A Lesson in Turning Forest Timber Into Assets

A year and a half ago, UConn Professor Tom Worthley and three of his students conducted a study of the manageable assets at Crescent Lake for the Southington Open Space committee. Among three issues found, one was an overgrowth of maple trees causing a decline in an already small population of ash trees at the woodland park.

Now Crescent Lake has gotten a bit of a makeover, thank in part to a free course offered by Worthley that turned the overgrowth into more than 200 feet of timber asset for the Southington High School Vo-Ag program on Tuesday.

“The idea is to teach these students how to extract value from the land,” he said. “Some of these students may be future private woodland owners or foresters and these are skills that you learn a lot more with hands-on opportunities.”

Dressed in hardhats and boots, ready to learn the ropes on foresting, students took part in the outdoor course in creating an on-site saw mill.

Together with Worthley, a trained and certified extension forester who does work on campus for UConn, the students learned how to fell trees and turn an ugly looking stump into a beautiful set of timber logs – and all while helping the forest and protecting ash trees in the process.

The service was offered free of charge and done in partnership with teachers at the Vo-Ag Center, said Southington Town Council member and Open Space Committee member Dawn Miceli.

“This is a great initiative that the Open Space and Land Acquisition Committee is undertaking,” Miceli said. “Future plans include a town-wide milling demonstration to get other volunteers to help with the process - again, in order to yield lumber for the community's various needs.”

The groups used a transportable saw mill to conduct the work, and town residents will soon have the opportunity to learn more as well, Worthley said.

“It’s a great opportunity and we are happy to be working with the town. They’ve taken a proactive approach and that’s the first step,” he said.

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