Bringing in a loggining operation

From what I hear here no one would bother with 4 acres AND they make a mess of the land. I would love to have mine cleared but not willing to deal with what would be left to clean up. As it is I am looking at years of slowly clearing or just leaving it in woods. I have had enough of a handful just cleaning up from an ice storm last year. Still have many trees that need to come down. My neighbor did take what we did cut for free firewood (he has an outside boiler heat unit).

The mess isn't bad. We just had about 70 acres cleared to make new pastures. High grade wood goes to logs and the low grade to pulp or bio-mass. The little bit that is left over collect up for your firewood or make bonfires out in the pastures for years. Great fun.

Leave the stumps in place - just have the loggers low cut them so they get the most value from each tree. The stumps will break down in time to enrich the soil. Fence in the perimeter and divide it with minor fencing into paddocks. Send livestock through it using rotational managed grazing and they will turn it into excellent pasture over the years and graze down the regen off the stumps. We graze primarily pigs and sheep with some poultry.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
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The loggers here do not leave the land in any shape near "usable". Harvested trees are removed with no consideration of the damage done to remaining trees. The harvest equipment tears up the surface soil so that mini landslides occur during subsequent rains. Huge amounts of slash and broken trees are left behind making it difficult to traverse the land. You may find it costs more to get the land cleared after the harvest then the payment you got for the trees.

deb
in wi

DH felled all our trees, which were 2nd growth mostly, Cedars & some Fir. We had to pay the driver to deliver the logs to the sawmill. We only cleared 3/4 of an acre and made $9,600.00. We still have 5 acres of forest we haven't touched. More 2nd growth Cedar, Maple, and Alder. On clean-up? "Larry," the 84 yr young retired logger, came down to help insure my DH didn't wind up crushed under a tree. It was a sight to see, that spry ol' tough guy taking branches off those fallen trees and prancing along with great balance on the logs. I had to live with leftover logs in the backyard for a year before DH gave up trying to split the tough stuff and built the log splitter. Now, I can have my informal cottage garden next year!

Should conclude with the point- our purpose was extra $ and also to clear out enough trees to increase the sun exposure for our orchard & garden. We had enough firewood to last a few years, too. Yes, had a few bonfires

I was considering selling some Logs to open the woods for browse for Deer.Well Logger can't get back here so I guess it will go for firewood.

You could Log it,cut Tops up for Firewood.Fence it put Goats in there,scatter Grass and Clover Seed.Thats what I did on part of my place made very good pasture.

big rockpile

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Farmmaid said it, loggers with horses do alot less damage, and are more selective. Go to your forrest service to get names of loggers that may help out. And remember they do leave a mess. Most small farm tractors will not rip out stumps, but I have no idea how big the trees are, you may need a dozer.Thanks Marc

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We have over 275 acres in tree lots and it's an excellent income producer when managed correctly.

Prismseed if your trees are of good quality and fairly large you can get a logger to come in to harvest four acres. Be sure to get the following in writing number of trees type of tree and make sure that when they give a money amount (per hundred board foot ect) that they are including the second log on large trees. The first log is butt to a specified amount but in larger trees there will be a second log. It's extremely easy to get "taken" by unscrupulous loggers.

Right now in the Northeast "white" hardwood is selling for a decent price. We just sold soft maple for $31K there were some veneer quality trees though. We're hold another 60+ acres for the price to go up.

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Good luck getting any money... like highlands said, unless you have premium veneer logs, you're not going to make much money. You can't give timber away around here... the loggers costs are more than the mills will pay... if you can find a mill that'll even accept the timber. Only timber being sold around here is corporate timber land, and it's cut regardless of cost... if they 'lose money' so much the better for the corporations books.

If I were in the same position, I'd look at neighboring properties and see if anyone had pasture land for sale... converting forest to farming land is a several year process. And an eyesore in the process.

Like I said, good luck!

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We are fortunate where I am that there are ads constantly running to BUY WOOD and they will come log it, clean it up, and PAY YOU. So, every situation certainly isn't the same. The demand for wood has dropped, but we still have a demand here.