So, I found this big ol' tree out back.

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Kenster

Kenster

Minister of Fire
Jan 10, 2010
1,705
Texas- West of Houston
I was out tramping my 3.5 acre woods the other day, getting off my trails and making my way into the interior where I have rarely gone before due to thick scrub, thorny vines, lots of yaupon, etc all making it very difficult to walk around. Suddenly, I came upon this huge Cedar tree.
I estimate it to be at least 60 feet tall. My fingers barely touch if I wrap my arms around it. It's a beautiful tree with a very straight trunk. I guess it would be worth some money but they would make a mess of my woods taking it out. This is by far the largest of the 50 or so cedars back there but that's only a small percentage of the trees which are mostly oak and hickory. I just found it to be a great surprise to find this big tree right in my own backyard, undiscovered in the five years we've lived here.

cedar1-1.jpg
 
Chainsaw mill can be carried in!
 
[quote author="Kenster"



Kenster, that is the biggest cedar I ever saw.



Zap
 
smokinjay said:
Chainsaw mill can be carried in!
Click to expand...

You read my mind!! That's even bigger diameter than the 3 loads of cedar on the curb barely 5 blocks from home I grabbed in Nov 07. :coolsmirk:
 
Chunk it up for the shingle mills if you can't get saw logs out.
Will
 
Thistle said:
smokinjay said:
Chainsaw mill can be carried in!
Click to expand...

You read my mind!! That's even bigger diameter than the 3 loads of cedar on the curb barely 5 blocks from home I grabbed in Nov 07. :coolsmirk:
Click to expand...

Couple days and we would eat that elephant.
 
smokinjay said:
Thistle said:
smokinjay said:
Chainsaw mill can be carried in!
Click to expand...

You read my mind!! That's even bigger diameter than the 3 loads of cedar on the curb barely 5 blocks from home I grabbed in Nov 07. :coolsmirk:
Click to expand...

Couple days and we would eat that elephant.
Click to expand...
That stuff's beautiful in large dimension,dont see it much anymore,least not around here too often.Most trees I see even in semi-remote or hilly/rough terrain are rarely over 10"-12" diameter. I lucked out with that big ol' "yard tree".Something must've told me to take that other route home from work that afternoon. ;-)
 
Thats a beauty! Most of my big ones have ants in them. Its great to see one that tall.

Billy
 
Nice tree. For as much wood as I cut, there are trees I won't cut. That would be one I'd leave alone. That healthy it probably the source of a lot of trees around it too. IMHO.
 
Adios Pantalones said:
Beautiful. If it was on my property, I'd leave it. The value of a tree is usually not realized by cutting it, IMO.
Click to expand...

Its all a lifecycle and hopefully it will live forever in one form or another. I see both sides but even trees cant live forever, or can they?
 
I see both sides but even trees cant live forever, or can they?
Click to expand...

It was many years ago and the details are foggy but I once read an interesting article about Bristlecone pines and how they have the ability to regenerate cells. Natural disasters aside it seems they could live indefinitely.
 
Kenster said:
I was out tramping my 3.5 acre woods the other day, getting off my trails and making my way into the interior where I have rarely gone before due to thick scrub, thorny vines, lots of yaupon, etc all making it very difficult to walk around. Suddenly, I came upon this huge Cedar tree.
I estimate it to be at least 60 feet tall. My fingers barely touch if I wrap my arms around it. It's a beautiful tree with a very straight trunk. I guess it would be worth some money but they would make a mess of my woods taking it out. This is by far the largest of the 50 or so cedars back there but that's only a small percentage of the trees which are mostly oak and hickory. I just found it to be a great surprise to find this big tree right in my own backyard, undiscovered in the five years we've lived here.
Click to expand...

You don't have to tear up the woods to get logs out.

Haulinglogs2.jpg


Dray-1.jpg
 
smokinjay said:
Adios Pantalones said:
Beautiful. If it was on my property, I'd leave it. The value of a tree is usually not realized by cutting it, IMO.
Click to expand...

Its all a lifecycle and hopefully it will live forever in one form or another. I see both sides but even trees cant live forever, or can they?
Click to expand...

If it's huge and healthy and producing offspring- hopefully they will carry some of those healthy genes. It's more valuable producing younguns. Plus- I just like trees as trees.
 
I'd leave it there. There must be plenty of smaller, misshapen, crowded, or damaged trees you could cut. I think that tree will have a lot of knots in the wood.
 
here is a log scale to give you an idea how they measure Softwood logs for milling value.
http://www.ont-woodlot-assoc.org/sw_ontlogrule.html

I used to do quite a bit of White Cedar cutting in my 20's and I personally would take it if it was in a block of trees to be harvested. There is probably about 250'-300' bf in that tree. These days Cedar logs in the yard are worth $400./per thousand. So you have after all your labour and trucking about $150.00 worth of marketable tree. But from your pic, the tree appears to be sorta solitary and remote. Also I would be willing to bet that the heart in that big old tree is black and rotting, so you are losing a lot of trunk log and bf' there. Cedar dies/rots from the inside out, thats the bad thing, the good thing is it takes along time. That big old boy looks plenty healthy and as has been stated, it probably still seeding out. So I would leave it.
I saw a tri axle load last fall of big Cedar logs like that in a local Logyard. They had come from Manitoulin Island. The Logyard owner was just going to mulch the whole triaxle load!! Can you imagine that. More money in Mulch per bag for your flower garden than in usable lumber after all the time and labour/equipment were factored in.
Leave it, and enjoy it.
 
