15C and fog/sun. It feels like fall and we haven't even had summer. Probably quite foggy out on the water.
It was good tom get back to lawn bowls yesterday, the others were all happy we are back - so they said!!
Bad news on the markets today, but if you don't have to buy and sell to have income then just sit back and wait it out. If you have cash, it's a good time to selectively invest.
I have a couple of my gold finches back and yes the the titmice did arrive. Funny no English sparrows though.
Here's more about Forestry.
course no one would log balsam and only tie-hackers would look at a pine tree.
My real introduction to Forestry and logging started in 1953 when I became a compassman in the BC Forest Service. Timber cruising in those days was a basic process of running strip lines across the contours and tallying trees over fourteen inches at breast height. Height samples were taken periodically to obtain an average so that a calculation of total volume could be made. In 1954 I transferred to the Prince George Forest District. Cruising was basically the same except that we tallied trees down to ten inches breast high. Balsam was not measured only acknowledged as being present as was cedar or hemlock when it was encountered.
Later when I was old enough to become an Assistant Ranger (twenty one), my real education of the role of the Forest Service and it’s relationship to the industry got underway.
In the mid 1950’s there were no tree farm licenses in the interior and Timber Sales were sold by public auction. This method generated fair revenue to the Province as the bidding would start from an upset price as calculated by Ministry staff. The logging companys had their own method of calculating the value of the timber which was basically a combination of the cost of logging, milling and selling price. Most sales were bid above the upset value which was what was called stumpage plus royalty. This stumpage would be due to the province for every boardfoot (later cubic foot and now cubic metre) of harvested wood. In the interior the one “fly in the ointment” was occasional spite bidding where one operator would deliberately bid a block of timber beyond it’s value hoping that a rival would purchase it and suffer financially.
Tree harvesting or “stand treatment” as it was called was very basic prior to 1950 but in the early ‘50’s new treatments were introduced, many of them with merit and some of them dismal failures. It was obvious to those of us charged with administrative responsibility that a successful treatment in one stand or one geographic location was not necessarily a correct treatment in other locations, yet the decision making staff became enamoured with ‘fads’.
For example; single seed tree selection which was a simple treatment of leaving a few dominant trees standing with in a cutting area was eminently successful in the dryer Douglas Fir dominated stands. Fir are more resistant to windthrow, the stress of being exposed after all neighboring trees had been harvested resulted in bumper seed crops for one year to three years. Inevitably most of these seed trees would die but in their place there would be well established seedlings throughout the logged area. Someone got the idea that this same treatment should be carried out in spruce stands. Spruce are not resistant to wind. The idea was one of many disasters. The next trial was to leave small patches of spruce, the idea being that a small block would be more wind resistant. Again the winds leveled these remaining trees and in the process created small scattered patches of twisted and entwined trees that were economically unfeasible to salvage.
Many other experiments were tried, marking to cut, marking to leave, strip logging, differing diameter limits were a few. Somehow no one was able to grasp the idea that if you open up or disturb spruce stands blowdown will follow and delay in salvaging will result in population explosions of spruce bark beetle. Even road construction had disastrous effects as it allowed wind access and the corridors compressed the wind resulting in increased velocity.
One memorable and ludicrous treatment was attempted for a few years in the 1960’s. By this time clearcutting was becoming more prevalent as a result of the earlier disasters. Clearcutting as most readers know is a cuss word to many who profess to be environmentalists. In an effort to hide the ugly expanses of clearcut along major transportation corridors, it was decided to leave a buffer zone between the logging and the highways. Naturally the first windstorm that came along wreaked havoc and the perception of standing forests was not only destroyed but these zones became the epitome of a logging disaster.
All the various stand treatments that went through the revolving door of “forest management” were successful in the correct specie or the correct soil or the correct elevation or the correct exposure. Where a treatment proved to be successful no one took the time to study the results and all the factors that allowed the success.
One memorable example for me is in the Rocky Mountain Trench about half way between McBride and Valemount. I can only cite this example as my witnessing was a result of coincidence over time.
The example was a Timber Sale on a steep hillside, probably eighty percent spruce the remainder being balsam, cedar and hemlock. I cruised this Sale
In 1957 I was transferred to McBride as an Assistant Ranger and this Sale
The area was logged in July and August, the skidding of the harvested trees resulted in a light scarification of the ground beneath the remaining stand. All the spruce above the prescribed diameter limit, those cedar suitable for poles and a smattering of balsam were harvested. Slash disposal consisted of delimbing the tree tops that were left behind.
[1] A diameter limit was the minimum size to be harvested on a stump eighteen inches above ground level on the up slope side.
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