Reforestation/reclaimation of farmland

[Eric Stuewe]

Hello- I would suggest you contact a forestry specialist at the univ. of 
Iowa named Richard Fulkerson. I'm not in my office so I will send his 
phone # with my next message to you.
Eric Stuewe

On 29 Dec 1994 woody at Frodo.MGH.Harvard.EDU wrote:

> Dear group-
> 	My siblings and I have been given, through a trust, about 300
> acres of Iowa farm land. This land has been in continuous production
> for the past 50 or more years, and since none of us are actually
> farmers, we are not now interested in farming it ourselves.  However,
> and here's the tricky part, we don't actually get control of the land
> until my father's widow passes away, and she comes from a family known
> to live to be 140-150 years old.  My brothers and sisters and I are
> concerned that a continuation of past practices will leave us with an
> inheritance that is worthless, strip-farmed by cash rent farming.
> 	An alternative is to rent the land, or a portion of it, ourselves,
> and take it out of production; the question, then, is what to do with the
> idled land.  My first (and favorite) inclination is to put it in trees.
> A 20 year-old stand of walnut, pine, cherry oak, etc would seem likely
> to be not only beautiful to look at, but would have a commercial value
> as well.
> 	I would appreciate any information you could point me toward so
> that I can learn more about the mechanics and/or the economics of such
> a scheme.  Please post replies to the newsgroup (which could use some
> traffic) or email me directly:  woody at cshl.org.  I would also be 
> interested in any other suggestions for this land.
> 
> Thanks in advance, Scott Woody
> 			Long Island, NY
> 
>