IN THE FIELD

Forest Society 120th Annual Meeting Saturday, September 25, 2021 | Creek Farm Reservation, Portsmouth, NH

AGENDA

9 a.m. –12 p.m.

– Field trips (returning to Creek Farm by noon) 12–1 p.m. – Picnic lunch 1–2 p.m. – Business Meeting and Awards 2 p.m. – Keynote Speaker: Carolyn Finney

FIELD TRIPS 1. Set Sail on the Gundalow Piscataqua

Enjoy a relaxing morning on the Piscataqua River cruising through Portsmouth’s historic harbor sailing past forts, lighthouses, and the Naval Shipyard. You’ll be invited to join the crew in raising the sail and steering the ship. Onboard educators will share their knowledge of gundalows, the cultural and natural history of the Piscataqua maritime region, and the impact of humans on the watershed over the past 400 years. You’ll have the opportunity to ask the captain, educators, and volunteers more about what you learned or just relax and take in the sights. This field trip departs from the Gundalow dock at Prescott Park. For directions and parking information, visit gundalow.org. Trip leader: Carrie Deegan

2. Explore Tuckaway Farm and Powder Major’s Forest

Durham, Madbury, Lee Join a moderate hike beginning at Powder Major’s Forest that leads to a new 36-acre conservation easement added to adjacent Tuckaway Farm, a three-generation family farm “tucked away” along the Oyster River. The Cox family operates an organic farm, growing vegetables, fruits, hay, mushrooms, and grains, as well as pastured lamb and eggs. Learn about their Community Supported Agriculture and Bread Club for local residents.

The easement protects prime agricultural land, excellent wildlife habitat, and 4,000 feet of frontage along the Oyster River, which is a significant source of drinking water for the Town of Durham and the University of New Hampshire. The property also contains the stone abutments of historic “Dishwater Mill, ” and the family cemetery of the Revolutionary War Captain Smith Emerson. Trip Leaders: Brian Hotz and Matt Scaccia. Meet at Tibbetts Field (25 Lee Road, Madbury) at 9:00 a.m. The tidal Sagamore Creek flows beside Creek Farm Reservation.

3. Tour Champlin Forest Reservation

Rochester Learn about the proposed addition to Champlin Forest! Join us for a roughly 2-mile walk among the woodlands and wetlands of the Forest Society’s 185-acre William H. Champlin, Jr. Forest and 122-acre Champlin Forest addition, a parcel that the Forest Society is working to purchase and protect. Located between the busy communities of Rochester and Somersworth, this property offers walking trails, two former ponds, well-managed forests, Clark Brook, remnants of smallscale granite quarries, and wildlife habitat. Trip Leaders: Leah Hart and Wendy Weisiger. Field trip begins at 9:00 a.m. from the Champlin Forest trailhead in Rochester.

4. Perspectives on Creek Farm

Creek Farm has undergone a metamorphosis in recent years. Join Forest Society staff for a two-part tour that visits the renovated buildings and take an easy stroll on Creek Farm campus. The group will divide into two, with both experiencing the built and natural perspectives. The trip segments include:

A. Creek Farm Campus Tour With Special Guest, Carolyn Finney Join Annual Meeting keynote speaker Carolyn Finney, author of Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors, for unique perspectives and shared conversation on the role of conservation landscapes relative to racial equity and inclusion. The tour includes easy walking along the Little Harbor Trail, which boasts views of the waterfront and passes by historic trees. Trip leader: Dave Anderson

B. Tour Historic Carey Cottage and Forest Society Education Center at Creek Farm Visit the Forest Society Education Center at Creek Farm to learn about new education programs, partnerships, and future plans. We’ll also tour the newly renovated and restored Carey Cottage, headquarters of Seacoast nonprofit GoodWork at Carey Cottage. Trip leader: Sarah Kern

Registration fee of $50 per person includes field trip, picnic lunch, and program. Early bird registration fee of $40 is available before September 7. BYO lunch registration option includes field trip and program with no lunch. Kids under 12 join free. Registration deadline is September 20. Visit forestsociety.org/annualmeeting for more information and to register.

The Merrimack River:

How Revisiting Its History Helps to Renew Action

By Brenna Woodman

Since French explorer Samuel de Champlain’s arrival to the Seacoast area in 1605, the Merrimack River has served as a conduit for commerce, recreation, and sustenance for most towns and cities established along its path between Franklin, N.H., and Newburyport, Mass. Prior to colonialism, Indigenous peoples living in the watershed relied on the water course for food and water resources. Today, the Merrimack remains a vital resource in providing drinking water for more than 600,000 people and offering habitats for at least 75 endangered species. So why is this seemingly reliable reserve considered one of most vulnerable rivers by the nonprofit American Rivers as well as the U.S. Forest Service?

