"Brian Sandle" wrote in message
...
Oz wrote:
Jim Webster writes

Planting
for other uses is uneconomic unless you have hundreds of acres to go at
and
can budget over 60 to 120 years.

I was chatting to a casual worker who worked for Blenheim Park sawmills,
yes THAT blenheim park (Churchill etc) with a thousand+ ac of woodland.

He was made redundant because they couldn't compete with imported timber
and now use imported timber for their sawmill.

Rather like dumping food in Africa.

No, not at all like dumping food on agriculture. It is just cheaper to
produce timber in certain places.


All sorts of cheap products have been sold in New Zealand - putting our
locals out of work. Car plants have closed down, and now workers do not
have the money to buy houses which are getting bought by overseas people.
We have some cheap imported goods, but food is dearer in the main, and now
both Mum and Dad have to work to support the family, so there is less time
for fun.

Don't suck up to that system.

Much of the woodland was beech, the rest pines.

So if they can't compete, with their own sawmill, how do you think
farmers elsewhere can compete?

Only by getting some research into what specialty timbers can be grown in
the climate, and collect a good price.

Oh goodie, let us wait 300 years for oak to mature


Violins need fairly slow growing timber, fine grain and I don't know what
the extra water about would do. The economics of violin making is quite
interesting. Timber had to be seasoned in a dark room for 25 years my
music teacher, who also had learnt violin making in Czeckoslovakia, told
me. So you would have to be getting enough ready for your successor.

Great, and what do I eat today?

As
Jim has explained `modern' economics has trouble with such a concept.

All economics has a problem with buy now, pay in 150 years time.

OK farms where Jim is have hedges. Tell me, do they soak up a bit of water
and stop the fast run-off somehwat?

Not especially, but in the UK we have few problems with soil erosion
compared to other parts of the world. Main use of hedges is barriers for
livestock


Lots of places in the world have
flooding problems and erosion following removal of trees higher up in the
catchment. Gordon Cougar please take note.

I hardly think this is a problem in the Mid west. I suggest you stop using
pat answers which might be relevant in the Himalayas in plains areas

Jim Webster