in life as probability
and uncertainty were irrelevant.

With certainty.

Probability just a backward Utah thing.

Probably, too...

Damn, it all just comes down to a formula doesn't it? Why
didn't I figure this out years ago on my own?

Interference from the tin foil? A vast evil Jewish conspiracy? Bad
anchovies on the pizza?

Thank you.

You're welcome.

HTH,
R

Dave