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Small Cabin Forum / Properties / Selling wood/lumber off my land
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optimistic
Member
# Posted: 2 Jun 2013 09:25
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I have 16 acres and a lot of big trees. Some are so thick that I can barely wrap my hand around them... I think they are mostly pine.. Maybe eastern Hemlock.

I still didn't contact anyone but how much can you get if you sell trees like these?

I feel like I can let go of at least 30 huge ones without even noticing they are gone...

OwenChristensen
Member
# Posted: 2 Jun 2013 18:08
Reply 


Try Craigs list. I often sell cabin logs thru there. If they are that big each tree might be worth a hundred bucks or more fallen and put to a landing where they can be picked up.

optimistic
Member
# Posted: 2 Jun 2013 18:50
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Will try. Thanks

TheWildMan
Member
# Posted: 4 Jun 2013 18:05
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it depends on where you are and local markets, i reccomend having a forester mark the lot for thinning first (a good forester will improve the future forest, bad loggers will just take the best and leave the diseased junk behind and reduce the forest quality in the future)

around here hemlock is not a high value species, pine for lumber can sell well, and very large red pine sell for utility poles at a very high price. a forester can tell you local markets and stumpage value and a board foot volume of timber telling you how much you have and what its worth.

TheWildMan
Member
# Posted: 4 Jun 2013 18:07
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you can find foresters through your state conservation office, local universities extention office (if they have forest programs like cornel or perdue) or you could try SAF website (society of American foresters, a foresters proffesional association)

optimistic
Member
# Posted: 4 Jun 2013 18:24
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How is this forester thing works? I just don't want to shoot myself in the leg by having a government individual come in, decide that I can't sell anything for whatever reason, and then I am stuck....

I do want to do the right thing by the forest health but that is also a question of how much trust the forester right? One might say a very different thing then the other....

In general, I do not like to invite the government to 'inspect and advise' if I don't have to...

This entire mumble might be wrong if you tell me that the forester just makes recommendations and is a nice reference point. But if this 'inspection' goes down somewhere and then I need to start complying with it... I am not really in favor of that.

See my point?

OwenChristensen
Member
# Posted: 4 Jun 2013 20:11
Reply 


I've had appraisals done , but in the end the demand drives the price. You get what someone will pay and that's all.

oldgringo
Member
# Posted: 4 Jun 2013 20:53
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Loggers leave a mess when they're done. Cleanup costs need to be taken into account.

VC_fan
Member
# Posted: 5 Jun 2013 16:50
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And don't forget Uncle Sam and your state/local equivalents. I'm no tax expert but have assumed that any money from the harvest would have to be claimed as income. Take another 25-30% off the top and that makes it just not worth the mess and ugliness to me (unless you need to clear an area anyway). Others' opinions will differ.

bldginsp
Member
# Posted: 6 Jun 2013 18:06
Reply 


A forester is an independent contractor, not a gov. employee or official. They will do two things- tell you what's good for the forest and tell you what gov. regulations apply to logging in your area. It's then up to you if you want to comply with the regs or not, and risk penalties if you don't.

I don't know what the regulations are where you are, but here in California you have to have a forest plan in place before you log. A forester will fill you in on that.

As far as the profitability of logging goes, the major cost involved is hiring the loggers, skidders, and trucks involved. If I logged my 5 acres in the yellow pine forest of the Sierras, the cost would probably equal the money gotten for the logs, but the price of saw logs has been down for some time. I may eventually do it just to complete the thinning process.

A local logger can tell you pretty quick if your 16 acres has any profit potential, and the forester will probably tell you that the logger wants to take too many trees for the health of the forest. Let us know what happens.

bldginsp
Member
# Posted: 6 Jun 2013 18:08
Reply 


Also there is a lumber tax you have to pay here whenever you haul logs to mill, so that has to be thrown into the equation.

OwenChristensen
Member
# Posted: 6 Jun 2013 19:23
Reply 


Don't make such a big deal of it. A logger needs a fair amount of wood or there will be no profit in it for him. Just get bids. Keep all the trees you like and see to it that they don't get damaged, sell the rest. I own a tree farm, if I listened to all the advice I got I'd be tied into knots.
The big thing I'd like you to know is; When you cut some trees, there is more wind stress on what is left. It's a dangerous time for the remaining trees until they develop more roots. As the years go by the trees will fill out and strengthen their roots. 19 acres is a very small area to log. Unless those trees have big value, you might have to thin them yourself. If they are red pine of 24'' diam. or more, and straight and tall, they are worth about 40 to $50 each standing.

TedwardHall
Member
# Posted: 3 Oct 2018 21:00
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OwenChristensen amazed that a 24 inch diameter red pine goes for so little. Thank you for the advice. Have a small parcel in NY State. These are 55 foot tall trees. Still identifying them.

darz5150
Member
# Posted: 3 Oct 2018 21:48
Reply 


We harvested some black walnut last year around this time. Had a few of them that were veneer quality. Literally thousands of dollars per tree. My brother has a saw mill/ woodshop at his farm. Put together a live edge table about 6 feet long. Sold it for $4000.00.

Nate R
Member
# Posted: 3 Oct 2018 21:54
Reply 


Tedward,

I had some approximately 70 foot red pine thinned last year, about 60 years old. Average diameter of the stand (at breast height) before the thinning was just under 11 inches. I got on average a little over $14 per tree BEFORE I paid the Forester. But that was a tree plantation-style density that was on less than 4 acres.

But, I had over 400, maybe around 500 trees removed.

LOTS of variables here. Wisconsin has government foresters that will work with landowners for a few hours for free. They advised us well, and we hired a private forester to handle the marking, bidding, and measuring if our small timber sale. There was a bit of a mess left, and then hired a forest grinder to grind up some of the brush. A year later, it's starting to look much better.

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