English Spar Tree & “spar” Farmers chopped, burnt, and logged when necessary. Ed English (living in Mt. Vernon) and his English Logging Company (and the Hamilton Lumber Co) denuded the plateau of its large trees. A few farmers kept their “old growth,” but over time all faced inheritance taxes and hard times. Imagine an estate tax bill where timber was valued at $100,000 and land/houses were valued at $100,000 and the estate tax was 50% – 70%. Inadvertently, a major reason why all the Pacific Rim’s large trees, that can live 1,000s of years, are gone from the farms that tried to save them is the U.S. Death/Estate Tax.  This was Heaven to Pioneers who believed in hard work and individual salvation in Christ, lived under English law where property rights mattered, and an individual was sovereign – a concept enhanced by America’s equal rights and opportunities granted in the Constitution.  The contrary to these individual rights are those bestowed by tribal affiliations that reflect origin, race, gender, religion and/or other group favoritisms.  Our ancestors came here to be freeborn as common brothers and sisters.  The Farm is a tribute to these peoples, their beliefs, the tribal cultures and living styles abandoned, and a celebration of their treating others and this Earth with care and respect.  This Farm and Gardens pass on their belief that our “ultimate responsibility is the World we leave for the next generation.”  That said, pictured is a “spar tree” that allowed the Northwest to be 100% logged off (wherever men could carry a chain).  How foreign to the Native Americans who did not believe homo sapiens owned water or the air or the wind … or the land and its trees.  The latter belonged to all.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Logging_crew_and_donkey_engine,_English_Lumber_Company_camp_no_5,_ca_1917_(KINSEY_153).jpeg
https://dp.la/item/4fe032b6638f085580c36b16f9c429f9
https://www.instagram.com/p/CvsZqRzpfwu/
http://www.skagitriverjournal.com/WestCounty/MV/Pioneers/Pre1900/English4-BioSpragg.html

The reason why large trees saved on private farms and homesteads were finally harvested is the:

Greed of Homesteader’s Children
The fear of tall trees falling on houses
Death Estate Tax

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