A Landowner's Guide To Managing Your Woods: How To Maintain A Small Acreage For Long-Term Health, Biodiversity, And High-Quality Timber Production Download Free (EPUB, PDF)

                
              
A Landowner's Guide To Managing Your Woods: How To Maintain A Small Acreage For Long-Term Health, Biodiversity, And High-Quality Timber Production Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
Whether you have a few acres of trees in the suburbs or a small commercial forest, you can encourage a healthy and sustainable ecosystem through proper woodland management. This introductory guide shows you how to identify the type, health, and quality of your trees and suggests strategies for keeping your woodland thriving.
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC; unknown edition (September 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1603428003
ISBN-13: 978-1603428002
Product Dimensions:  6.1 x 0.8 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:  4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #116,895 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)   #27 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Forests & Rainforests   #39 in Books > Science & Math > Agricultural Sciences > Forestry   #58 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Outdoor & Recreational Areas
This book does not give much detail for the small woodlot owner. Over and over again it gives the same advice: Hire a forester. If you have a woodlot of 40 acres or more and have never thought about what you want to do with it, then this book will be of some help. It is NOT for the person who wants to really "manage"their small woodlot for wildlife, recreation or pleasure. It MAY be helpful to someone who wants to sell their woods. It does not give much specific information.To me the most irritating aspect of the book was the constant mantra of: Hire a forester. OK. Not bad advice, but you don't really need a book to tell you that.There is little information on SPECIFIC techniques for improving a small wood lot. I was very disappointed.
If I'd found this in a bookstore and had a chance to flip through it, I'd have put it back on the shelf. The "Look Inside" feature did a good job of hiding the deficiencies and making it worth a try. Precious little useful information for homeowners here and even that is so basic you can get it off the internet for free. Possibly an okay resource if you own land you intend to harvest for hardwood trees; definitely centered around Wisconsin woodlands. Pretty useless if fire mitigation of western conifer forests is your interest.
I finished the book about six weeks ago, it was very informative but had I known that the primary focus was on Sugar Bush, I probably would not have bought it. It is very well written and I learned a great deal from it. They give great background on New England forestry along with some valuable history lessons. There is great info on timber contracts, timber sales and how to pick a forester....real good background information.
I went to the Mother Earth News Fair at Seven Springs,PA and listened to the author of this book speak. I was impressed with what I heard so I decided to buy the book. What I like about it is that it presents the views of the landowner, the forester, and the timber man, and how they can work together in creating healthy and productive woodland. It is very informative but yet not overly technical. It would be a great addition to the home library.
Halfway through the book is the passage "Though most of this book is about planning and working with professional foresters and loggers,..." While selling itself as teaching woodland management, it does not do that. It is no more than an infomercial for foresters and government socialist woodlands programs. It studiously avoids giving useful information that an owner would need. It's about like buying a book on nutrition and health that only recommends going to the doctor every month.
We have owned, enjoyed and managed a woodlot in upstate New York for over thirty years. Managing timber for the long term while improving forest health and productivity has also been a good investment. This book explains how this can be accomplished with sustainable forest management and includes case histories.Unfortunately, many landowners don't fully appreciate the value of sustainable forestry, and by the time they get it figured out the property changes hands to a brand new owner. Consequently, a high percentage of woodlots go through cycles of benign neglect, followed by selling the most valuable trees, then more benign neglect. Most privately owned woodlots have been degraded in this way.Forestry offers a much better way to manage a woodlot. If every landowner followed the advice offered in this book we would have healthier forests, greater biodiversity, a stronger forest products industry, and more economically viable working forests which would slow down forest fragmentation. More forest owners might practice forestry if they were aware of how it can help sustain healthy and productive woodlands. This book does a great job in conveying the positive message of forestry and the importance of management.
About a year ago, I acquired large tracts of land in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Much of this land is forested and I, someone with no background in land management needed to learn. This book taught me vast amounts of knowledge about forest ecology and management. I now feel that my land is in responsible hands.
One of my two favorite books on wildlife management. This book focuses on the forest part of the equation. Tom Indrebo has an excellent book on the animal side of things. Both great resources for someone that want to improve habitat and interact with their property to help it be as alive and well as possible.
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