In his newly released book, Merrimack: The Resilient River, Dyke Hendrickson walks readers through history to shed light on the Merrimack’s complicated relationship with manmade elements and provide insight on current threats. For Hendrickson—a historian, a lifelong New England reporter, and a Newburyport resident—the Merrimack symbolizes his roots and a beacon of opportunity for many over the centuries.

The health of our waters first came into focus for him when he was traveling alongside former Senator Edmund Muskie, a key founder of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as a young reporter for the Portland Press Herald in 1976 during Muskie’s reelection campaign. “He knew pollution, ” Hendrickson says. As we are witnessing a new wave of environmental impacts to the river, Hendrickson was inspired to write his book to honor the waterway but also explore opportunities for a stronger future.

Merrimack: The Resilient River dives deep into the many evolutions of the river, starting with Champlain’s activities and the tragic downfall of Indigenous peoples living in the watershed, to the emergence of textile and paper mills from Franklin down to Lowell, then to the establishment of the U.S. Coast Guard in Newburyport. For Hendrickson, it’s important to ruminate on the past in order to appreciate the river’s value. “People don’t realize what a remarkable history the Merrimack has and resource it was and still is. Even today when I speak with different audiences, most are unaware of the shipbuilding history and the birthplace of the Coast Guard, ” he says. “We have half a million people that don’t understand where their water is coming from let alone the factors that are threatening that source. ”

Hendrickson notes that the environmental movement is young compared to the age of the river. In prior centuries, textile mills would regularly dump dyes and chemicals into the Merrimack, turning it different colors and causing an overwhelming depletion of fish populations. As early as 1839, writer Henry David Thoreau was expressing concerns over pollution. In the 1880s, drinking water became an issue in Lawrence with outbreaks of typhoid and other diseases. In the 1920s, 12 million gallons of sewage was entering the river in Lowell daily. When senators Muskie and George Mitchell helped launch the EPA in 1970 and the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, guidelines were finally established to implement pollution control programs that promoted biological integrity and allowed cities such as Lowell, Manchester, and Haverhill to rebound and become prosperous again. Despite significant improvements with environmental guidelines and supportive funding over the last half century, new threats have emerged against the Merrimack: polluted stormwater runoff and development. Heavy rain events, which are expected to increase because of climate change, cause more water to flow over impermeable surfaces (think parking lots) and pick up chemicals before entering drainages. When sewage treatment plants are unable to treat these surges of water, the plants release the polluted water and raw sewage, called combined sewer overflows (CSOs), into the Merrimack.

Nearly 500 million gallons of polluted stormwater and sewage are dumped into the river every year. Additionally, rapid residential and commercial development in southern New Hampshire will only increase the amount of runoff that is already hampering treatment plants in both states. By removing more forests, the opportunity to naturally filter pollutants that harm ecosystems leading into the Gulf of Maine also decreases. “Contamination, scarcity, and climate

Above: The Merrimack River flows beside the Forest Society’s Stillhouse Forest in Canterbury and Northfield. Left: In 2011, heavy rains from Tropical Storm Irene caused large volumes of polluted stormwater runoff to spill into the Merrimack River and eventually the Gulf of Maine, as seen here.

change are significant worries when it comes to water, ” says Brian Hotz, vice president for land conservation for the Forest Society. “City and town planning is also a complicated issue right now. Municipal planning departments often become siloed in their own work and plan specifically for their town, rather than collaborating across town borders and considering development impacts throughout their whole region, ” he notes. “In the past, we have had to address significant unregulated farm work or bad forestry practices in the White Mountains; now we are mindful of urban development in southern New Hampshire. We are dealing with a lot of rapid development that not only reduces forests but leads to stormwater sewage and runoff. ”

While these current realities sound daunting, Hendrickson does not want that to be the key takeaway of his book. proves how resilient this river is. By looking back, we can learn from past collaborations and pioneers that rose to the occasion to do the right thing and take the initiative upon ourselves to do better. We had Ellen Swallow Richards, a woman in the nineteenth century no less, help stop typhoid in Lawrence. Muskie and Mitchell crossed party lines to bring environmentalism to the forefront. We have leaders today like Massachusetts State Senator Diana DiZoglio that advocate for infrastructure improvements. Just last year, Manchester committed to a 20-year control plan to alleviate their CSOs due to public input and political involvement. ”

In his 23 years with the Forest Society, Hotz says that the Merrimack has always been a key priority with work being done to protect farms, water access, and water quality. This initiative has become more defined over the last decade with the creation of partnership programs, most notably the Merrimack Conservation Partnership. “We recognized the need for a level of coordination and cooperation by different stakeholders to instill tangible changes, ” Hotz says. “Ultimately, land conservation, water quality, and climate change issues need to be viewed in one bucket.

