[ New York ] Bruno buys timber on private land and state land. He prefers to cut on state land when he can. “A lot of private landowners want to clear-cut everything,” he said. “They want to high grade it and take the best and get the money for it. But on state land I can go in and do a nice job so that I can drive by the area years from now and say, ‘This is the way it is because I did it.’”State foresters are more concerned with managing — and harvesting timber — to produce a healthy forest than just making money. “Money drives the private land sale, but conservation drives the state land sale.” Of course, doing a select cut on a state forest or other land requires more skill and expertise than doing a clear-cut. “My dad was an old-time logger,” he said. “If the tree was over a certain size he would cut it, regardless. Now he is 73, and when he walks on the land that I own, he says, ‘If I had done this when I was your age, now I’d really have something.’ He can see the result of doing it this way versus doing it the old way.” Cut-to-length logging requires more planning, but the advantages of the machinery outweigh the extra effort, said Bruno. “The reason we went to the forwarder is that a lot of state jobs require one.”

News notes are courtesy of Southern Forests Network News Notes
www.southernsustainableforests.org