Errand Boy, pages 215-216: “1962 … began to see that we had to develop herbicides that could be sprayed on our plantations … we finally learned that early in the spring, when the leaves were just barely out … was the best time … we had to spray again at about age seven or eight years … the spacing problem was very interesting, we finally settled on ten by ten, and that’s where we still are today.“ Feel free to correct the math that follows:
1) The use of herbicides in northwestern forests is recent, beginning in 1962: this was then
leading research, conducted 1/2 mile from the History Farm here in Stanwood, Washington.
2) An average 1/3rd greater forestry yield occurs with the use of herbicides; clear-cutting is their partner in profitability.
3) A 50’ Douglas Fir, growing at 2’/year, sets a 25-year harvesting cycle with sprays in ’62, ’69, ’87, ’94, ’19, ’22 – that’s 6 sprays since 1962 on any section, a mile square: 528 trees x 528 = 275,000 trees or 435 trees/acre; now the 3rd generation of trees to be logged-off in 2035.
4) At $2,000/tree (50 thousand board feet) that’s ~million dollars/acre.
5) Washington’s 22 million forested acres, Oregon’s 30 million, Northern California’s 17 million, and Vancouver Island’s 6 million = 75 million acres (British Columbia has, in total, two times this) … that’s a value of $75 trillion and a 33% increase in value is $25 trillion
6) To spray all at $50/acre would require $3.75 billion for a $6,000 return for every $1.00 spent.
Again, we have no issue with private wheat, strawberry, or tree farms. We only ask why publicly owned Federal and State plantations are the most heavily sprayed, the least biodiverse? Why 888 of Cascadia’s Region Floristic Region’s 905 native plant species’ doom occurs on lands owned by the people? If one was told that spraying would produce unbelievable riches, would a person not spray? Have you walked the shores of Hood Canal lately, so much like Israel’s Dead Sea? Is it not fitting that Puget Sound (proper) is first dying at the southern end of its estuary? No question or argument can overwhelm the additional profits for so little expenditure. All since 1962, winds ever-drifting, killing the food at the bottom of native species’ food chains, on land and in the sea.
https://www.epa.gov/caddis-vol2/herbicides
https://www.amazon.com/Recollections-Civic…/dp/0295983647
https://blog.ncascades.org/…/spraying-in-north…/
http://www.plc215.org/…/2020/01/Herbacides-Pesticides.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/…/pii/S0272771422002803
https://www.theguardian.com/…/epa-pesticide-toxic-seeds…
https://www.forbes.com/…/sixty-four-new-chemicals…/…
History Farm Prose & Primary Level Question
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