By bringing different groups together for routine conversations, these issues are viewed as a continuous lifecycle of processes and people can share ideas and solutions. ”

This partnership comprises thirty different groups from Massachusetts and New Hampshire who meet throughout the year to discuss conservation efforts that will have the most significant impacts in protecting the Merrimack. Often individual land trusts and watershed groups advocate and educate in these forums, but they also partner together to enhance or accelerate their work. State and federal agencies participate in these discussions as well, forming a beneficial platform to exchange information, grow efforts, be introduced to new tools, and focus on assets—not deficits.

Along with being involved in partnerships and giving other watershed groups a platform, the Forest Society continues to amplify its efforts to conserve land either through ownership or conservation easements. This includes identifying areas that prevent flooding or provide better farming practices to protect water that is feeding vital systems.

According to Hotz, there are plenty of positive trends in land conservation to celebrate and keep an eye on. “When assessing the viability of land areas, we now have much better mapping and GIS tools available to make smart land acquisitions. With recent elections and the pandemic (almost) behind us, people are working on grants again and creating improvement plans, ” he says. Hotz also believes that the public and municipalities are much more clued into understanding drinking water. “There is recognition growing that you must look at the watershed as a big giant system where parts break down or get overloaded, and there is necessary synchronization required between different groups and systems. Regarding municipal planning, there will need to be better regional planning to prevent overdevelopment, and this could mean giving the regional planning commission more power at some point. ”

Yet, we do have more involvement from larger regulating groups. Hotz says the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES) is becoming more focused on protecting drinking water and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is providing funding for both land conservation and better farming practices to protect drinking water quality. “Many don’t realize the importance of using sophisticated farming techniques and handling nutrients, erosion, and planting appropriately. We are also seeing DES and NRCS work together more often to facilitate restoration work such as pulling culverts and dams and repairing banks to avoid erosion and achieve better waterflows, partnership also led to the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, resulting in a six-million-dollar statewide grant towards further land conservation.

With many factors influencing the largest drinking water source in our state, how is the Forest Society building on this momentum? The summer 2020 release of The Merrimack: River at Risk, a documentary film produced by the Forest Society and directed by Jerry Monkman, has generated new conversations on local and regional levels, and many folks have engaged in river cleanups and the Merrimack Paddle Challenge to view firsthand what is at stake of being lost if the river isn’t protected.

Hotz expresses that there is a concerted effort to ensure that forested areas in the upper reaches of the watershed remain forested. “We are continuing to expand on our work in protecting areas along the main stem of the river above Concord, most notably the Stillhouse Forest in Canterbury and Northfield, ” he says. Having purchased around 230 acres in 2019, the Forest Society is seeking to add 76 more acres north of the existing reservation, which would include more than two miles of river frontage. Projects to protect agricultural land also continue with a conservation easement in the works for Morrill Dairy Farm, a 124-acre property in Boscawen that offers opportunities for recreation as well as water and wildlife protection. Facilitating partnerships is another important pillar of the Forest Society’s mission, including maintaining relationships with drinking water suppliers to protect reservoirs such as the Pennichuck and working together with Manchester Water Works, among others.

Hendrickson does have one more suggestion to add to the Forest Society’s to-do list. In researching his book, it was important for him to visit the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers in Franklin, N.H, where the Merrimack begins. Once he arrived in town, he had difficulty identifying the source and went into a pizza shop to ask where to spot the river’s launch. An employee suggested he go to the far corner of the high school parking lot and lean over a fence line to spot it. After nearly taking a plunge when trying to catch the best view, he feels a proper sign to mark the historic source would be an ideal homage. For everyone else, Hendrickson’s message is simple: “It is imperative to educate yourself on your surrounding ecosystems, be eco-minded in your daily practices, and speak up to your local officials. ”

Brenna Woodman is an avid environmental enthusiast and supporter of the Forest Society. She splits her time between the Seacoast and the White Mountains, where you can often find her (and usually her old rescue dog) at Creek Farm or Bretzfelder Park.

