I have 3 muscle wood trees about all as big around as a bat and they are in a hophorn Grove. Very similar seed but the bark is very diff
And those trolls bring in a lot of bucks while they try to get their buck. It is a huge industry and the game wardens will go after anyone trying to disrupt it. Lots and Lots of money to be had from those tourist hunter want to be's. In the mean time, most every driver has a run in with deer at one time or other. Gardens are raided. Folks who want a back yard garden often have to put high fences around the garden just to get some fresh veggies. When we get an old fashion winter, the deer herd suffers from not enough food available for their numbers.
I can't believe the prices they spend on licenses. It turns into a madhouse up here. The past few years hard to get some tag. Growing up you could get as many as you want. The large numbers of deer are harmful on farming and forestry. The numbers hurt the deer in winter you can see pictures of deer littering the swamps dead. We cut down Cedar's in winter so they can eat something but they eat around the crops a good 20feet in no soy beans left or leaves. Lots of lost money there. I'm not big on the whole hunting economy here. But the dnr loves it. Probably funds them for the year in a few weeks
I think your problem sounds like too many deer. You probably cannot change the number of deer in your area, but you could try excluding deer from parts of the woods to see if you get more regeneration. One option is to put a fence around an area and see what happens to the seedlings. I bet they'll grow up. Fences are expensive, however. Another thing to try is to harvest some trees and leave the tops tangled up on the forest floor to discourage deer from walking through the tops. This will create a small space where some seedlings can grow up. I have seen wood harvests done this way so the whole area ends up as a tangle of tree tops, and the regeneration is pretty good. You can't keep deer off the property entirely with tree tops, but you can create spots where it is hard for a deer to go and so the deer won't bother to go there. Deer are lazy just like the rest of us. There are big areas of forest in PA that have too many deer and therefore have little or no tree regeneration. The State Forests install large deer exclusion fences surrounding acres and acres of woodland to allow regeneration, but I don't think that is feasible for most private land owners.
