World Almanac Stats...

“And came across some innersting data.

Georgia is fourth behind AK, CA, and OR in acres of forested land (25,000,000+ acres; AK has 100,000,000+). Yet our two NFs (Chattahoochee and Oconee) comprise but a tiny fraction of those forests. Granted, lots of the forests are owned by Georgia-Pacific, Rome Kraft, et al, as planted pine groves for pulp and paper. The remainder belongs to private individuals.

Anyhoo, the stats confirmed what I had suspected and avered to my Idaho Bro and his friends: that GA has more "woods" than ID (and WY, MT, WA, UT, CO, etc...). Treeline is just that - a "thin" line of trees (ranging from, say, 6000' to 11,000').

Another anyhoo, the Oconee National Forest has a large unit (50,000 acres?) about 1/2 hour away from me. I've thought about organizing and building a loop trail within the forest. Trouble is, most of the forest is logged, and clearcuts dot the landscape. If it were cut adjacent to a trail, the blazes would fall...
also, the unit is heavily hunted, and the tracts are leased to private hunting clubs that *prolly* gain sole access to their specific tracts.

Anyone have first-hand experience with dealing with the NFS (building a trail wise)?

Thank you!
Love,
gojo
(I really DO love you!)”

“Hey Joe ...you and Belle not coming to Linville?

By the way I have no answer for yo question! LOL”

“That's a pretty interesting fact. I would have guessed that states like CO and MT would have more.

You don't happen to remember where MI fell in that list?”

“Say... 17,000,000 acres?

Much of the Rockies region is sage brush and grasslands. In fact, despite the fact that WY has so many mountain ranges, the telephone pole could be the State Tree for two-thirds of the state... VERY plainsy! CO and MT too.

Much of ID is sage brushy "high desert". Few naturally occuring trees below treeline except around creeks and rivers. Towns and homesteads have planted ones, tho.

MI prolly has more forested land than TX...

NEB has the worlds largest "planted" forest. It's a State Forest in the N-Central part. I drove thru it in 2000.”

“Thats alot of trees...:)”

“Maine is the most forested state, in terms of percentage forested.

By definition a 'forest' is 10% tree cover. A 'tree' has a single woody stem and is at least 15 feet tall in its native adult form. There is more forested land in the U.S. now than in 1970, and about the same as 1900, and the amount is still increasing. Most of the increase (80%) is native forest expansion, not commercial plantations.”

“has the lowest % of people living in urban or metropolitan areas. Idaho is 2nd. New England rocks!

New Jersey has the highest - 100%!
That's right - 100% of New Jersians live in "town".



It once required ALOT of land to produce adequate crops. Now, tho, as much of a harvest can be amassed from a fraction of that same land (fertilizer, insecticides, herbacides, etc.).

There's a reeeeely old church near me. It's in the "woods". They have a 100 year old photograph of the church in the lobby. In that pic, the church is surrounded by cotton fields as far as the eye can see.”

“Mississippi has to be right up there in forests. At least in southern Miss., woods are all you see in any direction.”

“Georgia has some of the most productive forest land in the world. Some sites produce more woody biomass than the Amazon rain forest in the same timeframe. Those lands SHOULD be left in commercial timber production. It is environmentally unsound to divert those lands to other purposes.”

“GA's #1 industry is agriculture - primarily due to timber, not peanuts and peaches. Much of the central and western Coastal plain is used for traditional farming, tho. The Piedmont and eastern Coastal Plain ([+-]2/3 of the state) are heavily timbered.

There are hybrid pines that produce pulp in 10 years, and timber in another five. Pulp will be used in lumber (2x4s etc.) production as soon as an adequate adhesive is developed. Pulp and chips are already used in the production of manufactured building materials such as OSB, I-beams, and other engineered products. Clear-cuts regrow at a very fast rate.



TX and ID both have about 23,000,000 acres of forest.

MI has 19 mil.
MS has around 17 mil.
VT has 2 mil. - four times as much as ND.

I have a 1991 Almanac, BTW.
LOL!”

“The amount of old growth in the dry interior forests of the West is increasing, not decreasing.

In the eastern Cascades and Northern Rockies there is more old growth now than ever existed historically.”

“But what happens after they are cut? This is what's in my 'backyard'.

How environmentally sound is that?”