Low Impact Forestry- Profiles

Malcom Fox

Southampton
2800 acres
Ecoregion - Continental Lowlands
Ecodistrict - Nackawic

Malcom Fox continues to live on the same land at Southampton, that was granted to his ancestors in the late 1700's. Mr. Fox grew up on the family farm working with livestock, crops and on the woodlot as the seasons dictated. continued to farm and work on his woodlots after graduating with a business degree from the University of New Brunswick (UNB), and going to work for Ste. Anne Nackawic pulp mill.

Mac bought additional woodland when a good opportunity presented itself, to where today, he owns around 2800 acres just upriver from Meductic on the opposite bank of the St. John River. The woodlots are in the Nackawic Ecodistrict, which lies within the Continental Lowlands Ecoregion, along the western border of New Brunswick. The climate here is relatively warm and moist receiving more precipitation than surrounding ecodistricts, while the temperatures near the St. John river approach those around Grand Lake, the warmest part of the province.

The forests of the Nackawic Ecodistrict are primarily a mixture of red spruce, balsam fir and red maple with a significant component of eastern hemlock. Pure hemlock stands can be found in the steep ravines near the river. Cedar can be a major component of the forest in some areas. Upper slopes and ridge tops support hardwood forests of sugar maple, yellow birch, beech and white ash. White pine is only found in some of the valley bottoms. Following clearcutting or other significant disturbances, the forests regenerates in poplar with white and gray birch and red maple.

The soils on the Fox woodlands show evidence of glacial deposition with deposition of large boulders and gravel deposits within 1 kilometer of the St John River. On the remainder of the woodlot the elevation rises slowly and evenly with deep fertile soil.

The fertility of the soil and the good climate that characterize Fox’s woodlots supports a wide variety of tree species that exhibit some of the best growth rates in the province. Mac Fox realizes the bounty that his woodlots provide, and has adopted a management system that takes advantage of the local ecology and maintains a good species mix and fast growing crop of trees. "My goal for these woodlots is that I leave them in a better condition than when I got them."

Species on the woodlots include; white and black ash, spruces, hemlock, tamarack, balsam fir, white and red pine, yellow birch, hard and soft maples, ironwood, beech and white birch. White birch is commonly within one kilometre of the river.

A dense stand of white birch seeded into a field after Mr. Fox stopped cultivating it in the late 1970's. The entire field sprouted in white birch which was pre-commercially thinned in 1988. Not satisfied to have a stand of only one species, Mr. Fox sought out professional forestry advice on under-planting the stand. "A forester told me it would be an absolute waste of time to try to establish a softwood understory. So I kind of dropped the idea, but went ahead and did the pre-commercial thinning. Shortly after that, I began to see some spruce and cedar showing up. The birch are now 20 feet tall with lots of spruce and cedar establishing an understory. It is funny sometimes how nature works."

On Fox’s woodlots, the hemlock and cedar grow mixed in with spruce and hardwoods (but there are also some small pure stands) and grow equally as tall as spruce and tolerant hardwoods. "It is not unusual for me to cut cedar and hemlock that will give three sixteen foot sawlogs and a few short bolts left over", says Mr. Fox.

The balsam fir also displays very good height growth and dense, tight crowns similar to fir in northern regions, as opposed to the south where height growth is not so good and there is a lot of evidence of insect damage.

The woodlot has lots of beech, but most of it is tainted by the bark infection, so his management regime strives to discourage beech regeneration. One of Mr. Fox's quests is to discover the optimum shade retention level that will discourage beech regeneration and promote the establishment of sugar maple and yellow birch. The beech is cut, either for fuelwood or sent as pulpwood to the Ste Anne pulp mill.

Cedar grows in association with other softwoods and hardwoods, as well in swamps as it is more commonly found. Mr. Fox admits that cedar is hard to regenerate but points out that it re-appears in the most unusual sites right across the woodlot. The cedar swamps are not cut, leaving them for the deer to winter in.
"I don't hunt or trap, but I do enjoy seeing wildlife on the woodlot."

Despite some of Mr. Fox's woodlot having been heavily lumbered in the 50's, probably by a diameter limit harvest, these areas are now dominated by mixed hardwood and softwood stands. Although there are several tolerant hardwood stands and a few pure softwood stands, especially on wet sites, more often than not there is a good mixture of hardwoods and softwoods in the same stand.

Mr. Fox uses his Sundays to look over his woodlands to check on the condition of the trees and decide where harvesting will be conducted. Mr. Fox worked with horses up to 1972, but now uses a 508 Cat skidder. "I liked using horses, it is a great way to work in the woods. It got hard to find people that knew how to work with horses and I cut enough now to keep three horses working and that makes getting men three times as hard."

Harvesting Objectives

The harvesting objective, is to treat a stand or an area, to remove overmature and poor quality trees or harvest areas where there is a lot of blowdown occurring. He tries to leave healthy trees unscarred, as long as they will remain wind firm. He also likes to keep some crown cover, so that shade tolerant species will be encouraged to establish. The harvested areas seldom exceeds three or four acres, so that there is never any major disruption in any part of the woodlot. The harvested areas also tend to regenerate very quickly, in the same mix of species that were harvested.

