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| Most people don't appreciate that the northern hardwood forests of New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, & other northeastern states produces some of the finest hardwood lumber available in the world. And that timber is an important product to landowners like myself who have as much forest as tillable acres. The chart below shows where this hardwood lumber, the kind use to build fine furniture and house fixtures, flooring etc., was exported to in the past couple of years. It doesn't take genius to understand that a 1.1 million cubic meters is 310,000 million board feet and worth at least a billion dollars or more. Not soybean or corn money but not trivial either.
Anyhow, last year about this time, I took a look at prices (the strongest in some years) and economic prospects (looking likely less favorable) and decided to reduce my inventory. So I commissioned a sale, had the forester put it out to bids and was pleasantly surprised when it came back 30% over then current market value.
So, they're harvesting that timber now, one logger working alone, fells the trees, cuts them to 12-14 ft lengths and brings them out to minimize damage to the stand. None of this skidding tree-length stuff, barking up all the other trees in the process.
By coincidence, another professional forester friend who I invite to hunt my property was here, he couldn't resist "sidewalk supervising" the job and we went out to diner one night last week.
He congratulated me on my decision to sell last year. It turns out the the price of hard wood timber has collapsed to less than half last year's price and the mills don't even want to bid, just no market.
So you fellows in upper Midwest can all take cold comfort knowing that it's not just you.
 (01_m3_volume_of_US_Hardwood_log_exports (full).png)
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 01_m3_volume_of_US_Hardwood_log_exports (full).png (56KB - 136 downloads)
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It's not just soybeans that are getting hammered by the trade war.
