On Sep 23, 7:07*pm, Giles wrote:
On Sep 22, 10:58*pm, JR wrote:

Giles wrote:

...........The property on which most of this activity is
taking place, (officially about 70 acres.....but topography renders it
more like 85-90 in reality) is a ****in' goldmine!

There's also some oak, hickory, black cherry, various
conifers.....um.....and some other stuff.

g.
who will happily provide more conservation details for those ROFFians
who want to know.

Please. *And history of the land, too, if you know it.

I don't know much about the precise details of the land use, but it's
fairly typical for the region. *But first, a little bit of
prehistory. *The coulee country of southwestern Wisconsin is dominated
by steep hills cut through by a dendritic drainage pattern. *These are
very old hills, the stumps of ancient mountains composed primarily of
sandstones and limestones of ancient seabeds.....well, at least the
parts that are left. *The area was spared the levelling effect of the
last continental glaciation, thus explaining the rugged terrain where
most of the rest of the state was sanded to a relatively smooth
finish.

The earliest Europeans to enter the region were French fur traders and
Jesuit missionaries who were much less interested in establishing
permanent colonial settlements than in extracting the wealth of the
land and sending it back to the motherland. *Hence, they had little
effect on the land beyond denuding it of fur bearing animals and
making it nearly impossible for modern travelers to approach any damp
spot anywhere in Michigan, Wisconsin, or northern Illinois without
tripping over "Marquette" or "Joliet" something or other. *Next came
the Cornish miners....the "Badgers" reponsible for the University of
Wisconsin's mascot and the sobriquet, "the badger state." *They, too,
left little lasting impression on the land. *Unlike the Spaniards in
other portions of North America, these stalwart and simple folk were
not lured by fables of golden cities.....it was base metals they were
after. *Rather, one particular base metal which, if the alchemists had
had their way, would have been the raw material from which the Spanish
would have had riches beyond their wildest dreams.....lead. *They got
their lead and left some holes in the ground. *And pasties.

And then came the first of the plagues, the loggers. *In their wake
they left a devastation that appalled even the relatively ecologically
insensitive citizens of the nineteenth century. *By this time
photography was widespread enough that no one needed to exercise any
imagination aided by even the finest of prose to get a good sense of
the impact of the carnage. *Surreal landscapes dominated by broken
stumps and discarded trash (trash by the standards of the time which
would be deemed valuable lumber today) where once there had been a
forest so vast that most people of the time seriously believed that
the resource could NEVER be exhausted. *All gone in a decade or two.
Even so, there is reason to suppose that the land could have healed
itself.....in time.....if left alone.

But then came the GREAT plague.....the farmers and grazers. *Even the
greediest of timber barons will leave a clear-cut landscape alone for
twenty to fifty years, depending on which species dominate. *The
honest plowman and shepherd rape the land anew, every year.

That's about where this particular plot of land stood until twenty
years ago. *Now things are different. *Not a forest, mind you, not a
complex ecosystem that has time to work out a web of interdependencies
and myriad conflicts, but at least a plot that isn't reinvented along
a poorly thought out agenda each and every year. *The oldest of the
walnuts are now about forty feet in height and twelve to fourteen
inches dbh. *They would have had larger crowns by now, and greater
diameter, if they had been properly thinned as they grew.....we learn,
given enough time. *The oldest of the chestnuts are a sight to
behold. *A few of them are doing very very well.....for extinct
trees. *The current champion stands fifty feet tall.....greatly
overshadowing the walnuts and oaks of the same age surrounding
it....and sixteen inches dbh, and this in a nineteen year old
tree.....in an orchard which the blight has found its way to.
Buttenuts are a recent addition, in response to yet another blight,
one which promises to be even more deadly than that sufferred by the
chestnuts; the butternut is in grave danger. *However, certain hybrids
with Japanese walnut and (perhaps more importantly) their offspring
back-crossed with more American stock, show some promise of blight
resistance, just as is true with Castanea dentata crosses with Chinese
stock. *In neither case, obviously, will the resultant survivors (if
any) be pure American stock, but the generally held opinion is that
it's better than nothing. *Meanwhile, work goes on to save the pure
American gene pool of both species till resistant strains can be found
and propogated. *Needless to say, opinions about the likely outcome
vary considerably.

The walnuts and hazelnuts are.....mercifully, for now.....free of
major pests that threaten their very existence. *Both are producers of
highly nutritious and delicious nuts. *The most serious impediment to
a bountiful harvest is squirrels. *But I've found a solution to this
problem......hot lead.....the very substance that the Cornish miners
brought of of the ground of this region is being slowly but steadily
pumped back into it; I recently bought a scope for my fifty year old
Remington 550 .22. *The walnut has the added attraction of what it is
really being grown for; it is one of the world's premier hardwoods,
with outstanding mechanical characteristics, including excellent
dimensional stability and shock resistence which, along with its great
beauty, make it a great favorite for gunstocks. *It also excels as
veneer....and THAT is to be the ultimate fate of these trees.

g.

Thanx. I assume you've done some tree planting on this property; what
has worked best in keeping the critters from killing your hardwood
saplings? Between the rodents and the deer, for the ponderosa Im
facing having to go larger sizes, plastic net a foot or so up the stem
and then a wire cage. That really limits the number I can do each
year. Ideas?

Dave