Virgin forests

[Michaelmj11]

Maybe they exist, but I am not aware of any (even small) patches of virgin forest in my area. I have heard that in Northeast Louisiana, there are some on the island hunting clubs of the Mississippi River. That would be cool to see.

Do you have any virgin patches in your area? What are they like? Do you have access?

Trying to envision how a virgin forest in this area would subsist. I wonder if oaks and pines would get so big that a forest fire wouldn't wipe them out. If so, I guess you would have ultra-large trees and every once in awhile one would die and that would open up that canopy area for regeneration.

Sad that there are none here. The closest I can come to it is a wildlife refuge here; those trees are pretty impressive, but many were logged many decades ago.

My dad used to own land next to tract that the biggest water oak trees I have seen. They were magnificent. It wasn't that big of an area, just a few acres, but the trees were huge and they flanked a hill coming up off of a bottomland spring creek. It was like being in a cathedral. About ten years ago, they cut them when they logged the entire tract. Ugh.

I also wonder how long hardwoods and southern pines can live.

If patches exist here and there, it would cool to see them.

There is a small patch in central MS not listed on that wiki page. Somewhere in Bienville National Forest.

meh, i don't like that term. it implies that there are trees here that were here before man, i don't believe that. it may be there are really old trees but by and large you either harvest a tree or it dies and falls over. there are stands here no one ever cut and the whole stand died in a space of a few years because all the trees were about the same age which is not a healthy forest.

having said that, i cut what most people think is virgin timber all the time......it isn't, its been cut before. its just that i specialize in mature timber. you see, its all relative. trees live longer than we do but every living thing dies.
probably much of the timber land in your area has been converted to pine plantation. much land here has been as well.......i do not consider that a forest, but a crop.

Most folk don't realize that around the revolutionary war there wasn't a 20 year old tree left standing from basically MA down to NC.... might have been the civil war, I can't remember which battlepark lectured on it.

 

[Samlock]

I've cut some old fierce WWII battle zones. The artillery fire and air bombing do cut trees down efficiently, yet the concentrated fire areas are usually quite limited. There is always trees left from the battle. The survivors contain steel and nickel enough to drive a sawmill guy mad by the metal detector beeping.

Goes with people who had to take the fire as well.

The little I know of the North American Civil war, I reckon the battles were mostly old school field maneuvers. The troops wanted to see each other in order to get engaged. I'm guessing the field commanders had at least the firing sectors cleared by ax. I'm also guessing the wood was a prime resource for the 19th century forces, who had not much movable resources of energy or constructing supply available. It'd be wise to burn down all the forests before an enemy advancing.

A lot of guessing, I suppose.

 

[Michaelmj11]

I've cut some old fierce WWII battle zones. The artillery fire and air bombing do cut trees down efficiently, yet the concentrated fire areas are usually quite limited. There is always trees left from the battle. The survivors contain steel and nickel enough to drive a sawmill guy mad by the metal detector beeping.

Goes with people who had to take the fire as well.

The little I know of the North American Civil war, I reckon the battles were mostly old school field maneuvers. The troops wanted to see each other in order to get engaged. I'm guessing the field commanders had at least the firing sectors cleared by ax. I'm also guessing the wood was a prime resource for the 19th century forces, who had not much movable resources of energy or constructing supply available. It'd be wise to burn down all the forests before an enemy advancing.

A lot of guessing, I suppose.

It was from home building and over logging the land (or at least that was the reason the Park Ranger person gave). I had asked about how they had gotten horse drawn cannons up and down the tree clad hills, and the answer was "No trees"

 

[moondoggie]

http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/nfsnc/null/recarea/?recid=48920&actid=70

Here ya go not to far from where I live.