Forestry Activity:
Breezy Hill Farm Preserve and
Sun, Wind and Woodland Preserve
(Beginning Sept. 2008)
CLCT will be conducting a forestry operation on the Breezy Hill Farm and Sun, Wind and Woodland Preserves on the west side of Breezy Hill Road in the coming months.
This operation will involve an improvement or shelterwood harvest, improving the general vigor of the residual forest, and allowing light into the forest to promote regeneration of new growth. In addition, CLCT will open the old fields on the Sun, Wind and Woodland Preserve to improve wildlife habitat, particularly for ruffed grouse and woodcock. These are species of special concern because of their shrinking habitat in young forests and old fields.
CLCT manages its larger properties under management plans prepared with the assistance of a licensed forester. There are currently in place four plans prepared at different times relating to the Breezy Hill Road properties, the Smith Tree Farm, the Mary Conklin Preserve and the Swan Preserve. The management plans were developed with grants from a federal cost sharing program, and they were reviewed and approved by the Connecticut state forester.
This is not the first forestry operation undertaken by CLCT. In 1999 there was a harvest on the Smith Tree Farm property, which involved a salvage harvest of hemlock in decline from the hemlock wooly adelgid insect and a clearcut of a 5-acre white pine stand that was in decline from storm damage. The clearcut was temporarily fenced to prevent deer browsing of seedlings, and the early successional forest is now over twenty feet tall and fully stocked with hardwood and white pine saplings.
A permit was obtained for this current harvest from the Canton Inland Wetlands Commission for the crossing of a small stream. The crossing will utilize a timber bridge to minimize any impact. The actual forestry operation is considered as-of-right because it is an agricultural operation.
The forestry operation at the Breezy Hill Road properties is designed not to interfere with existing hiking trails, but the property will be posted during the time trees are being cut, and the public is asked not to enter the property when the operation is in progress to prevent any danger to hikers while trees are being felled.
CLCT’s forester, Jim Gillespie of Forestland Consultants, LLC, Sharon, CT., has marked the trees to be removed, and he will be selecting a buyer for the timber. The forester will supervise the activity of the certified logger who does the actual tree harvesting to ensure that the operation is conducted according to best forestry practices and consistent with the CLCT’s primary use of the land for hiking and passive recreation. Skid trails and other disturbance will be smoothed out and replanted where necessary to minimize any erosion.
The ultimate result of this operation will be a healthy forest with more opportunity for the largest trees to grow bigger, and the beginnings of a new forest as seedlings colonize the spaces left by the removal of the selected trees. CLCT will be able to use the income generated by the timber sale in part to support other management needs, including the restoration of old fields, boundary marking and trail maintenance.
