The Rural Voice, 1985-12, Page 17old trees dying a natural death, par-
ticularly as many trees were planted
around homesteads more than 100
years ago.
Acid rain is threatening trees in
northern portions of Ontario, but
Smith doesn't believe that it poses the
same threat in southern Ontario.
"There's a high pH level here with
free lime in the soil," he notes. "Any
acid that comes in contact with it
becomes neutral." Smith adds,
however, that the long-term effects of
acid rain in southern Ontario may be
more serious. Farmers, he says,
should be prepared. "If we can
manage trees that are vigorous, we
can control acid rain and die -back in
the future."
Woodlot Management
Both Smith and Lambie would like
to see farmers taking a closer look at
the welfare and financial benefits of
their woodlots, and making the most
of them. A properly managed
woodlot is like money in the bank.
Unfortunately, not all landowners
are interested in positively managing
their woodlots. For some farmers, the
woodlot is just that piece of land at
the back of the farm that doesn't
grow a yearly crop of hay or grain.
"If you don't do any thinning,
trees are going to thin themselves
naturally, but it's going to take a lot
longer. When you start with hundreds
of thousands of seedlings on an acre
and end up with a hundred, a lot have
to die. A young woodlot at a
polewood stage can produce saw logs
in 40 years if it is properly managed,"
Smith says. "If management is not
applied, it will be 80 years."
One harmful farming practice is
the pasturing of cattle in woodlots.
But in the Huron and Perth area the
problem is minimal; most farmers
have built fences to keep cattle from
trampling through the trees. Trampl-
ing compacts the soil and exposes the
base and upper roots of the trees,
creating entry points for disease. And
essential new growth is retarded when
the seedlings are eaten by the cattle.
In Grey and Bruce counties, where
there is a large forested area,
however, pasturing in woodlots is still
a problem, says John Lambie. 'We
recommend that no woodlot be
pastured. There's generally nothing
in it in the way of food value, and cat-
tle tramp as much as they eat."
Indiscriminate tapping in the spr-
ing also places a strain on maple
trees, says Smith. "I don't want to
give the impression that tapping is all
/t is sometimes difficult to identify the course of the
death of a tree because it takes between two to five years
for a tree to die, says Marvin Smith, a forester with the
Wingham MNR office (shown here with Gahriele
Aleska, forester -in -training).
DECEMBER 1985 15