Private Property Indexes Colby Rucker Fri, 4 Jul 2003 11:39 Bob, You've pointed out that the 145-foot white pine on the Richardson place is the tallest you've seen on private property in Massachusetts. I looked at our list of sites where we've calculated a Rucker index, and saw that most of them are public property. This suggests several things. (1) We aren't checking private property because we doubt the owner would give us permission. (2) We don't know who the owner is. (3) Private sites are smaller, and we don't expect there to be enough specimens or diversity to justify our time. (4) Private sites are cut so often that we assume any mature height profile has been destroyed. (5) We ignore sites without big white pines or tuliptrees. (6) We prefer sites less likely to be altered in the future. So, there's an inclination to measure trees on public property. There are only so many public sites, and we soon pick out a few having tall examples of whatever species we're most interested in. That done, we keep visiting those same sites, even measuring the same trees, over and over. It all seems pretty logical, but I think we're missing a lot. No one's measuring post oaks, blackjack oaks, chinquapins or sumacs because they don't hobnob with tuliptrees. Some fellows have lasers and don't measure anything. They ignore new species all around them because they're waiting to get way out in the boonies and hunt down a white pine worth bragging about. Well, to each his own, but we might do some good and learn something new if we got out of whatever rut our logical approach has placed us. Maybe it would be useful if we made a list of private preserves (protecting the owners' privacy, of course) and see what the numbers in each state might tell us. If we came across a family like the Richardsons, we could show them the significance of their woodland's high Rucker index, compared to other private properties. That might add to the family's pride in their land, and encourage continued preservation of the stand. For now, the leader is Chase Creek, at 130.19. I couldn't resist saying that. Colby Re: Private property indexes (fwd)   Fores-@aol.com   Jul 19, 2003 05:20 PDT  Colby: In terms of private land and big trees....my family has known for a very long time the significance of the white pines on the farm as well as some of the very fine red oak the woodland contains. Their plan is to keep the stuff standing and I cannot imagine any of my siblings ever deciding to cut those trees. On private land, at least in West Virginia where I now live and work, private landowners that have some older growth timber tend to be aware of the trees they own. In many circumstances, these people have been defending themselves against timber buyers for generations. In those situations, where the timber does finally get cut it is through a process where a tract is an heirship with the deed actually in multiple undivided intersts. Unscrupulous speculators or timber buyers buy up theses fractional interests and force a public sale of the property. This is becoming increasingly common and it is heart wrenching to see a family with a 100 year or longer record of ownership robbed of their legacy because a cousin in California sells their 1/32 interest to a timber buyer......a 1/10000th interest is more than enough to force a partition suit! In the past ten years, in WV I have help numerous woodland owners identify and protect small areas of older growth and exceptional trees. In a state like WV with 12,000,000 acres of forest and only 60,000 acres in the State Forest System, public land (Monongahela NF excepted) is not likely to become the largest repository for exceptional or old trees. Russ Richardson Re: Private property indexes (fwd)   Mike Leonard   Jul 25, 2003 05:21 PDT  Russ, I don't understand how a small interest can force a partition suit in the situation you describe. Doesn't the majority rule? The minority who want to liquidate their timber assets should know that they can generate a modest income indefinitely if managed properly. Only 60,000 acres in WV in State Forest? Our little state has 300,000 acres in State Forest and 750,000 acres in public ownership (25% of all forest land). How is the Monongahela NF managed? How many acres is it? They doing a good job or what? Are there any wilderness areas set aside there? Mike L. Re: Private property indexes (fwd)   Fores-@aol.com   Jul 27, 2003 09:34 PDT  Mike: Unfortunately, in many land disputes in West Virginia (and some surrounding states) majority does not rule. When a property is owned by several individuals with an undivided interest... i.e.: gramps left each one of his children an undivided 1/4 interest in the farm, all fraction-owning family members would have to agree to whatever sale or action is proposed for the property and sign a contract to that effect. If one interest-owning person disagreed, no sale would be legally possible. In those situations where the property was never divided on the ground and there is no readily discernible way to break the place up, a fractional interest owner (with no specific minimum interest) will file a petition to partition (a partition suit) with the local Magistrates Court. The judge will then set a date and the property will be sold to the highest bidder when the land is auctioned on the steps of the county court house. Any person can bid but the benefit usually is in the favor of the individual(s) having the highest fractional interest (a person with a 95% interest would, in theory only have to come up with 5% of the total selling price). Heirship laws are further muddied in WV because we still have the old dower and curtesy laws that also give married individuals a shared interest in anything their spouse owns. (A few years ago, I had a 105 acre timber sale with 17 family members and spouses signing a sale contract with everyone in the family holding their breath until one final, estranged, but not divorced, spouse of one of the heirs signed the sale contract.) Where it really gets tricky is that anyone owning a fractional interest in a property can sell their fractional interest to anyone at any time....that is where opportunists, subdividers or timber pimps come into the picture. One other aspect to land management an heirships, there are some situations where there is EXTREME animosity between family members, not unlike New England or anywhere else and when greed is tossed into the mix, rational reason does not always win and the best you can hope for is that the open minded family members prevail over those that are not. During the past few years the DNR (wildlife) had used license fees to purchase thousands of acres of WV forestland for public hunting access but none of that land is presently under any consideration for forest management. Nearly all of the land in State Forests in WV was given or sold to the state at bargain prices 50 to 70 years ago after the original forest was harvested. Some harvesting is done on state lands but, just like the USFS, nearly every sale is protested.    At this time, 85% of WV woodland is in private ownership. The Mon is a little over 900,000 acres and has two or three designated wilderness areas as well as a couple of recreational areas. The Monongahela NF contains some of the most productive lands from growing hardwoods in the US with growth rates averaging 500 bf/acre/year common. The current annual cut is estimated at slightly over 1% of annual growth. The people at the Mon are doing as well as they can given the politics of forestry. One bright spot is Fernow Experimental Forest in Parsons, WV. There has been some extremely good silvicultural research done there and they have a 50 year old white pine plantation that is supposed to hold 70,000 bf/ac. A great deal of the longest running hardwood silviculture research in the US has been done there. It is amazing what sort of growth you can get with 55-65 inches of evenly distributed precip a year on productive sites! As an aside, this past week, I was working on marking a sale in Braxton County (central) WV and marked many red, white black and chestnut oak trees that averaged between 24 and 36" DBH and 3.5 to 4 logs tall. The red oaks were smooth barked, veneer quality and, based on stumps from a recently harvested adjoining tract, were growing very well. I saw numerous red oak stumps that had been growing a sustained 2 rings per inch for up to 30 years preceding their harvest. As near as I could tell, none of the trees were over 110 years old but the stumps were averaging between 3 and 4 feet across with some, much larger. At this point in preparing that sale, the most valuable red oak is 35" DBH, has four 16 foot logs and is 135 feet tall and estimated to be 80 years old! There are some nice red oak trees on this farm in excess of 60" DBH...those will be left standing as Legacy trees! Less than 1/4 mile from the 35" red oak, there are 200 year old chestnut oaks on a dry site that are only 12-14" DBH. It is that type of diversity that keeps forestry in WV interesting. Russ Richardson   Home