|
by John Matel, Communications Chairman, Virginia Tree Farm
Committee
John and Bernice Hoffman, the recipients
of the 2006 Virginia Tree Farmer of the Year Award, bought
their first piece of mountain land in Shenandoah County in
1950. They added to it over the next half century until they
owned almost 800 acres. The property lies on the western
slope of North Mountain in the drainage area of Cedar Creek
near the town of Star Tannery west of Strasburg. After half
a century he still loves to do what he has always done:
plant trees and plan for the future of his forest. Like all
good foresters, John knows that we plant for the next
generation and not all trees are for harvest or profit. John
is looking after all the living things, plant and animal, on
and around his land. He manages for timber, soil and water
conservation, recreation and hunting. He grows some
hardwoods, but mostly pine for pulp. Although much of his
land is too steep and the soil too thin for agriculture, it
nonetheless was part of a growing Virginia economy. The
first industry to use the forest was iron ore furnaces
established in the mid-18th century and existing until after
the Civil War. Isaac Zane, a Quaker from Pennsylvania, built
the first of these furnaces and got grants of the
surrounding forest land which he could use as fuel. These
furnaces used a great deal of charcoal and they largely
denuded the forest. In 1868 a tannery came along and
consumed the forest for the tannin-rich bark on the trees.
The cost of moving raw materials is high for a tanning
operation, so tanneries move to where the trees are. In
1898, this one too moved on, leaving only its name attached
to the nearby town of Star Tannery. After that, inhabitants
cut firewood and timber, and local wood and charcoal-fueled
kilns in Strasburg and Middletown produced quicklime from
limestone in the Shenandoah Valley. It takes a lot of wood
to heat limestone to the high temperatures needed to produce
lime, and by the middle of the 20th century very little
forest remained on the slopes of North Mountain.
Frank Sherwood, left, talks with John
Hoffman at Hoffman's Tree Farm. |
John Hoffman.
| Today,
the kilns are still in business, but use gas as
fuel. The land cost only $2 an acre when John bought
his first 447-acre tract in 1950. He found the money
for his investment in a bonus he got when he left
the Navy. John figured land was always valuable and
could be made to produce the things a growing family
needed during hard times. His family's experience
during the Great Depression taught him to seek value
in real property. After that, John bought land when
he could and eventually accumulated almost 800
acres. The $2 an acre price is unbelievable today,
but we need to remember how remote the hills of
western Virginia were even quite recently. And, John
points out, the person he bought it from got it for
$1 an acre! Also, the road network was not well
developed. John knows more than most people about
roads-he worked on Virginia's roads as a surveyor.
The land then was very different from the beautiful
forest we see today on the flanks of the hills. The
less-than-wise use of the forest left many of the
hillsides bare and eroded. John established the
current forest on his land by planting timber stands
of loblolly pine, encouraging natural regeneration
of native hardwoods, and working to re-establish the
once and future king of the Appalachian forest,
American chestnuts. The chestnuts that once made up
a quarter of the forest in the Appalachians have
been absent for nearly a century after a fungus
introduced from Asia destroyed an estimated 3.5
billion trees in the early 20th century. John hopes
his trees will in their small way help restore the
chestnuts to their former glory and that some of
them will resist the blight. In restoring his
forest, John has worked with many consulting
foresters. |
The most recent is
Frank Sherwood, who nominated John Hoffman for the
Tree Farm honor. John has been an example to other
forest owners. He was selected as Shenandoah County
Tree Farmer of the Year in the mid-1980s and was
nominated for the Virginia Tree Farmer of the Year
in 1992. His property has been a certified Tree Farm
for 23 years and he has had a written plan for more
than three decades. John shares his forest with the
community, allowing Boy Scouts to camp on his land.
One scout even cut a trail as part of an Eagle Scout
project. In 1995, John and Bernice began the process
of granting land to the Commonwealth of Virginia to
be part of the state forest system. The
approximately 650 acres are the Devil's Backbone
Virginia State Forest. Hoffman's roots in the
Virginia soil are as deep as those of his trees. He
still lives in the area where his family settled in
the mid-1700s. His German ancestors followed the
fertile Virginia valleys down from Pennsylvania
along the wagon road that first became Route 11 and
is now Interstate 81. He loves the land here. A part
of his land that John plans to keep in the family is
his favorite place to walk, think about nature, and
look at the results of more than half a century of
his work. It is a 53-acre tract with a little spring
that trickles down the rocks into a small pool that
overlooks the land destined to become the new state
forest. That pool feeds a stream that eventually
flows into the Shenandoah River, the Potomac and
Chesapeake Bay. It illustrates how it all fits
together in our Commonwealth, our country, and our
world. John has been careful to protect this place,
as he has been a good steward of all his land for
more than 60 years. Forest owners, hikers, nature
lovers and just plain folks can learn from his
example. |
|
