December 2023 – Towards the Moon or To the Sun

The Last Leaves of the Season

Another year has cycled through, and the canopy of colorful leaves around my house is now a carpet in different shades of brown. From the mighty white oaks to the humble dogwoods, all sport naked limbs, awaiting the return of spring to unfurl new green leaves.

But one tree stands out in the forest. The American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) holds on to its withered tan leaves throughout the dormant season. This quality of holding on to dead leaves after other plants have shed them is called “marcescence”. Studies suggest marcescence is a strategy for deterring deer and other herbivores from browsing on the more nutritious twigs and buds, or perhaps for improving the tree’s nutrient uptake by delaying leaf decomposition until spring.

The beech is one of the most shade tolerant of trees, allowing it to spend decades holding its own beneath the forest canopy until a fallen tree gives it an opening to grow into the light. The beech prefers moderately moist conditions, and its thin bark provides scant protection against fire. In open woodlands of the precolonial Piedmont, oaks dominated, while beeches withdrew to the more sheltered bottomlands. With fire removed from hardwood forests, beeches, maples, and other thin-barked trees advanced into the uplands as forest canopies closed. They are firmly part of the climax forest community.

Beechnuts are a much-sought-after food for birds and mammals, from blue jays to black bears. It was a primary fall food source for the long-vanished passenger pigeon. Humans make vegetable oil from beechnuts, or roast them to eat or to make a caffeine-free coffee substitute. Unfortunately, a seedling will grow for several decades before putting on the first beechnuts, and thereafter produce at intervals ranging from two to eight years. Beeches can live for 400 years, assuming they aren’t cut for lumber or high-quality firewood, or succumb to one of several introduced disease-causing pests.

The bark of the beech is relatively smooth and pale gray, making it a tempting canvas on which folks may carve their initials, dates, or other sentiments. I don’t recommend the practice — cutting the bark allows pathogens to attack the tree, and it’s rude to future visitors — but don’t be surprised to see the declarations of love, territory or simple presence written across a trunk. Yesterday, I walked downstream a short way to a beech tree I remember from my youth; decades ago, a local with the surname Inglett took knife to bark, staking his claim on that patch of woods. I don’t know how long ago this bit of vandalism occurred, but the scars were old when I was a kid, and they have stretched to near illegibility since then.

When you pass through the woods this winter, Keep an eye out for marcescent leaves of beeches.

Trails: What Good Are They, Anyway?

Here is the second essay from Dr. Walter Cook, reprinted with permission of the author.

Trails – What Good Are They, Anyway?

By Dr. Walter Cook

This is the title of an hour-long slide show I have given many times at the Len Foote Hike Inn. Mostly, the slides show unusual things, beautiful flowers, and other curiosities one will find along trails. My purpose is to encourage people to walk, stroll, or hike on a foot path. Of course, the audience at Hike Inn didn’t need any encouragement, since they walked five miles to get there, but like many hikers, they may be busy talking and not notice the interesting things they pass along the trail.

My purpose in designing, maintaining, and sometimes building trails is also to encourage others, especially those who have never walked on a woodland trail. I like to open their minds to the natural world they are in. To me, a trail is more than an exercise facility – it is an educational facility. It “educates” a first-time visitor so they can discover that the outdoors – forest, meadow, stream – is not a threatening environment. By staying on the trail, they can see nature but they don’t have to touch it, nor let nature touch them. And after that first time, when they have safely survived the new experience, they will be less reluctant to try it again – and again and again. And on each successive experience, they will discover new things, besides the fact that the natural environment is not a dangerous place. They will begin to be curious about things they see or hear. Soon, they will enjoy the experience. They will gradually become familiar with the natural environment, and eventually, they will want to ensure the environment remains protected.

Trails also have much to offer the experienced naturalist. I am not a birder, but I’m sure it must be easier to enjoy birds from a trail, where there is no noisy crunch of dry leaves. I am a wildflower enthusiast, and trails do help me to enjoy them. I hope to walk each of the trails described by Hugh and Carol Nourse in their book, Favorite Wildflower Walks in Georgia.

As a trail designer, I spend a lot of time walking “off trail.” Wandering through the forest with clinometer and plastic colored flagging is my favorite recreational activity. Although I get paid for some “jobs,” it is always enjoyable to get away from where others have been (at least recently) and discover new things.

But all the while I am tying flags, I imagine people walking on the trail after it is built. As they see things along the trail, what will be their response? Will they like what they see? Will they be curious about things they see? Will they notice that some trees look alike, but unlike others? Will they wonder what kind of bird is singing so conspicuously? Will they remember to tell their friends that they had a positive experience, and encourage the friends to go with them next time?

So, if you have a friend or relative, especially a young person who isn’t familiar with the natural world, encourage him or her – no, insist they go with you on a walk. Make it an easy, short walk – don’t make it strenuous, just enjoyable. When my granddaughter was about four, we walked a mile in my woods, and at the end, she said, “That was a gooood hike.” I was pleased.

Additional Resources:

American Trails.org: connecting people to nature

Alltrails: Find trails by location, length, and difficulty

Webinar: Building Trails On Your Property. The page leading to the webinar has links to some great resources at the bottom.

The Richest Man in the World

I met Dr. Walter Cook over three decades ago. In his Forest Engineering course, I learned how to (among other things) properly lay out a trail in the woods; in Forest Recreation, he taught me why these trails were important. He was an important mentor for my Eagle project, which involved constructing a stretch of trail at Sandy Creek Park in Athens.