Mr. Fox's one flirtation with planting still haunts him. He points to a four to five acre patch of natural regeneration explaining, "We cut this harder than we would have usually, because the budworm was hitting it so bad. I was concerned about the intensity of our cutting and decided that I would plant it. I worked real hard getting the trees in, and then the summer came quite dry. The area seeded in from native trees surrounding the area. Now, I have to look through the regeneration pretty hard to find the trees that I planted."

He says the planting experiment was a good lesson to show the reproductive capacity of the forest and doesn't think he will ever have to plant seedlings again.

Mr. Fox has no formal written management plan, but employs a philosophy of moving his harvest operation around the woodlot to spots that need cutting. He has been harvesting about 500 cords of wood in recent years. He figures that this level is probably below the sustainable level, but he points out that the woodlot is still building volume that was removed by the spruce budworm and the harvest level is keeping ahead of mortality and blowdown.

Harvest Crew

He employs a harvesting crew, consisting of Curtis Grant and another hired worker. Mr. Fox's son Matthew, who attends UNB, has spent most of his summers, through his teen years working on the woodlots with Curtis and Mr. Fox on the weekends and holidays.

"Curtis has been with me a long time and he knows how I want the work done, so he can supervise the work pretty well by himself. In fact if they are finishing up a spot or if we are afraid that it might get too soft, I can tell him over the phone where to move to and he will get there and get working without much trouble."

"We usually harvest by single tree selection. Quite often we are pulling only one choker for a butt cut. With hardwoods, we return to the top and cut the limbs and set whatever number of chokers that are required. When we are done, only the skid trail has been disturbed. It is an expensive way to log, but it gets the result I'm looking for. I have more wood, good wood, left to come back to."

This past winter saw a major cut was to remove a poplar overstory and leave a softwood understory that was up to 25 feet in height. The operation relied on using designated yarding trails and to maintain a softwood density that would not be susceptible to windthrow. Mr. Fox says that it will take a few years to see just how successful the operation was, but he seems pretty confident that it will be successful.

Mr. Fox owns a tri-axle straight truck and hauls logs to mills all over western New Brunswick. The woodlot that was worked this winter has a good main road, over 5 kilometers long, that is passable eight or nine months of the year. Over the years Mr. Fox has also purchased a small used bulldozer and a used backhoe that he uses for road construction and maintenance. He also has a gravel truck which works on construction in the summer months. The gravel truck too can see it's weekend working on woodlot roads.



