Tree
Farmer of the Year Profiles
Every year, the state Tree Farm Committee seeks
nominations from Tree Farmers and foresters for the
state Tree Farmer of the Year. This award is limited
to Massachusetts Tree Farmers who have done a good
job of managing their Tree Farm and who actively
encourage others to sustainably manage their
woodlands as Tree Farms.
The Tree Farmer(s) of the Year is honored at the
annual Tree Farm Field Day and presented with a
prize package of forestry
equipment. They may also receive a stipend to attend
the next year’s National Tree Farm Convention. |
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Winners of the state Tree Farmer of the Year award may
subsequently be nominated for consideration as the
Northeast Regional Tree Farmer of the Year. (Tree
Farmers with formal forestry training or who have worked
as a professional foresters are not eligible for
consideration as a regional Tree Farmer of the Year.)
The winners of the Regional Tree Farmer of the Year
contest are then considered for the national Tree Farmer
of the Year award.
In 1977, Linwood Lesure of Ashfield (now deceased) was
the winner of the national Tree Farmer of the Year
award, the only Massachusetts Tree Farmer to yet be
honored.
Nomination Forms:
If you’d like to nominate someone for consideration as
the Massachusetts Tree Farmer of the Year, click here to
get a nomination form.
Meet Some Recent Massachusetts Tree Farmers of the Year!
Leon & Joyce Ripley – Granville
When Leon Ripley’s ancestors first came to the western
Hampden County hill country, America was at war for a
second time with Britain. While that 1812 dispute was
settled a few years later, the Ripley family put down
roots and have been farming land in Blandford and
Granville ever since.
Today, Leon and Joyce Ripley, the 2000 Massachusetts
Tree Farmers of the Year, are the sixth generation of
Ripleys to make their living from the land, with their
sons the seventh. Adapting to changing economics as
farms must, the Ripleys’ Maple Corner Farm combines
growing hay, grazing cattle, and producing maple syrup
with running a cross-country ski area, and growing
timber and cordwood to make a living from the 700 acres
of fields and woodlands they own in Granville and
Blandford.
On a typical winter weekend, more than 200 skiers from
nearby suburbs daily make the trek to Maple Corner Farm
to enjoy skiing up and down on its 20 kilometers of
groomed trails through a managed forest and a 30-acre
sugarbush. The skiers have learned that while little
snow may lie on the ground in their backyards near
Springfield or in Connecticut, given its 1500
foot elevation, Maple Corner Farm will often have plenty
of snow suitable for skiing. And, from late February
when the Ripleys begin setting their 3,500 taps until
early April, even if skiing conditions are poor, a visit
to Maple Corner Farm still offers the chance to watch
maple syrup being boiled on the wood-fired evaporator,
and to enjoy the taste of maple products on hot pancakes
at the Ripley’s maple restaurant.
For generations, the Ripleys have gathered sap from
maple trees on their land to make into maple syrup and
other products, just as periodically they’ve harvested
timber from the 500 acres of woodlands on the farm, and
cut cordwood. In recent years, the Ripleys have been
doing Timber Stand Improvement work on different
acreages of their woodlands. They’ve culled
trees from their sugarbush to allow more room for sugar
maples to grow, and they’ve gradually removed overmature
pine and hemlock from another 80 acre stand to allow
more valuable cherry, ash, and maple room to grow.
Last year, concerned about the appearance of hemlock
woolly adelgids, an insect from Asia which kills
hemlock, in Granville, they had a logger harvest about
20 thousand board feet (Mbf) of hemlock and beech from
woodlands bordering the ski trails.
On another woodland, they’re having thinning done that
will remove 25 to 30 Mbf of timber. In future years they
plan to cull more red maple and other low quality trees
from a woodland behind their sugarhouse, selling the
better sawlogs for grade lumber and poorer sawlogs for
pallet stock, while using the cordwood to supply the 40
to 50 cords of wood needed each year to run the furnaces
of the ski lodge and farmhouse, and fire the
sugarhouse’s evaporator.
The diversity of the farm’s operation provides
opportunities to utilize cull trees and lumber. Finding
a profitable way to remove deformed low quality pine is
a problem for most woodland owners. Leon, however, cuts
the cull pine into 4 foot lengths, then quarters it with
a wood splitter. The split pine then is used to fire the
sugarhouse evaporator.
Besides running a diversified farm and tourist business,
Leon and Joyce also help educate visitors about the
history of maple sugaring and the ways that forests can
be managed. Their ski lodge and restaurant has a maple
museum displaying the evolution of maple sugaring on the
farm. Each year they host a variety of school groups to
tour the sugarhouse and the nearby woodlands. Last
summer they hosted a workshop for middle school teachers
and showed how they’ve used forest management to improve
their sugarbush and grow healthier trees.
Jay Healy – Charlemont
When Jay Healy’s grandfather bought a farm in Charlemont
hard by the Deerfield River and what was to become the
Mohawk Trail in the early 1900’s, the woodlands on the
hills behind the farmstead were managed by a type of
more-or-less benign neglect, with trees only being
harvested occasionally when a building needed repair or
cash was tight. There were some large old
white pine there, and hemlock too, but most of the trees
were young and of little value.
By the 1940’s, when Jay’s father, Winston, was operating
the sprawling farm, he took a harder look at the farm’s
woodlands and, with the help of New England Forestry
Foundation, began to manage them to produce better
trees. In February 1949, the Healy farm was certified at
Massachusetts Tree Farm Number Two.
In the 1980’s, Winston’s son, Jay, looked for ways to
derive more income from the 400 acres of woodlands than
just periodically selling logs or cordwood roadside. As
a state representative, Jay saw that many small
businesses around the state were able to compete with
much larger competitors by finding and serving
specialized “niche” markets for limited
volumes of quality products. He became convinced that
the same strategy could help small woodland owners
derive more income from their trees.