One of the Merrimack Paddle Challenge excursions takes participants past the controversial Hannah Duston Memorial, one of many historic points of interest that is highlighted on the Indigenous NH Collaborative Collective’s StoryMap. Here, the Forest Society’s Dave Anderson, senior director of education, paddles near the site in Boscawen.

Paddling to the Past

Learn about the indigenous history of the Merrimack River and how advocates are trying to restore it today

By Anna Berry

For centuries, the history of the Abenaki people has been intertwined with the Merrimack River. As the head speakers of the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook-Abenaki people describe, the Indigenous peoples of the region were the first caretakers of this mighty waterway and stewards of the natural world. “We were true conservationists, ” says Paul Pouliot of the Cowasuck Band. He goes by the tribal title Sag8mo, which translates to head male speaker/grand chief.

But that environmental legacy isn’t only in the past tense. “We try to expand the education being taught to show that we had a sustainable lifestyle and it’s possible to go back to that today, ” says Denise Pouliot, the Sag8moskwa (head female speaker) of the Cowasuck Band.

Their educational initiatives, developed as members of the Indigenous NH Collaborative Collective, have included the creation of a Harvest Calendar curriculum and a digital StoryMap of Indigenous heritage sites across New Hampshire. Five of the historical sites are in the Merrimack River watershed, including the Hannah Duston Memorial State Historic Site in Boscawen, N.H. Since 2020, the Cowasuck Band, who are based in Alton, N.H., have been working with New Hampshire State Parks, historians, local officials, and Duston’s descendants to “reconstruct the park into a space that highlights a deeper understanding of place and New Hampshire history. ” The working name is “Unity Park N’Dakinna.

A RICH HISTORY

The area of land that the state of New Hampshire and other parts of New England and Canada encompass, called N’Dakinna, is “the traditional ancestral homeland of the Abenaki, Pennacook, and Wabanaki peoples, past and present. ” According to the Cowasuck Band, the Wabanaki were divided into the Western Abenaki, who settled west of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Quebec, and the Eastern Abenaki, who settled in Maine, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and New Brunswick.

The Cowasuck, meaning the “people of the white pines, ” were located in the upper region of the Connecticut River. The Pennacook, also called Merrimac, were located around Concord, N.H., and north-central Massachusetts. The name means “at the bottom of the hill. ” Four centuries ago, Indigenous villages flourished along the Merrimack River around the outflows of each of the tributaries.

Another heritage site on the Indigenous NH StoryMap, Manchester’s Amoskeag Falls, was the site of one such village in the seventeenth century. According to research cited by the Collective, Chief Passaconnaway of the Pennacook established his tribe’s capital, called Namoskeag, at the falls around 1620.

“Picture seeing wigwams and longhouses, ” notes Denise about what life on the river was like before colonial contact. “Envision a different kind of environment. ” Wigwams were built with a conical frame of tree saplings covered in birch bark while longhouses were larger dwelling structures. The Pouliots recently led the construction of a traditional wigwam using flexible red maple saplings at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth.

The population of Indigenous peoples living near Lowell and Haverhill, Mass., ranged from 10,000 to 20,000 in the early 1600s. “These [people] were the first impacted and forced out, ” Paul says. Prior to colonial contact, Denise says fishing was the main staple of Indigenous peoples’ diets, but when the colonials began building dams, their food source was depleted causing many people to starve. Conflict was a direct result of those actions, she adds. “The waterways mean a lot to our people—not just in a cultural manner, ” Denise says. “Waterways were our highways and foodways. ”

To restore these areas to their natural state, the Collective has been advocating for the removal of dams from some of the region’s rivers and lakes. waterways] back as a food source, ” Denise says. When dams are removed, the sediment that has built up behind them will get washed downriver, she explains, adding that more fish will have the ability to spawn upstream as a result and wildlife higher up in the food chain will flourish.

The Pouliots successfully advocated for the removal of a dam on the Exeter River and currently support the removal of Mill Pond Dam in Durham. The issue can be controversial in communities where dams provide hydropower or flood control, but they point out that impacts on public safety, maintenance expenses, ecological damage, and restoration of fishways should be considered more carefully and favorably. The Pouliots said they hope there is a way to remove unnecessary dams, both affirming the values of the Indigenous community and meeting the needs of modern society.

Paddling the Merrimack River and its tributaries—including this protected wildlife management area in Canterbury called Muchyedo Banks—offers an inside perspective on past and present efforts to protect the watershed.

