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36 THE RURAL VOICE
hickory market is being driven by
demand for kitchen cabinets and
flooring. Red oak has also stayed
strong.
Keeso said he'd heard of one
woodlot in the Lucknow area which
had 18 bidders. A well-managed
woodlot can provide a return per acre
that equals that of any other crop,
Keeso said.
"You're the one who needs to get
on the phone and get as many bids as
you can," he told woodlot owners.
There are six or seven moderate-
sized to Targe saw mills in
Southwestern Ontario but there are
also many small Mennonite -operated
mills and Keeso estimated their total
production would be larger than the
bigger mills. Unlike the larger mills
their cost of production hasn't
increased much, he said.
There aren't as many saw logs
going to U.S. mills, Keeso
said, but there are veneer logs
heading south, often crossing paths
with Togs coming north to the veneer
plant in Durham.
The Keeso mill hauls logs from a
radius reaching to Sarnia in the
southwest to Dunnville in the south
east to Orillia and Newmarket, with
an average haul of 55 miles. But
loggers from elsewhere are also
extending their range. "It used to be
that you knew every log truck on the
road but not anymore," Keeso said.
Still, he said, there's a lot of good
wood right in Keeso's backyard,
though he does notice the diameter of
logs coming to the mill has been
declinink in recent years. He credits
the tree marking service offered by
the Ministry of Natural Resources in
the 1970s with helping maintain the
quality of woodlots longer. "They
made some mistakes but our industry
did too," he says. Now there are too
many trees being cut to the minimum
diameter allowed under tree bylaws,
he maintains, an opinion that has not
always made him popular with some
others in the industry.
The controversy over tree -cutting
policies isn't reserved for
Midwestern Ontario. Speaking at the
same Huron -Perth Woodlot
Association meeting Wade Knight of
Kemptville, executive director of the
Ontario Woodlot Association said
tree -cutting bylaws are very
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