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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (186308)	9/25/2001 11:39:44 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Hi TigerPaw; Re: "The wood from these trees have much wider soft growth rings which makes them an easier target for boring beetles and pests." The question of whether wood with narrow growth rings or wood with wide growth rings is stronger is one that is more complex than can be easily illustrated on this thread. If you go down to your local forestry school and buy a half dozen sophmore / junior level books on wood science you will discover that extent of your ignorance. It's well known among baseball players that the bats with the widest growth rings are strongest. That's because of the structure of ash. The same applies to oak. Oak with wider growth rings is stronger, (and also denser) than oak with narrow growth rings. The argument with regard to the "softwoods" is more complex, but by no means is it as simple as you are suggesting. Generally speaking, denser wood is stronger, but it is not always true that wood with close growth rings is stronger. If you'd like, I'll dig up some of my textbooks and read the appropriate passages into the thread. Re: "Most of them also grow back from plantings and therefore creates a forest of one type of tree only, more of a farm than a forest." There are two objections to this. The first is that when foresters plant a forest, they have the option of planting more than one type of tree. I've done it myself. Typically, you plant some trees for pulp, and other trees for dimensional lumber. There's no intrinsic reason why forests can't be planted with multiple types of trees. Agriculture regularly plants mixtures of plants, the most common example that comes to mind is the lawn seed that people use around their homes. If it becomes profitable to plant more than one kind of trees, believe me, industry will do it. Humans are brutally competitive. The second objection is in the complaint that the result of a tree farm looks like a tree farm. Okay. Suppose we outlaw tree farms. We've got plenty of trees ready to harvest in the wilderness areas where useless granola types are wasting their time backpacking. Let's make it illegal to efficiently farm trees in the flat, well watered, convenient areas that tree farms are located in, and instead use lots of fossil fuels to cut erosion causing roads into pristine wilderness areas where we have to use lots of energy to cut down old growth forests that aren't as useful to modern industry as the plantation grown trees are. Great idea!!! Heck, as long as we're on this brilliant stretch of reasoning, let's make it illegal for farmers to use pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer to increase the yield from farmland! We can get the same production levels by simply converting more useless wetlands and wildlife sanctuaries to inefficient farmland! Tons of space is available for low yield farming! -- Carl

To: TigerPaw who wrote (186308)	9/25/2001 10:41:36 PM
From: ManyMoose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Pardon me for shouting, but once again you show your ignorance, Tiger Paw. It's TOTAL growth I'm talking about, NOT individual tree growth (which is even more startling, by the way, in its superiority to the growth of old growth trees.) You are correct, in that tree rings are much wider and somewhat softer in young growth trees than they are in old growth. That means the wood can't be put to the same uses that old growth wood can. However, you are DEAD WRONG about that making them more susceptible to insects and disease. In fact, THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE. Managed forests are MUCH MORE resistant to bark beetles than are unmanaged ones. Plantings can be any mix of tree species that you want. I always prescribed at least two species in every plantation I was responsible for. As for being in danger of being overrun by forests before Clinton "saved" us, once again you are dead wrong. In managed forests and in the U. S. as a whole, growth exceeded harvests by a wide margin for many years. That will cease to be the case as soon as the full deleterious effects of Clinton's disastrous forest policies are operating. Far from "saving" us, Clinton instituted policies that LAID WASTE to ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF FORESTRY. If you were a forestry professional, which from the state of your knowledge I can easily tell you are not, you too would be LIVID at Clinton's policies. IT DOES NOT FEEL GOOD TO HAVE ALL THE BENEFITS OF YOUR ENTIRE PROFESSIONAL CAREER GO TO COMPLETE WASTE. That's what happened to me, thanks to the ignorance of Clinton's policies and that of his supporters.