mainstation said:
here is a log scale to give you an idea how they measure Softwood logs for milling value.
http://www.ont-woodlot-assoc.org/sw_ontlogrule.html

I used to do quite a bit of White Cedar cutting in my 20's and I personally would take it if it was in a block of trees to be harvested. There is probably about 250'-300' bf in that tree. These days Cedar logs in the yard are worth $400./per thousand. So you have after all your labour and trucking about $150.00 worth of marketable tree. But from your pic, the tree appears to be sorta solitary and remote. Also I would be willing to bet that the heart in that big old tree is black and rotting, so you are losing a lot of trunk log and bf' there. Cedar dies/rots from the inside out, thats the bad thing, the good thing is it takes along time. That big old boy looks plenty healthy and as has been stated, it probably still seeding out. So I would leave it.
I saw a tri axle load last fall of big Cedar logs like that in a local Logyard. They had come from Manitoulin Island. The Logyard owner was just going to mulch the whole triaxle load!! Can you imagine that. More money in Mulch per bag for your flower garden than in usable lumber after all the time and labour/equipment were factored in.
Leave it, and enjoy it.
Click to expand...

I would est that tree well over 1000bf That tree is way off that chart! Big 3 inch slabs all day long (ok 2 days) 25 foot long. Belly up to that Bar. Wow That would be worth 1000.00 a board.
 
You could get board out of those limbs...

I just spent a lot o money on 6x6 cedar post. that would make a bunch of um.
 
mecreature said:
You could get board out of those limbs...

I just spent a lot o money on 6x6 cedar post. that would make a bunch of um.
Click to expand...

I wasnt even counting them....lol thats a MONSTER!
 
Thanks for all the comments. I really have no intention, or need, of cutting that tree down. I don't even cut down living hickory and oaks and I have hundreds of them out there. As far as sledding out the logs with a four wheeler - I would have to do some major trail cutting back there to access it even with small ATV. I think I'll just leave the tree and it's surroundings in their natural state. Just wanted to share my delight and surprise at finding that thing. It's probably 50 to 100 feet away from any trail I've cut back there. To not be able to see that giant should give you an idea of how thick those woods are.
 
mecreature said:
You could get board out of those limbs....
Click to expand...
No you couldn't. You wouldn't get a single usable board outta a limb from a White Cedar tree. Lots of great kindling though.

Your 6x6's were costly, I don't doubt it but they also had touched probably 4 sets of hands before they got to yours, Each set of hands taking a bit of profit and adding cost to the final product..
Is there alot of 6x6's in that tree, sure, no doubt about it but does the OP have the equipment/time/labor/mil/knowledge to turn those logs into lumber.
 
mainstation said:
mecreature said:
You could get board out of those limbs....
Click to expand...
No you couldn't. You wouldn't get a single usable board outta a limb from a White Cedar tree. Lots of great kindling though.

Your 6x6's were costly, I don't doubt it but they also had touched probably 4 sets of hands before they got to yours, Each set of hands taking a bit of profit and adding cost to the final product..
Is there alot of 6x6's in that tree, sure, no doubt about it but does the OP have the equipment/time/labor/mil/knowledge to turn those logs into lumber.
Click to expand...

Just dreaming of the next big project......ONE NICE TREE TO DREAM ABOUT!
 
mecreature said:
Is there alot of 6x6's in that tree, sure, no doubt about it but does the OP have the equipment/time/labor/mil/knowledge to turn those logs into lumber.
Click to expand...

Nope! Nor does he have the desire or need to do so. But it's fun speculating about it.
 
smokinjay said:
mainstation said:
here is a log scale to give you an idea how they measure Softwood logs for milling value.
http://www.ont-woodlot-assoc.org/sw_ontlogrule.html

I used to do quite a bit of White Cedar cutting in my 20's and I personally would take it if it was in a block of trees to be harvested. There is probably about 250'-300' bf in that tree. These days Cedar logs in the yard are worth $400./per thousand. So you have after all your labour and trucking about $150.00 worth of marketable tree. But from your pic, the tree appears to be sorta solitary and remote. Also I would be willing to bet that the heart in that big old tree is black and rotting, so you are losing a lot of trunk log and bf' there. Cedar dies/rots from the inside out, thats the bad thing, the good thing is it takes along time. That big old boy looks plenty healthy and as has been stated, it probably still seeding out. So I would leave it.
I saw a tri axle load last fall of big Cedar logs like that in a local Logyard. They had come from Manitoulin Island. The Logyard owner was just going to mulch the whole triaxle load!! Can you imagine that. More money in Mulch per bag for your flower garden than in usable lumber after all the time and labour/equipment were factored in.
Leave it, and enjoy it.
Click to expand...

I would est that tree well over 1000bf That tree is way off that chart! Big 3 inch slabs all day long (ok 2 days) 25 foot long. Belly up to that Bar. Wow That would be worth 1000.00 a board.
Click to expand...


You need a market for your product. Do the math according to that scale. I might have off on the 300bf, but there is no way that tree has over a 1,000bf in it. Not anyday.
If you can get $1,000. per board for White Cedar I'll eat my Husqvarna hat, we're not talking Birdseye Maple after all.
 
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