This is all very interesting to me. I constantly wonder “what this land looked like 100 years ago.” However I’m surprised to see that much of the land I’ve hunted on seems to be pretty consistent with the ecoregion descriptions.
The spot I’ve hunted most of my life has been owned by a hardwood timber company. The surrounding soil region grows cherrybark and other red oak varieties exceptionally well and this company owned hundreds of thousands of similar bluff country and adjacent bottomland hardwoodlands for decades. I believe (but don’t really know for sure) that much of the bluff land where we hunt was actually cleared for farming 100 years ago. I’d love to know if that was true.
Anyway, our leased land seems to have been managed really well. They come in about every 10 years and cut older age class trees and leave a good crop. Best I can tell, it could use some TSI to rid it of a high hornbeam component that, I believe, will one day impact oak regeneration if left unchecked. I’d venture to guess that they harvest on the order of $1k/ac of timber at each thinning. It is productive timberland.
This land is in a soil region that is highly highly erodible. When the Corps of Engineers started hastening MS River flow to thwart silting, it caused tremendous head cutting along tributaries of the lower MS River. You can see where lazy hollows and streams once existed, the middle of which is now home to a 80-ft deep canyon. At its start the canyon is a mere ditch that inches its way up the holler about 10-20 ft per year. This phenomenon is depressing, as it can not be undone in the way that poor timber, vegetation management can be.
I guess you take the good with the bad.
The land I own is in an adjacent ecoregion, known for slightly lesser soil quality and timber production. There pine plantations are more common because, well, it doesn’t grow high quality hardwoods quite so good. I’m more certain my land was once open farmland. Again, though, the species makeup is pretty consistent with the ecoregion description.
I even surmise that the timber industry in this area has caused the timber quality to improve over what the first settlers found. The oldest, largest crowned oaks on these places do not make a valuable log. The ecoregion description mentions beech and magnolia as having been common in certain old growth areas. Forests dominated by these species today are considered overmature, unmanaged, and generally less conducive to wildlife.