I reconnected with my professor at his 90^th birthday celebration. Fittingly, it was in a park pavilion. During the gathering, nature-lovers lauded his tireless work in developing, coordinating, and building trails and paths on over 130 projects across both private and public lands.

Last week, I went to lunch with Dr. Cook to catch up. He has read this blog, and agreed to share some of his thoughts here. This is the first of his essays which I post with his permission.

The Richest Man in the World

By Dr. Walter Cook

Who among us has not occasionally wished to be rich? As Tevye sang in Fiddler on the Roof, “If I were a Rich Man…” he would no longer have to work. Some people have other reasons for wanting to be rich – to have a big car (or maybe two), to have a big house (or maybe two), to travel the world, to send their children to the best university, or merely not to worry about their monthly bills. Many times in the literature of myth, characters who have unlimited riches are depicted as having large chests overflowing with jewels, surrounded by the utmost beauty of colorful paintings, with everything touched by gold.

On a fall day several years ago, I discovered that I, too, was rich – not in the sense of Tevye’s longings, not in the sense of a carefree life, but rich in the sense of a mythical king. As I was walking down the Middle Oconee River (near my hometown of Athens, Georgia) I enjoyed the many colorful red and sugar maples, dogwoods, blackgums, and poison ivy along the river’s levee. Many leaves had fallen, and I recalled that when I was a young boy, I would gather a half dozen of the prettiest leaves as I walked home from school to bring home to share their beauty with my mother. But as I looked at the leaves lying ankle-deep on the ground, I realized it would be impossible to choose the six best leaves – there were so many! How could anyone make such a choice. They were like jewels, even better than jewels, for no jewel could match the dazzling spectrum of colors in even one leaf, much less all the leaves. And, as I looked up at the trees that had produced these super jewels, they were like paintings, only far surpassing any human-made work of art.

So, there I was, ankle-deep in the world’s most beautiful jewels, surrounded by superb works of art, and all the while being entertained by the music of songbirds. What more could one possibly wish for? I was a rich man, and I didn’t even have to work for it. Tevye would have liked that.

[Since that long ago day in 1993, I have walked in a lot of forests, along many riverbanks, and in other interesting environments. In the past few years, I have enjoyed exploring the back country while flagging new trails in the Jocassee Gorges in South Carolina. Compared with the quiet beauty of the Oconee River in Georgia, the scenery in Jocassee is simply spectacular. The tremendous cliffs (not all cliffs are in state parks!), the numerous waterfalls, the natural gardens of wildflowers, and the views of endless mountains rolling to infinity, all certainly qualify as beautiful.]

But don’t be fooled!! The nice thing about nature is you don’t have to wait until fall or go to a special place to enjoy its beauty. Nature is, almost by definition, beautiful. We rightly enjoy the special shows of fall colors, spring and summer flowers, winter ice and snow, and the beautiful landscape of the Southern Appalachians. But even without these spectaculars, nature – the undisturbed environment – is beautiful. All we need to enjoy it is to open our minds to its presence. Then we can all be as rich as a mythical king.

Article on Cook and Trails

The Fall and Rise of the Whitetail

A couple of months ago, I attended a prescribed fire conference at the National Infantry Museum in Fort Moore, just outside of Columbus, Georgia. After finishing the official part of the meeting, we were allowed to wander through some of the exhibits. Among the relics was a recruiting poster from the 1920s – back when the post was known as Camp Benning. The spiel suggests an easy life, good weather, new barracks (“nearly completed”) and “Great fishing and hunting”. But what caught my eye was the list of game species: raccoon, opossum, fox, rabbit, and squirrel. One conspicuous omission: white-tailed deer. Why wouldn’t they advertise a game animal that is so plentiful today?

Deer were plentiful all across the Southeast when the first Europeans arrived. As the colonies established and spread, hunting for food and for trade items (deerskin was a premium leather for exportation to Europe) decimated the population. In the 19^th century, the growing cities demanded meat of all kinds, and market hunters were happy to add venison to the menu. The loss of forests to logging and agricultural expansion made the problem that much worse. Laws to protect deer, such as a hunting season enacted in 1840, were largely ineffectual. By the first decade of the 20^th century, fewer than a third of the counties in Georgia claimed to have any deer left. I presume Muscogee and Chattahoochee counties, where Camp Benning stood, were not among the fortunate third.

The return of whitetails to Georgia comes down to three things. First, the reforesting of Georgia: in many places, old fields were abandoned, and old cutovers regrew. Governments acquired land for wildlife protection, especially after the Pittman-Robertson Act in 1937.

The second factor was the restocking effort. A U.S. Forest Service ranger named Arthur Woody began the process by himself with half a dozen deer released in the mountains in the late 1920s. Federal funds in the ‘30s allowed for a more systematic approach. For some six decades, deer were brought in from a number of other states (including Texas, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Maryland), and coastal islands of Georgia to be released around the state.

The third factor in the recovery was protection. More regulation, coupled with more rigorous enforcement and public education, allowed the deer herd to expand. Once the state reopened a hunting season, scientific monitoring allowed biologists to assess and adjust management of the deer population.

When I was a child in the early 1970s, seeing a deer was a pretty big deal. Coming home this evening, I saw half a dozen does feeding on the shoulder of the road. This season I’ve put four deer in the freezer. We now have a million, give or take, white-tailed deer in Georgia, and the most liberal harvest opportunities of my life.

I heard tell they can even hunt deer on Fort Moore.

Additional Resources:

Deer Restocking Program in Georgia: 1928-1974