SEE IT FOR YOURSELF

The best way to get up close and personal with the river and its history is to paddle it. That’s why a group of conservation organizations launched the Merrimack Paddle Challenge this summer. Presented by the Forest Society, Five Rivers Conservation Trust, Lowell Parks & Conservation Trust, and the Merrimack River Watershed Council, the challenge includes five excursions, from four to nine miles long, on the river and its tributaries. The challenge also connects paddlers with educational resources such as the Forest Society’s recently released documentary The Merrimack: River at Risk and the Indigenous NH StoryMap.

“By encouraging paddlers to get outside and float the Merrimack River this summer, we aim to advance an important dialogue about what communities can do to restore this vital waterway, ” says Carrie Deegan, Forest Society reservation stewardship and engagement director. “With gratitude to the Abenaki, Pennacook, and Wabanaki peoples, who have stewarded the land and waterways of N’Dakinna for centuries, we hope Merrimack Paddle Challenge participants will gain a renewed appreciation for the caretakers of the watershed and will be motivated to do their part.

Anna Berry is the digital outreach manager for the Forest Society.

Online

+ Log on and learn more about the Indigenous NH

Collaborative Collective and its heritage site StoryMap at indigenousnh.com (link to StoryMap is under “Resources”). + To sign up for the Merrimack Paddle Challenge, visit forestsociety.org/paddle-challenge.

From left: A forwarder brings cut logs to the landing during a harvest on the Heald Tract in July 2019. Consulting forester Jeremy Turner of Meadowsend Timberlands (second from right) leads a timber harvest tour for 50 people at the Heald Tract in February 2019.

Recent Happenings at the Heald Tract, Part 2

By Gabe Roxby

The Heald Tract is one of the Forest Society’s most spectacular properties, and one where landscape-level habitat management is a central focus of our work. Spreading across four towns—Wilton, Temple, Greenville, and Mason—the Heald family’s donation of nearly 1,500 acres to the Forest Society between 1986 and 2016 was one of the most generous gifts of land in our history. Cellar holes and old barn foundations can be found scattered among the property’s tremendously diverse natural features, which include beaver dams, vernal pools, a great blue heron rookery, and a 65-acre pond. An extensive trail network for hiking, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing makes Heald an ideal recreation location throughout the year. Part 1 of this article, published in the spring 2021 issue of Forest Notes, highlighted the wildlife habitat and invasive species control project that we began in February 2021 in one of the property’s old apple orchards. Part 2 focuses on the three timber harvests that we have conducted since the completion of the Heald Tract management plan in 2016.

The Forest Society has long believed in the benefit of carefully planned, responsible timber harvesting. A thoughtful timber harvest allows us to maintain a diverse mixture of forest types and ages that function as wildlife habitat and are more resilient to a rapidly changing climate. Harvesting also produces a variety of renewable forest products—dimensional lumber, flooring, and paper—that we rely on in some manner every day. Additionally, some of the wood products used in buildings and furniture can store carbon for many decades and reduce the demand for products made from non-renewable resources. After a harvest is complete, our forests here in the Northeast regrow quickly, sequestering carbon at a rapid rate.

A forest managed through periodic timber harvesting can provide a multitude of benefits, but we don’t believe that cutting trees is appropriate everywhere. Some areas are too wet, too steep, or too rocky to allow for safe and responsible harvesting. Some forests that contain rare plants, exemplary natural communities, or places of special scenic or recreational beauty are best left alone. We also believe that there is an inherent value in wilderness itself and in leaving some areas unmanaged and free to develop naturally. Approximately one-third of the land that the Forest Society owns is considered off-limits to timber harvesting due to a mixture of the aforementioned reasons.

When a timber harvest begins, it can seem like it occurred suddenly and without warning. But the start of a project is often the culmination of years of planning, thought, and coordination. The inherent beauty of a tree can sometimes make it difficult to explain why anyone would ever want to cut one down. We try to address these questions head-on through a variety of educational programs, including guided timber tours on active harvests. During these outings, participants learn how every harvest begins with a comprehensive natural resource inventory.

