Saturday, February 27, 2010

Old Growth Forests

In 2003, a writer by the name of Kara Gebhart Uhl wrote an informative article about old growth forests. See http://karagebhartuhl.com/read.php?story=10007. In the article she talks about America’s historical usage of wood and the deforestation that occurred, especially at the end of the 19th century. She talks about old growth wood and ancient forests within the United States. She also talks about the value of using reclaimed wood, from old buildings and barns, and where to purchase it. A very informative article.

Kara Gebhart Uhl is no novice when it comes to knowledge of wood and wood working. She has done many articles for Woodworking Magazine and Popular Woodworking. She obviously knows the difference between a spokeshave and a skew chisel. She also knows the importance of preserving our natural forest heritage. Read the article and tell me what you think.

Also...do a Google image search for “old growth forest”. You’ll discover some amazing pictures.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is Dave again. Nice article. I definitely support the idea of reclaiming wood from barns and demolitions, but I am not yet bought into the preserve old forests to the limitation of progress argument. I once researched some of the oldest living trees. Did you know that some of those 3800 year old "trees" are really clusters of trees that grow by shoots and things so that no current part of the tree is that old just that it continually renews itself?

John M. Casteline said...

Dave,You are correct, there are certain vegitation varieties that grow in "clusters", but they may not be defined scientifically as a tree with heartwood and sapwood. Check out a blogsite called "10 Thousand Trees" (http://ten-thousand-trees.blogspot.com/) and stop being such a cynic. Thanks for reading my blog.