By Nick Penzenstadler, Appleton Post Crescent
Wisconsin’s history of logging is as rich as the soils that produce the towering birches, maples and oaks that fetch top dollar as boards and hardwood flooring.
By 1910, barons notoriously hacked down the 1.5 million-acre timberlands now protected within the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest to help build Milwaukee and Chicago. A century laterafter careful restoration, timber industry managers say the cutting has fallen short and the riches within the forest are being squandered at taxpayers’ expense...
...Comparisons to industrial and other private land also are tricky because the genetics and soils in much of the national forest simply are lower quality, said John DuPlissis, extension forestry specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
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