Crop Tree Management for the Forester ~ 1990 US Forest Service

more at http://quickfound.net/

'...Shows a landowner or forester how to select and care for trees to improve wildlife habitat, as well as scenic beauty and timber production. It promotes both the stewardship ethic and the idea that our forestlands can offer many benefits. If the forest is properly cared for, such benefits are renewable and sustainable.'

Originally a public domain film, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_farm

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

A tree farm is a privately owned forest managed for timber production. The term, tree farm, also is used to refer to tree plantations, tree nurseries, and Christmas tree farms...

The American Tree Farm System (ATFS) is the largest and oldest woodland certification system in America. It is internationally recognized by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification and meets strict third-party certification standards. It is one of three certification systems currently recognized in the United States (the others include the Forest Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative). ATFS specializes in certifying private forests, primarily those held by individuals and families and currently certifies over 24 million acres (110,000 km²) of forestland. The ATFS Standard for Certification is owned by the American Forest Foundation, a national nonprofit organization focused on promoting sustainable stewardship of America's woodlands and related environmental education through Project Learning Tree.

History

The American Tree Farm System was established in 1941 in an effort to promote resources on private land, ensuring plentiful fiber production for timber and paper companies. With declining virgin saw timber available, the industry began to promote forestry practices to ensure sufficient fiber production for the future. Prior to 1941, the majority of fiber came from industrial lands. The first tract of land labeled as a Tree Farm was organized and marketed by the Weyerhaeuser Company to help change public attitudes toward timber production and protect natural resources from forest fires and other natural disasters. The title of "tree farm" was chosen in large part because Weyerhaeuser felt that the 1940s public understood farming as crop production, and similarly tree farming was focused on producing more timber, with frequent replanting post-harvest. The early sponsors of the tree-farming movement defined it as "privately owned forest-land dedicated to the growing of forest crops for commercial purposes, protected and managed for continuous production of forest products." In the early 1940s the concept of "tree-farming" on private land was promoted by the National Lumber Manufacturers Association in an organized campaign to engage timberland owners in conservative timber production...

A forest sequesters carbon in its trees. The forest removes carbon dioxide from the air as trees grow and returns it to the air as trees die and rot or burn. As long as the forest is experiencing net growth, the forest is reducing the amount of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, from the air. Furthermore, if timber is regularly removed from the forest and turned into lasting wood products, those products continue sequestering carbon, while the replacement tree farm trees absorb more carbon dioxide, thus effecting a continuous reduction in greenhouse gas.

Because tree farms are managed to enhance rapid growth, a tree farm tends to sequester carbon more quickly than an unmanaged forest, considering only the sequestration side of the equation and not the carbon release due to rot, fire, or harvest. The fact that managed woodlands tend to be younger and younger trees grow faster and die less contributes to this distinction.

While tree farms absorb large amounts of CO

2, the long-term sequestration of this carbon depends on what is done with the harvested materials. Forests continue to absorb atmospheric carbon for centuries if left undisturbed.

The USDA has an online calculator for how much carbon is sequestered in various types of forests...