Today the Healys’ Hall Tavern Farm uses a small circular
mill Jay purchased to saw trees harvested on the
property into lumber for sale. Each year, Jay targets 10
to 15 acres of the farm’s woodlands for some kind of
forest improvement. Some of the larger trees are
harvested to be sawn in the mill, while defective or
misshapen trees are culled as cordwood. Because
the soils are favorable for growing high quality white
pine, Jay uses a shelterwood type of harvest to create
openings for new seedlings that are later released by
removal of the remaining larger trees.
Lumber produced on the farm is first air-dried, then is
dried to final weight in a small kiln before being
planed and milled to the customers specifications. Most
of the 60 Mbf they produce each year is white pine sawn
into boards which may be tongue & grooved for flooring,
or ship-lapped for siding. Other species sawn include
red oak, red maple, and white ash.
Jay often cuts custom orders of wide pine boards for use
by Historic Deerfield in restoring the floors of their
buildings. The Healy farm’s name is derived from the
historic brick tavern that the family donated to
Historic Deerfield that was dismantled and then
reassembled in Old Deerfield.
Besides producing timber, some of the Hall Tavern Tree
Farm is a sugarbush managed to produce maple syrup. With
the help of a Forest Stewardship grant and working with
the local school system, Jay had an interpretive trail
installed through some of his woodlands, including a
small area of old-growth white pines, that is used by
area schools for forestry and ecology education.
As a state legislator, Jay was instrumental in getting
the state building code amended to permit the use of
native lumber in residential and farm buildings. He also
helped get the state's farm plate law changed to permit
woodland businesses to be able to use the plates. As a
legislator and until recently as Agriculture
commissioner, Jay has been an advocate of helping
natural-resource businesses develop new and more
profitable ways of operating and keeping land in open
space.
Jay was named the Massachusetts Tree Farmer of the Year
in 1999. Hall Tavern Farm hosted the Tree Farm Field Day
in 1999 and was honored as one of the first two
Massachusetts Tree Farms to be continuously certified
for 50 years.
Diane & Philip Merritt – Williamsburg
Diane & Phil Merritt have managed the woodlands on their
65-acre property in Williamsburg since they bought it as
a young couple. It was certified as Massachusetts Tree
Farm #420 in 1972. Managed to grow both timber and
cordwood, the property has many trails used for
horseback riding by Diane and daughter, Robin, and to
help in removing wood. Phil has also done
extensive wildlife habitat improvement work on the
property, building brush piles, opening a small
clearing, and installing bird boxes.
The Tree Farm has also benefitted from Phil's inventive
bent. Access to the property is through a
radio-controlled gate Phil built. When beavers
threatened to flood a nearby culvert, he installed a
simple control grate to discourage their dam-building
while not requiring the beavers be removed.
"This Tree Farm is a prime example of woods work
performed by an interested and caring owner," said
forester Tom Quink in nominating it.
To improve access to his woodlands, Phil has developed a
system of wood roads, using geotextile fabric in one
area to bridge a wetland while still allowing moisture
to flow naturally. He uses both a small four-wheel-drive
tractor and an ATV in working on the Tree Farm.
The Merritt Tree Farm is familiar to many woodland
owners and Tree Farmers in Hampshire County. It was the
site of the 1997 Tree Farm Field Day and the location of
a 1996 Tree Farm workshop on sustainable Tree Farm
management. Another nearby woodland owned by the
Merritts which has not been certified as a Tree Farm yet
was the site of a spring Woods Walk in 1994.
Phil has served on the Tree Farm committee since 1994
and has helped organize each Tree Farm Field Day,
sometimes putting on logging safety and equipment
demonstrations.
Harriet, Jane & John Freeman – Brimfield
Harriet Freeman, her son, John, and daughter, Jane, own
the Freeman Family Tree Farm in Brimfield in eastern
Hampden County. Their Tree Farm is a delightful mixture
of managed and unmanaged woodlands. Since acquiring the
first portion of their 274 acres of woodlands, the
Freemans have selectively thinned and harvested the
different stands of trees to improve their growth
rates, removing more than 50,000 board feet of timber
and 130 cords of firewood. They have also planted
Christmas trees, tap a maple sugarbush for syrup, and
operate a small sawmill where wood from their land and
that of neighboring woodlands is sawed into lumber. In
the past year, they used the wood to build a farmstand
to market produce grown on their farm.
Avid birders and hunters, they’ve improved habitat on
their land for birds and other wildlife by installing
nesting boxes, pruning and releasing old apple trees,
and doing a small clearcut to provide habitat for
species which nest in the open such as blue-winged
warblers. To use and enjoy their land, they've installed
an extensive trail network that lets hikers see
different types of woodland habitat as well as vernal
pools, a large wetland, and a small waterfall.
While the Freemans have enjoyed working on their land,
they've also encouraged others to visit and see the
different aspects of woodland management. In recent
years their Tree Farm has been used for tours by cub
scouts and nursery schools, bird walks by local bird
clubs, a cable TV show on making maple syrup, for
classes from the geology department at the University of
Massachusetts, and for forestry workshops for
landowners.
In 1997, the Freemans were honored as Massachusetts Tree
Farmers of the Year and in 1998 they hosted the annual
Tree Farm Field Day at their property, with more than
200 people taking part.
"The Freeman family are tremendous ambassadors for
forest management," said the citation for the Tree
Farmers of the Year award. "Anyone who visits their land
cannot help catching their enthusiasm for the land and
the forest."
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