[Sca-cooks] Forest management (was ovens)

[MD Smith]

This brings up a question that has nagged at me for years. We moderns 
look at forests, woodlands and unkempt urban lots and see lots and lots 
of "dead and down" wood. Those of us who live in the West also see a 
catastrophic wildfire waiting to happen. But it took many, many years 
for those forests to get that way.

Here's the question: how much "dead and down" does a managed forest 
generate? If the pressure from the local population is constant, there 
should be very little. So it is up to the professional foresters to 
trim/thin the trees to maintain a constant supply of firewood while 
protecting the forest from wholesale destruction - yes? I seem to recall 
that there were penalties for ordinary folk cutting live wood. Bear?

MD/Marged
surrounded by BLM, National Forest and other public lands in the 
northern Outlands

Terry Decker wrote:
> It doesn't require a forester to collect downed limbs to make bundles of
> faggots to sell to the baker and it was common many of the feudal countries
> to allow the locals to collect downed wood for personal use or for sale thus
> reducing the fire danger to the more valuable standing wood.  I'm not sure
> of the Norman practice in this regard.