What makes swamp logs so valuable

Some of these trees were a part of virgin forestlands, where they stood for hundreds or even thousands of years, growing to enormous girth and density. Very few of these old growth trees remain legally accessible for harvest today, which makes the sinker logs that much more desirable. In the nineteenth century Pacific Northwest, pioneer loggers faced the challenge of turning massive trees into lumber. Once a tree was cut, a lot of work remained to turn it into a log and then transport it to a sawmill.

Oxen were the beasts of burden tasked to move logs from point A to point B along cleared paths, which became impossibly muddy, bogging down animals and cargo. To solve this issue, cross logs were placed perpendicular to the direction of travel and thick black oil helped the trees slide along. These were called skid roads, and expedited the log transport system. As skid roads accelerated log transport, the pioneers also used a method called flashboard damming.

This is where a river or creek was temporarily blocked to create a flooded area. Felled timber was dragged to the floodwaters where it would collect and float in mass. Once a sufficient number of timber was collected, the dam broke, and a rush of water and logs careened downstream where they could collect and move via railroad. This method proved to be quicker and cheaper for men and beasts alike. As a result of flashboard damming, many smaller logs embedded in the banks.

This created an abundance of woody debris in these waterways. The embedded sinker logs were freely harvested up until the s when overzealous harvest practice drew the attention of regulatory agencies. As counterintuitive as it may seem, sinker logs provide excellent quality wood products. Wood rots when exposed to light, oxygen, and wood-consuming organisms—features lake or river bottoms lack. Many trees also contain oils that have preservative effects.

When logs lay in muddy substrate for extended periods of time, the wood fiber absorbs the minerals and tannins found in the water and soil, which give the wood its unique hues of grey and olive green. If the logs were embedded in sandy soil, then the lumber may exhibit hues of red or deeper gold. If the logs are from old-growth trees, then the wood grain is extremely dense, which increases durability and works well for flooring, countertops, and siding. There are two types of underwater logs to harvest: the escaped logs from previous operations and the dead trees still rooted to the bottom.

Sinker logs are collected, whereas underwater trees still need to be cut down. Each scenario requires different harvest techniques and machinery. Sinker logs are commonly collected by small-time operations, involving a small group of people using machinery to collect one log at a time from a river or reservoir. Cold cash issues cause problems as U. Federal court declines to lift stay on vaccine mandate. All Sections. About Us. B2B Publishing. Business Visionaries. Hot Property. Times Events.

Times Store. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options. Hewitt Emerson guides a longleaf pine log to a barge after diving to the bottom of the Edisto River in South Carolina.

By David Zucchino writer. Reporting from Meggett, S. David Zucchino. This is no myth. Whether you remember doing it or not, there is a good chance your yard tree has metal in it. Metal, like nails, hooks, wires and chains mess up saw blades and make a mess by staining the wood.

Larger operations have no reason to buy logs with metal in them, especially if the next log truck in the gate is full of logs without metal. Bottom logs have the most valuable wood and the most metal, like this electrical conduit with wires.

You will be at the mercy of the buyer. They will know after the first thing out of your mouth that you do not know what you are doing, and even if they are fair, they will never overpay. This is a good-looking walnut log, but it has a lot of sapwood white ring on the outside , which will make it less valuable.

With that point made, you should know that some do have value if you have a place to sell them and you have a way to get them to a buyer. Now, obviously prices will range from mill to mill, based on what wood is available in the area, what is selling well and if the mill specializes in any products or species.

The above prices should just serve as a guidepost in determining if bothering to sell your logs is worthwhile. However, you can see that if a landowner were to have a large number of trees, the money could start to add up.

Hundreds of millions feet of lumber travelled every year to the mills in Bangor, Maine. Once wood had been scaled at the camp, it was moved to the river landing to await the thawing of the river. Photo Credit. Dangerous log jams occurred when the Penobscot was high, and water was running fast. When the water was too slow, the logs beached themselves on the rocks. Tommie Williams of Lyons, Maine is a Republican State Senator that sees underwater logging as a way to pay tribute to the backbreaking work of the old loggers.

These numbers include four generations of his family.