🚀 go-pugleaf

Last year I sold some timber to a company in Covington,Ga. and I was not
very pleased with the the way they left my place looking. It looked like
their skidders were driven by a bunch of blind monkeys.
 Recently I needed to sell some timber on small (40 acre) tract to cover
some unexpected medical expenses. I sent out about 10 letters to timber
buyers in my area, 2 came out to look at it and made offers. The first
offer was way low, the second was a good offer but for some reason they
got hesitant and decided to back out of the deal. At the time I thought
maybe they had made a mistake and over bid but they just didn't want to
say so.
 It was just as well because I ended up selling it to Canal Wood Corp.
and I was extremely pleased with there work. I sold it to them by the
ton and it ended up bringing more money than either of the two earlier
bidders. Eddie Cardell, the manager from their Forsyth,GA office was out
here everyday making sure everything was done right and checking in with
me. I spent a lot of time with him walking the woods and asking
questions about forestry practices, log grading, getting advice on 
future improvement of my timber and just learning all I could  about the
timber business ( I'm new at this, my wife and I inherited the land from
her grandfather a couple of years ago). 
I was also very impressed by the guy they had operating their cutter,  I
had asked them to thin the pine and take gum, poplar and other
palletwood trees but to leave all the oaks and hickories ( I lease the
land to hunters and wanted to leave lots of deer and turkey food). I
watched the cutter operator(Albert) working everyday and he really has a
talent for running that giant machine. Instead of bumbling around like a
bull in a china shop as I've seen some do, he cut nice neat paths into
each area and then worked off the sides of the path to cut,and tried to
keep the skidders just on the main path  to minimize the damage they
did.
 I was so pleased with they way that tract ended up looking that I
decided to have Eddie look at our main tract which is about 115 acres.
This was the tract that had been partially butchered by the other guys
last year. I ended up letting them thin that as well, and was very
pleased by the money I got on it as well as how it looked. Our land had
not really been managed properly by my wifes grandfather , but now I
feel like it's in good shape to grow some better quality pine .
 I was a little hesitant to sell by the ton, because I know that you can
get taken  that way, but I was at home most of the time so I kept my own
tally of the truckloads going out and they matched up with the scale
tickets I was receiving.
 So I guess my advice to others is don't make money the only
consideration, find a buyer who is willing to take the time to
understand what you want to do with your land, who takes pride in there
work and who is willing to share their knowledge in order to make you a
better timber grower. 
Mike
Mike and Lorri Robinson	
Monticello, GA

Scratchbottom Shires: http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Forest/4242/
The Robinson Homestead: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pointe/1915/