In Defense of Logging
I admit that I cannot live in a city. It makes me shudder to think about even visiting one. Familiars has a storefront on Main Street, in Medford, population 4286, in Taylor County, which is as big as I care to go. Taylor County had a population of 19,975 in 2022. Taylor County, Wisconsin has 975.1 square miles of land area and is the 16th largest county in Wisconsin by total area. The Chequamegon National Forest covers about one-third of the county, approximately 123,940 acres, and the Taylor County Forest covers another approximately 17,690 acres. CTH M is my dividing line. North is glacial, the terminus of the last glacier. South of M is the washout plain where the farm land begins. The Chequamegon National Forest is north of CTH M. There are a lot of small kettle lakes here and a lot of gravel. Our home sits on an esker, a gravel pile in the middle of swamps and spoon-sized little bitty lakes, many without a name.
So, how do we support ourselves here? A bunch of ways. I am discussing today my favorite Taylor County Small Businessman, the Taylor County Logger.
The Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest was established in 1933. It owes its existence to the Federal law creating Federal Forest Reserves in 1891 and the Organic Act of 1897 which organized these forest reserves. Much of the old growth pine was logged off in Taylor County in the early 20th Century. Forest fires were prevalent. Sally and I have several old pine stumps blackened with fire damage. After the old growth was removed times were tough for the human inhabitants until the second growth came in, which, around here, was popple and white birch. They can come back quickly without any human interference. As long as the land is mostly flat and the stand of popple is 30-40 years old it can be harvested again. BTW, It is actually one organism. It is a sustainable crop. Enter the modern Taylor County Logger. Yes, they cut trees, often in a clear cut, and it is ugly for a year or two but then the trees are back all by themselves, sustainably .
I have been around here since 1973 when I first drove up Highway 13 from Abbotsford heading for Rib Lake and crossed the county line into Taylor. I remember that particular day. I bought my spot in 1986 from a local lawyer who eventually married Sally and me.
Check out In Defense of Logging (www.sallyrasmussen.com/these-old-crows/in-defense-of-logging) for examples of the growth cycle of the Aspen Forest.
