Land Smart Resources

Recently we received a letter from a landowner (see below) that was sent in response to info we sent him about our timber sales services. The irony is that his previous experience with selling timber is a perfect example of how landowners suffer when they sell timber without the assistance of an experience forester.  In addition to protecting the land, roads, creeks and pastures, South40 Partners invites up to 100 timber buyers to bid on your timber, making sure you get top-dollar.

Visit our site for more information. In the meantime, enjoy.

Names and addresses of the innocent..and not-so-innocent withheld….

Dear Sir;

I am in receipt of your letter regarding the selling of timber and pulpwood on my property in Chambers County, Alabama.

The property you referred to was purchased by my great-grandfather in 1877 and was
immediately logged. He retained the land until 1912 and then gave it to my grandfather as a
wedding gift. In 1914, my grandfather built his home on the land and moved there with his wife and infant son (my father). With help of 12 tenant farmers, he raised cotton and corn until 1932 when the depression and the boll weevil put him out of business. He then operated a dairy until 1951 and raised beef cattle thereafter.

My parents built their home on an adjacent four acres in 1939. I grew up there and
enjoyed exploring, hunting, and fishing on my grandfather’s property.

In 1955, my grandfather had the timber cut. Despite his attention to the logger’s
activities, damage to fences went undetected until his neighbors reported my grandfather’s cattle on their property. A good deal of effort was expended in retrieving the cattle and repairing the fences; all for $900.

Large oaks and hickories that were cut at the time and found to have hollow cares were
left where they fell. My father and I and a borrowed bulldozer worked the summer of 1957 to drag them all out of the forest and off the farm roads.

In 1984, my father allowed the pulpwooders back on the property. Concerned about the
security of his land, my father questioned their representative about their procedures. They stated that the only way he would know they had been there would be the presence of stumps. My father’s health, however, did not permit him to oversee their operation.

Terraces built by my grandfather during World War I were breached in many places.

Closed barbed wire gaps and metal gates were not an impediment to the pulpwooders.
They simply drove through them. Stretches of barbed wire fence as long as 100 yards were
flattened and the post sheared off at ground level.

Two remote outbuildings were so badly damaged that they had to be abandoned. One
contained 200 new steel fence posts and approximately 1,000 pounds of scrap copper tubing and brass pipe. The pulpwooders thoughtfully removed the contents from the property.

An area of dogwoods that I had long admired was obliterated to harvest the few pines in their midst.

Farm roads were blocked by huge mounds of debris.

My father’s cattle escaped on to the neighbor’s property and once again we had to separate cattle from their herds. Night calls from the sheriff’s department about cattle in the road.Much fence repair had to be done quickly. Eventually, all the cattle except two were recovered.

When I walked the property, I checked the stream where the favorite “fishing hole” of my
youth was located. The stream was choked with logging waste and there was a multicolored
sheen on the water. Walking upstream, I found a large, oily spot by the stream and a piece of ruptured hydraulic hose. Nearby I found four empty 5 gallon hydraulic fluid cans. These were in addition to the soft drink and beer cans, fast food wrappers, truck hood, and skidder tire left on the property as a memento of the pulpwooder’s “visit.”

All this took a terrible toll on my father’s health and he died a few months later.

All for $13,000.

Three years later, ownership of the land was passed to me. At that time, my mother
commented that the wood should be ready to harvest again when I approached retirement age.

I responded to my mother with the statement “If I ever observe another pulpwooder on
this property, I’ll be looking at him through a telescopic sight.”

That was 20 years ago. My feelings remain the same today.