Thanks for pointing that out, I was so busy looking at the size, I did not pay attention to the growth ring. Never have seen anything that large.
Good idea I never thought about that! Hey here’s mud in your eye! Oh shoot. It’s a wine glass. Don’t show yooperdave.
On tee last picture it is easy to see that the tree had no competition for its first 6 years and then things got crowded.
Not that I've done this, but to count tight growth rings, might that be easier on the eyes if the round was cut on more of an angle? An angle cut would leave the rings a little wider, thus easier to count. But, what do I know? Sent from my SM-T280 using Tapatalk
We have been here for awhile so I know some of the history of the stands I cut wood in. On one, you could see how tight the rings were in White Fir from the density they subjected too, then how they opened up once my cousin cut wood in there so he could buy his first car in 1982. Then I went back and cut wood in there in 1995, then now it needs it again. White fir is an awesome indicator because it is shade tolerant, so a tree might be 60 years old, 5 feet high and 3 inches in diameter standing next to another fir 12 inches in diameter, 40 feet high and 60 years old as well! One was shaded, the other not...just how White Fir works. One of the worst things plaguing Maine today is a new generation of landowners that have been hoodwinked into thinking all logging is bad. It is not my intent to get politics here, nor get on what types of forestry is best...it depends on the stand, but kids today equate logging as just plain bad, and that is NOT the case. It is just like weeding a garden, or pruning hop bines, etc... I have been whining about Maine's poor logging climate for awhile now, basically with the 100% loss of softwood markets, and it really has impacted sustainable forestry. A lot of times a stand needs to be opened up of softwood to get hardwood to grow, but how do you cut something you cannot sell? Do NOT get confused, I am currently clear cutting 40 acres so that I can have some new fields, but I got plenty of other land that is properly managed, part of the American Tree Farm System too, so I know what proper forestry is, and apply it. I got (4) different foresters that keep me straight!
White pine, spruce, and ash. First two were yard birds, ash was a forest tree. Counted 59 rings on the big one, which was likely planted when the house went up.
I had a stand here that has some pretty big trees on it so I cut a few down and averaged around 85 years old...yep, that sounds about right. The area had rock walls and no surface rocks so I know it had been cleared by settlers at one time and tilled. But 85 years puts the trees at growing at 1932 or so. Tractors were beginning to take over the agriculture world here, with those steel wheeled, non posi-track tractors, without 4 wheel drive getting stuck where horses use to plod along through the mud. That meant only the best of the best fields stayed fields. Paper mills abounded too, 147 in New England in 1940 and more money could be made cutting wood then ever could be made raising crops, so fields were left to grow into trees... Now those grown up fields are worthless as forest and being cleared back into fields again. What is old is new again... And yet growth rings, trees, and rock walls all tell the story. Heck I can look at rock wall and just what it has for rocks can tell me if it was only a pasture, or was tilled at one time, or was tilled for root crops. I can also tell you when the field was cleared.
Any more pictures of growth rings from your area? It is interesting to here what makes the rings vary. I am sure sun/shade, moisture, soil nutrients all play a significant roll in growth development.
When cutting timber in Southeast Alaska I've fell thousands of trees that were growing very well when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. The oldest stump I ever took the time to count rings on had been standing verticals for much longer than 1200 years . it had about a 2" diameter hole in the center / heart . The top had blown out around 250 years before I fell the stone . That would be the stump my tin hat is sitting on. It was 96" across the face at the widest point. And 1-2" of sap wood was to punky to have growth rings evident. It took me at least an hour to count them. I had to use my binoculars upside down and real close to the wood. But, that gave me a 7 power magnifier. On yellow cedar, the sap wood rots but the heart wood lasts forever. Unless it has some kind of disease that eats it. The Sitka Spruce my 390 is sitting on had a lot of wood that was more than 32 rings per inch. That 40'10" long log sold for $7,200+ US dollars at the sorting yard.
Neat thread, I'll get some pics of my fireplace mantle standoff's shortly.......they are hand hewn pine beams from a barn I tore down. The barn was built in 1868 from logs cleared off of the mountaintop property, it must have been a dense pine lot because these rings are incredibly tight!
I agree. One thing about us is that our fields tend to be on the tops of hills because they are dry and the tractors can go on them, so as well fertilized as they are, our forests are fertilized because they are down hill. It kind of is a catch 22 because we try to beat back the limbs and trees from encroaching into the field, yet are feeding them through fertilizer too!
Ok, here's a pic of one of the pine standoffs for our fireplace mantle. It measures 6 3/4" by 9", and I counted around 150 rings at its widest point. I'm sure there was at least 20 more or so that got hewn off when they squared the beam....that would put this tree in the late 1600's, I think that's really cool. The amazing thing is, when you rub your finger on that beam, it still smells like a pine that was cut down yesterday... The mantlebeam is made from the same timber, it's almost 9' long and weighs around 300lbs. This wood is very dense old growth..... I used scraps from these standoffs and made a whole big box full of hardwood firestarters, it's very full of pitch. Stuff burns like gasoline!
Yep, the top of the mountain by my house, around 3 miles away. I tore the barn down, the guy who built it was a Civil War veteran, he had just returned home from the war and built the entire farm himself.
Well that's the funny thing isn't it? By most descriptions, you have to throw more poplar in the stove again before you close the door, but it seems to last longer here (relatively) than it does down south.
I used to live in the county. I am familiar with Maine farming. I wish I had some growth ring pictures from the various trees.
