Dr. Newton White
Forestry professionals would all like to work with landowners like Newton White.
In addition to being interested in learning more about his forest and the practice of forestry, he's always ready to listen to a new idea and follow through on proposed management practices. When a Forester makes a recommendation to Newton, he listens, asks a few questions to make sure he understands, and says go for it.
He's also a man of action himself. He stands among the very few landowners who has graduated from the Logger Education to Advance Professionalism, or the L.E.A.P. course. A retired orthopedic surgeon, White's switch from the operating room and surgical tools to the woods and a chainsaw was a leap in itself.
Like every good Tree Farmer, Newton has a written forest management plan. And last spring, right on schedule, Newton was ready to plant the trees called for in the implementation schedule. At the suggestion of his consulting forester, Newton contacted Bob Dixon, his neighbor and a Tree Farmer himself, to get some recommendations for site preparation. It was formerly fescue pasture, which is highly competitive with trees. Once the fescue was taken care of, one small problem remained: someone had to plant the trees!
The difficulty arose from the small size of the area to be planted. It was too small to attract one of the large out-of-state planting contractors, so Consulting Forester, Doug Enyart, suggested that Newton get some help from family or neighbors to plant the trees. Doug's idea was to use the experience as an educational activity to expose more people to forestry and involve them in active management of the forest.
On planting day, Newton brought his son and his daughter's boyfriend, both residents of St. Louis, to share the new experience. To ensure that there would be enough "experienced" labor to get the job done, Keith Enyart, son of consulting forester Doug Enyart and an experienced tree-planter (with several thousand trees to his credit), also assisted.
Except for a few minor snafus, at the end of the day, the crew had become planting experts! All in all they planted 700 trees. Everyone enjoyed the day and the world is richer by three new experienced tree planters, two networked Tree Farmers and a freshly planted pine stand.