I like your post - and the comments thus far are though provoking. In the last 4 years - I've become facinated with trees. Like "Why do Beech grow here but no oaks" or "how come we have good stands of hemlock, but no cedars or spruce"?

In building our cabin on a 20 acre fallow field - I have like a BLANK SLATE upon which to ponder - and I often do. I've planted several species of pines, spruce, oaks, birch, apples, and transplanted sugar maples. I've let other sections grow wild. and I've planted food plots for deer.

My goal is to bring in some local woods - that we lack (like oak, birch, and hickory) and also to set up a 2 acre "orchard" section in front of the cabin with apples, plum, pears, grapes, various berries and a 30-40 tree sugarbush on the high spot above the cabin. I imagine the day when my grandchildren's kids pick the apples and talk about hunting coming up in the old cabin that was built many, many years ago on the property.

Our property is not that large (My dad's 90acres and his brother's 90 acres) - I hope to never reduce it less than a 90 acre parcel - I have a 50 year plan for the property - and I hope I make it till then- I'm 4 years into the program and I'm 36 now. The land has been in our family since 1829 - and though the old farmhouse burnt in the 1940s - the legacy of the land is still all around me.

Too often, I think people take for granted what is before our eyes. Some people have the best properties going - but don't even recognize the fact, others wouldn't know a good one from a bad one - take Woodust's advice -
STOP - look around and spend real time understanding/considering your surroundings - I've had alot of fun learning about trees this year. If nothing else - when you are out hunting, take the time to notice something interesting - and learn all you can about it.