		*Malcom Fox* Southampton 2800 acres Ecoregion - Continental Lowlands Ecodistrict - Nackawic
Malcom Fox continues to live on the same land at Southampton, that was granted to his ancestors in the late 1700's. Mr. Fox grew up on the family farm working with livestock, crops and on the woodlot as the seasons dictated. continued to farm and work on his woodlots after graduating with a business degree from the University of New Brunswick (UNB), and going to work for Ste. Anne Nackawic pulp mill. Mac bought additional woodland when a good opportunity presented itself, to where today, he owns around 2800 acres just upriver from Meductic on the opposite bank of the St. John River. The woodlots are in the Nackawic Ecodistrict, which lies within the Continental Lowlands Ecoregion, along the western border of New Brunswick. The climate here is relatively warm and moist receiving more precipitation than surrounding ecodistricts, while the temperatures near the St. John river approach those around Grand Lake, the warmest part of the province. The forests of the Nackawic Ecodistrict are primarily a mixture of red spruce, balsam fir and red maple with a significant component of eastern hemlock. Pure hemlock stands can be found in the steep ravines near the river. Cedar can be a major component of the forest in some areas. Upper slopes and ridge tops support hardwood forests of sugar maple, yellow birch, beech and white ash. White pine is only found in some of the valley bottoms. Following clearcutting or other significant disturbances, the forests regenerates in poplar with white and gray birch and red maple. The soils on the Fox woodlands show evidence of glacial deposition with deposition of large boulders and gravel deposits within 1 kilometer of the St John River. On the remainder of the woodlot the elevation rises slowly and evenly with deep fertile soil. The fertility of the soil and the good climate that characterize Fox’s woodlots supports a wide variety of tree species that exhibit some of the best growth rates in the province. Mac Fox realizes the bounty that his woodlots provide, and has adopted a management system that takes advantage of the local ecology and maintains a good species mix and fast growing crop of trees. "My goal for these woodlots is that I leave them in a better condition than when I got them." Species on the woodlots include; white and black ash, spruces, hemlock, tamarack, balsam fir, white and red pine, yellow birch, hard and soft maples, ironwood, beech and white birch. White birch is commonly within one kilometre of the river. A dense stand of white birch seeded into a field after Mr. Fox stopped cultivating it in the late 1970's. The entire field sprouted in white birch which was pre-commercially thinned in 1988. Not satisfied to have a stand of only one species, Mr. Fox sought out professional forestry advice on under-planting the stand. "A forester told me it would be an absolute waste of time to try to establish a softwood understory. So I kind of dropped the idea, but went ahead and did the pre-commercial thinning. Shortly after that, I began to see some spruce and cedar showing up. The birch are now 20 feet tall with lots of spruce and cedar establishing an understory. It is funny sometimes how nature works." On Fox’s woodlots, the hemlock and cedar grow mixed in with spruce and hardwoods (but there are also some small pure stands) and grow equally as tall as spruce and tolerant hardwoods. "It is not unusual for me to cut cedar and hemlock that will give three sixteen foot sawlogs and a few short bolts left over", says Mr. Fox. The balsam fir also displays very good height growth and dense, tight crowns similar to fir in northern regions, as opposed to the south where height growth is not so good and there is a lot of evidence of insect damage. The woodlot has lots of beech, but most of it is tainted by the bark infection, so his management regime strives to discourage beech regeneration. One of Mr. Fox's quests is to discover the optimum shade retention level that will discourage beech regeneration and promote the establishment of sugar maple and yellow birch. The beech is cut, either for fuelwood or sent as pulpwood to the Ste Anne pulp mill. Cedar grows in association with other softwoods and hardwoods, as well in swamps as it is more commonly found. Mr. Fox admits that cedar is hard to regenerate but points out that it re-appears in the most unusual sites right across the woodlot. The cedar swamps are not cut, leaving them for the deer to winter in. "I don't hunt or trap, but I do enjoy seeing wildlife on the woodlot." Despite some of Mr. Fox's woodlot having been heavily lumbered in the 50's, probably by a diameter limit harvest, these areas are now dominated by mixed hardwood and softwood stands. Although there are several tolerant hardwood stands and a few pure softwood stands, especially on wet sites, more often than not there is a good mixture of hardwoods and softwoods in the same stand. Mr. Fox uses his Sundays to look over his woodlands to check on the condition of the trees and decide where harvesting will be conducted. Mr. Fox worked with horses up to 1972, but now uses a 508 Cat skidder. "I liked using horses, it is a great way to work in the woods. It got hard to find people that knew how to work with horses and I cut enough now to keep three horses working and that makes getting men three times as hard." Harvesting Objectives The harvesting objective, is to treat a stand or an area, to remove overmature and poor quality trees or harvest areas where there is a lot of blowdown occurring. He tries to leave healthy trees unscarred, as long as they will remain wind firm. He also likes to keep some crown cover, so that shade tolerant species will be encouraged to establish. The harvested areas seldom exceeds three or four acres, so that there is never any major disruption in any part of the woodlot. The harvested areas also tend to regenerate very quickly, in the same mix of species that were harvested. Mr. Fox's one flirtation with planting still haunts him. He points to a four to five acre patch of natural regeneration explaining, "We cut this harder than we would have usually, because the budworm was hitting it so bad. I was concerned about the intensity of our cutting and decided that I would plant it. I worked real hard getting the trees in, and then the summer came quite dry. The area seeded in from native trees surrounding the area. Now, I have to look through the regeneration pretty hard to find the trees that I planted." He says the planting experiment was a good lesson to show the reproductive capacity of the forest and doesn't think he will ever have to plant seedlings again. Mr. Fox has no formal written management plan, but employs a philosophy of moving his harvest operation around the woodlot to spots that need cutting. He has been harvesting about 500 cords of wood in recent years. He figures that this level is probably below the sustainable level, but he points out that the woodlot is still building volume that was removed by the spruce budworm and the harvest level is keeping ahead of mortality and blowdown. Harvest Crew He employs a harvesting crew, consisting of Curtis Grant and another hired worker. Mr. Fox's son Matthew, who attends UNB, has spent most of his summers, through his teen years working on the woodlots with Curtis and Mr. Fox on the weekends and holidays. "Curtis has been with me a long time and he knows how I want the work done, so he can supervise the work pretty well by himself. In fact if they are finishing up a spot or if we are afraid that it might get too soft, I can tell him over the phone where to move to and he will get there and get working without much trouble." "We usually harvest by single tree selection. Quite often we are pulling only one choker for a butt cut. With hardwoods, we return to the top and cut the limbs and set whatever number of chokers that are required. When we are done, only the skid trail has been disturbed. It is an expensive way to log, but it gets the result I'm looking for. I have more wood, good wood, left to come back to." This past winter saw a major cut was to remove a poplar overstory and leave a softwood understory that was up to 25 feet in height. The operation relied on using designated yarding trails and to maintain a softwood density that would not be susceptible to windthrow. Mr. Fox says that it will take a few years to see just how successful the operation was, but he seems pretty confident that it will be successful. Mr. Fox owns a tri-axle straight truck and hauls logs to mills all over western New Brunswick. The woodlot that was worked this winter has a good main road, over 5 kilometers long, that is passable eight or nine months of the year. Over the years Mr. Fox has also purchased a small used bulldozer and a used backhoe that he uses for road construction and maintenance. He also has a gravel truck which works on construction in the summer months. The gravel truck too can see it's weekend working on woodlot roads.