Homestead mailing list

["Robert Walton" <waltonrp AT gmail.com>]

Hey all,

I have about 20 acres of woods. Most of it is mixed hardwoods, some is
pine. I'm trying to thin the pines to the best trees in those parts.
For the hardwoods, I'm just leaving it and slowly making trails to get
in to cut firewood, maybe someday to cut logs.

I went out yesterday into a couple of areas and marked some trees that
can come out for firewood. Basically anything damaged, ill or with bad
form. If trees are really close, I'll mark the lesser trees to come
out. I'm favoring any oaks, maples, birch and leaving sour wood. Where
there trees I favor are growing, I'm taking out the sweet gum trees.
I've got some areas that have some nice tall, straight gum trees.

Does anyone know if sweet gum sells well as timber? I can't find much
online. I'm thinking that if there is a nice straight gum tree, I'd
probably be best to leave it for timber. It's not great firewood and
splitting it is really tough. The smaller ones, less than a foot
thick, make decent firewood and don't need split.

Rob - Va