To develop our plan for how we would conduct the recent harvests on the Heald Tract, Forest Society forester Steve Junkin and I inventoried the property in the fall of 2016. We spent 15 days measuring trees, mapping wetlands, assessing wildlife

habitat, and photographing cultural and ecologically sensitive sites. This information was analyzed and provided the basis for a 133-page management plan, a document that outlines how the Heald Tract will be managed for the next 15 years. Approximately 250 acres were deemed not suitable for timber harvesting, including wetlands, unique uplands, and rugged terrain. The remaining 1,234 acres of Heald was split into 19 different stands, each with its own recommendation on what type of timber harvesting (if any) would be appropriate over the course of the next 15 years. Currently, we have carried out three of the harvests on five stands as recommended in the management plan.

Research Harvest

The first harvest had an unusual research objective. Conducted in February 2019 in partnership with the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the goal was to better understand how landowners could manage for oak trees and dense understory mountain laurel to promote wildlife habitat. If landowners could do both effectively, it could help region-wide efforts to create shrubland habitat for imperiled species such as the New England cottontail rabbit. During this harvest, three treatments were conducted: 1) a cut in which about 80 percent of the trees were removed; 2) a cut in which about 50 percent of the trees were removed; and 3) a control area which was left uncut. The first treatment mimicked a common type of cutting known as a seed tree harvest, which is often performed in oak stands when the goal is to initiate a new young forest from the acorns dropped by the 20 percent of trees that remain. The second treatment mimicked another common type of cutting that aims to remove poorer quality trees to benefit the better quality trees left uncut. Monitoring of how each of these areas responds, especially the success of the oak trees and the mountain laurel, will be ongoing for the next 5–15 years. While this harvest was taking place, the Forest Society led more than 50 people on a tour of the research areas where foresters explained all aspects of the project’s planning and execution.

Harvesting for Wildlife and Forest Health

As part of the February 2019 harvest, and also in a follow-up cut done in July 2019, the Forest Society conducted forestry operations with the goals of harvesting mature timber, improving growing conditions for trees of intermediate size, and establishing new young growth. Several patch cuts were created, where all the trees are removed within an area a few acres in size. Patch cuts re-allocate the light energy hitting the top of the forest canopy to the forest floor, resulting in a flush of new growth, including shrubs, grasses, flowers, and tree seedlings. These areas are often havens for a variety of birds—prairie warblers, goldenwinged warblers, willow flycatchers—who use the dense growth as a refuge from predators and a place to nest. Even for wildlife that are more commonly found in mature forests, vigorous young forests function as food sources for these animals due to their high abundance of caterpillars and wild berries. Areas not yet suitable for a patch cut were thinned, a much lighter harvest technique that removes poorer quality trees to benefit healthier and more vigorous trees with a better growth form.

Oak Regeneration Harvest

In fall 2020, the Forest Society conducted another timber harvest in the southwest corner of the Heald Tract. The goal of this harvest was to start a new forest of young oak trees by cutting down the existing oak and pine trees that had reached a size that made them ready to harvest. Regeneration of oak trees can be tricky, but the best available forestry research points to one method that is more likely to succeed than others. The recommendation is to cut perhaps three-quarters of the trees in the forest canopy, leaving strong, healthy trees of good form uncut and evenly spaced throughout the harvest area. The harvest should be conducted in the fall of an oak mast year after trees laden with acorns have dropped them. As heavy harvest machinery moves throughout the harvest, some of these acorns are run over and driven into the ground, thus greatly improving their germination rate over acorns that remain on the soil’s surface. The ample sunlight that reaches the ground thanks to the newly opened canopy can result in the germination of a new forest of young oaks growing beneath the dappled shade of the uncut trees, which are retained for continued seed production. The Forest Society used this technique in this harvest after a strong seed year for both red oak and white pine. We are hopeful about the results, but probably won’t know for 10 or more years if we were successful. An early check of the site in spring 2021 revealed a sea of young oak seedlings growing in the tilled soil. These nutritious little trees are often favorite foods for deer and other wildlife, so only time will tell how many of them will develop.

Some of the beautiful oak trees that were harvested will be used to provide timbers for a pavilion at the new Forest Society North building at The Rocks in Bethlehem, N.H.

Responsible Forest Management

We manage the Heald Tract with the knowledge that the Forest Society will own this land forever—and a lot will change during that time! Maintaining the property’s tremendous vegetative diversity will not only benefit the greatest number of wildlife species, but also give it the best opportunity to continue to thrive in the face of a rapidly changing climate. If the climate of the future is no longer suitable for the growth of a certain tree species, or if an invasive pest or disease rolls through, having many different tree species in a variety of sizes allows the forest the best chance to continue to function. The Heald Tract is a forest we’re proud to manage for habitat, forest products, carbon, and recreation. Stop by some day, take a walk, and see what we’ve been up to!