Interesting and informative book about Wisconsin’s old growth forests (or what’s left of them). Did you know that white pines sometimes live 500 years, hemlocks 600 years, and white cedars 1,200 years?

“An appreciation of old-growth…requires a sea-change, a new vision, from seeing the world through an agricultural model to understanding it within an ecological model. The clean cornrow has no analogous relationship to the natural world, nor does the urban park with Kentucky blue grass and scattered tall trees inscribed with hearts and initials. Forest ecosystems can’t be assembled and disassembled like a Lego set, nor be treated like a garden row of carrots to be thinned and weeded.”

About hemlocks. About an old-growth forest near Minocqua.