Common Sense Forestry (Books for Wiser Living from Mother Earth News)

. . . gave its life for a good cause.This is the most important book on my shelves as I "manage" my 75 Virginia woodland acres.I like Morsbach's maverick approach to forestry, in particular the emphasis he places on aesthetic and environmental considerations. Once again, the committed, thoughtful individual trumps a whole barrel full of clipboard-carrying "experts."The book contains multiple grammatical errors that are slightly distracting to me, a former editor, but otherwise entirely trivial.

The book and its content was as expected. What surprised me was the excellent condition of the book. Much better than described. I'm very pleased.

This book was excellent and contained alot of common sense advice. I only deducted a star because it was more applicable to the East Coast, while I live on the West. Really good material, and I liked its balanced approach to the use of "non-Green" methods.

Lessons learned on woodland management

Great book; especially for us who have not studied forestry! Full of insight from first-hand experience! Arrived quickly and in great condition! Thank you very much!

As a Mother Earth publication, I expected the book to advocate a more organic approach to forestry. Inclusion of herbicidal methods would have been acceptable if it were included to inform the reader of conventional methods as an option. However, Morsbach can hardly go a chapter without going on about dowsing the land with drums of herbicides, which is the primary method this book advocates. He acknowledges the environmental problems associated with herbicide in forestry, agriculture,and residential use, but daftly justifies their impact due to what he perceives as their necessity. Within the same chapter, he mentions the German forestry method of Waldwende that advocates mixed forests, organic method, and has a 150 year track record in Germany. Sadly, the book Waldwende, by Wilhelm Bode, has yet to be translated into English. From Morsbach's brief description of Bode and Waldwende, Mother Earth should have translated and published that book instead. If you speak German, it is available on Amazon.Mother Earth is primarily a publisher of homesteading, small scale farming, and green building literature, however any crossover of these topics are not included in this book. There is an absence of anything related to permaculture or livestock grazing within a forestry system, which might have solved some of his grass problems and lessened his need for herbicide. A good book on incorporating livestock within a forest system is Tree Crops, by J. Russell Smith, which is available for free online. When trying to isolate the forest system from other natural cycles, or even the natural forest succession cycle, everything becomes a problem that must be doused with herbicides. The book also did not contain information on milling your own lumber or splitting shingles, although it did contain a useful chart on firewood and included information on some wood's natural water resistance.Overall, Common Sense Forestry is geared more towards small scale conventional forestry rather than small scale, organic, homestead woodlots. The reason I have not rated this book with 1 star is because it still contained useful information on trimming trees, planting, succession, tree types, tax and business information, and other useful mechanics of managing a forest. In this respect the book was not a failure, although it was geared towards the north-central United States tree varieties and practices. If you want to manage a small conventional timber plantation, then this book is for you. If you want to create synergy between your woodlot and livestock or other ventures, then this book will fall dismally short of your expectations.

This insightful book is not only an inspiration for those lucky enough to already own woodlands, but for anyone interested in trees and conservation. I wanted to find a "Forestry 101" course which reflected progressive environmental principles - and this is certainly it. Morsbach's writing style is engaging. Even where he repeats himself he makes the information consistently fascinating. And he doesn't shrink from presenting views which are opposed to his. The illustrations are wonderful and the glossary at the end invaluable. Because I live in Austria - where the "Dauerwald" principle described by Morsbach is well established - his holistic international approach was especially appealing.

Good read, very Wisconsin centric--sorry about those invasive grasses…but we don't have them in PA. Great advice about timber taxes--12 timber tax folks at IRS for the whole country!