Working with Your Woodland: A Landowner's Guide

This book is an educational guide for landowners who have acquired a wooded property, particularly in the Northeast United States. The authors are woodland management professionals with experience in both the public and private sectors. They have written this book to provide information to new owners of wooded land, explaining the purposes and benefits of creating a woodland management plan. The book includes information on woodland potential, professional foresters and their services, woodland management plans, management techniques, timber harvest, and financial aspects of forestry management. Appendices include forestry measurements, a topical reading list, forestry laws of the New England states, and contact information for forestry resources in the New England states. This is definitely not a practical guide for do-it-yourselfers who want to make a little money off their woodlots, but rather a guide that will help you choose and communicate knowledgeably with a forestry professional. The authors present a wide range of information and bring up a number of topics that need to be considered by owners of wooded land. Some of the material and sample contracts may be dated, but the main issues are still quite current.

Having bought a woodlot in the past year, I praise this book based on real-life experience. This book is an excellent introduction to the forestry terms and practice. I learned all the background I needed to understand a forest management plan and discuss it intelligently with a professional forester. This book discusses forestry issues in detail, but without getting bogged down in arcane minutiae.I disagree with a previous reviewer that the Hilts book is preferable to the conservationist. I bought both books, but found the Hilts book unsatisfying. It is geared more to people who are considering how to return former farmland to a wooded state. It sidesteps the detailed forestry issues, such as thinning overcrowded stands, usually by saying that a forester will provide the information. These are the areas where the Beattie book is especially strong. Since my land is already forested, I appreciated the breadth of information on forest management techniques in the Beattie book. But the book can also be helpful to people who are undecided about whether or not to actively manage their forest land. It provides good background on how northeast forests have developed, and how a woodland would mature without intervention.1/8/2002I'd like to add a recommendation for a companion book: Reading the Forested Landscape by Tom Wessels. See my review there.

This book is a basic introduction to woodlot management with a focus on the forest ecosystem, basic valuation metrics for trees, and tax and other financial concerns associated with selling your trees. The major difference between this title and the Hilts et al text is that this book devotes substantially more space to financial, legal, and logistical issues associated with harvesting trees. Conservationists will probably prefer Hilts while the reader focused on income from his or her woodlot will prefer this book.Neither text goes very far helping the reader identify specific health problems in a woodlot; look more to Pirone et al. for an excellent introduction.

If you own even a few acres of New England forest, you should read this book. "Working With Your Woodland" gives a thorough introduction to forestry for the landowner. Even if you do not own any woodlands, and are just curious about the forestry profession, this book will acquaint you well with the issues. From the history presented of the New England forest through Forest Management to their postscript on stewardship, the three authors present their information clearly and sensitively. Highly recommended.

Intelligently written for amateurs, much more readable than academic literature. It is written for New England woodlands, but its principles are applicable everywhere.