Accident of Nature Turns Pennsylvania’s Woodland Disaster Into Profit

Lumbermen who denuded Pennsylvania of its virgin stands of pine and hemlock a century ago left a legacy of bare hillsides covering an estimated 10 million acres.

But, in a fluke of nature, the destructive method of “cut out and get out” harvesting also allowed some of the world’s most valuable stands of black cherry and other hardwoods to grow back.

“What we really have is a freak accident,” said James R. Grace, assistant professor of forestry at Pennsylvania State University.

Grace said the 19th-Century timber barons virtually eliminated the state’s forests in a 50-year period and moved west.

“The fact that we got a valuable hardwood forest back is pure luck,” he said.

Erosion, Floods, Fires

With the mountains bald of trees, an ecological disaster followed. Soil eroded. Streams and rivers flooded. Wildfires fueled by wood chips and scrap trees raged for weeks.

But hardwoods, which were underlings to the dominant pines, prosper best in sunlight. With the taller trees out of the way, the hardwoods flourished. And the regeneration, done by nature with no help from man, turned out to be more valuable than the original trees.

“It was the best disaster ever to happen to Pennsylvania,” said Robert Clark of the Pennsylvania Forestry Assn., a conservation group founded 100 years ago. “What they did was create a whole new forest.”

The second-generation forest lures log buyers from Germany, Belgium, Italy, France, Canada, Japan, Taiwan and other countries. They search the state’s sawmills for top-grade black cherry, prized as an elegant furniture wood because of its rich color, distinguished grain and workable texture.

The best logs can fetch $800 to $900 apiece.

“It’s the best cherry grown anywhere in the world,” said Keith Smalley, lumber buyer for Pennsylvania House, a 50-year-old furniture maker located in Lewisburg, Pa.

Cherry Wood Assets

“Maple has a good grain, but when you put a finish on it, it just lays there,” Smalley said. “It doesn’t pop. With cherry, you can see the grain coming alive. It has a formal, elegant look. Cherry is also easy to work with. Oak tends to splinter. Cherry doesn’t tear out like oak.”

Cherry grows throughout the Eastern United States and parts of Canada and Mexico. Commercial logs come from West Virginia, Maryland and New York. But most of the best grows in Pennsylvania because of the climate, soil, elevation and growing conditions.

In an eight-county belt of north-central Pennsylvania, black cherry grows straight and round--60 feet high and two to three feet wide--with a minimum of defects.

Pennsylvania has half of the 6.9 million board feet of the nation’s black cherry growing stock, and it supplies the country with an estimated three-fourths of its quality cherry logs, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

“It’s the black cherry capital of the world,” said Edward Kocjancic, a forestry consultant and timber broker in Kane, Pa.

Sandy Cochran of the Penn State University Cooperative Extension Service in Ridgway, Pa., said: “This is the optimum growing site in the whole world. Black cherry is the crown jewel in timber resources in Pennsylvania. It’s like a rare gem.”

Used for Veneer

The best logs are used for veneer, thin shavings of premium wood used to cover inexpensive wood. Some mills get 50 slices to an inch. And foreign log brokers are so fussy they specify that they want logs grown in a particular township or a special hill.

“We ship logs every day around the world,” said David Utz of American Lumber Co. in Union City, Pa.

Canadian lumberman Sirge Rouillard of Les Produits Forestiers Marsan Inc. of Montreal travels two or three times a month to Pennsylvania in search of choice logs.

“Canada has lots of woods, but they’re mainly softwoods for pulp,” Rouillard said. “As far as quality wood for furniture and veneer, most of it is in the States. Pennsylvania definitely has some of the best.”

From its early days, the state has been called Penn’s Woods for its bountiful forests.

Woodlands cover nearly 60% of Pennsylvania’s 28.8 million acres today and the state has 1.5 times more hardwood growing stock than any other state, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

$5-Billion Crop

Lumber is a basic Pennsylvania industry--older than coal, steel and oil. The annual timber crop is valued at $5 billion, with 85,000 people working for 1,700 lumber-related companies.

Major league baseball players slam home runs with bats made from Pennsylvania ash. Professional hockey players whack pucks with sticks from the same stock. Timber from here also makes gun stocks, toilet tissue, paper diapers and paper, as well as fine furniture.

In the 19th Century, Pennsylvania was the country’s lumber capital, supplying wood for bridges, houses, fences, railroad ties, timbers for coal mines, charcoal to fuel the iron industry and hemlock bark for the tanning industry.

Prized white pine jutted 200 feet high and six feet around, growing straight as a Greek pillar and rising 100 feet before bearing branches.

The straight-grained, knotless trunks were perfect for the masts and spars of the sleek Yankee clipper sailing ships.

Boom times spawned boom towns like Williamsport, a backwater town whose population increased tenfold from 1,615 to 16,030 between 1850 and 1870.

Silk-Hatted Tycoons

Five million acres of timberland were within reach of the city. It had 30 sawmills, more than any other U.S. city. And it boasted more millionaires per capita than any city in the world, with 18 silk-hatted tycoons among the 19,000 residents in 1880.

Fourth Street was paved with wood and called Millionaires Row for the eclectic, gaudy mansions of Romanesque, Victorian, Greek and Queen Anne architecture. Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell graced the city’s gilded hotels.

But the barons wanted a fast buck rather than a steady future. By 1920, the trees and profits were gone.

Guardians of the new forest reckon that woodlands should have lots of uses--timber, water conservation, recreation, hunting, home for wildlife.

Modern lumbermen manage their stock better. They want a sustained yield, so they cut away pockets of trees and promote natural regeneration to duplicate what nature did when everything was chopped down.

“Those of us in management wonder if we can do better than what happened by chance,” said David Marquis, a research manager with the Agriculture Department’s Forest Service.

Deer Pose Problem

One problem is deer. An estimated 1 million whitetails inhabit the state, and they love to browse on tender saplings. Without control, the deer would mow down the infant trees.

“It’s probably the most serious problem we face in the forest industry, above all insect problems and everything else,” said Ron Brenneman, wildlife biologist for the Hammermill Paper Co.

Hammermill is the largest private landowner in the state, overseeing 160,000 acres. It has 3,000 acres of seedlings protected by five-strand electric fences, at a cost of $30 to $40 an acre.

“If we didn’t fence, all we would get are ferns and brush because the deer would browse everything off,” said Dick Wallace, manager of Hammermill’s Northern Timberlands Division.

“Outside the fence, absolutely nothing grows. Inside, there are cherry seedlings 4 to 5 years old.”