In the 100 Billion dollar per year timber industry, a small woodlot can seem pretty insignificant, but a Spring Green Wisconsin family has developed a profitable niche that sets an example to thousands of other private forest owners.  Timbergreen Farm produces high quality kiln dry lumber and hardwood flooring from their own forest, that is now in use all across the continent.

University Professor Bill Birkemeier heard of a 300 acre farm that might be for sale while sitting in the dentist chair, 25 years ago.  Between scraping and suctioning, Dr. Wiley told him that their friendly local M.D. had a farm, but was too busy to ever get out of town to enjoy it.  Bill had always dreamed of owning some land and shortly, he and his wife Helen were the proud owners of an out of business dairy farm an hour West of Madison. 

Early attempts at farming and cattle ranching provided the family with new experiences, but little income.  Their son, Jim, who was just entering college, took an interest in the forests and graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Madison school of forestry four years later.  He immediately began a business as a consulting forester, working with other forest owners in the area.

All the good timber had been cut from this land back in 1948, leaving the poor quality trees to take over the steep hillsides.  Heavy grazing and occasional burning stunted the growth of good young trees while allowing a multitude of prickly ash and other pests to become well established throughout the forest.  An initial inventory of the forest showed a volume of 350,000 board feet of low quality trees worth about $14,000 growing on 200 acres of woods in 1973.

Over the late 1970s and early 1980s, several timber stand improvement thinnings were completed along with one harvest of red oak logs that were sold to a big sawmill.  Many good oak trees were dying of oak wilt, so Jim began cutting them each year and hauling the logs in the old Ford pick-up truck to a small sawmill in Mazomanie.  A crude (but effective) solar kiln was constructed by remodeling an old greenhouse to dry the wood.  Lumber that was produced was converted into new kitchen cabinets, tables, and trim for the addition on the farmhouse.  Excess boards were sold, earning some income for their efforts. 

Initial success with producing lumber spurred Bill and Jim to search for a sawmill for the farm.  A "sawmill wanted" ad in the paper yielded dozens of calls, revealing an old abandoned sawmill in about every valley in the territory.  A search located an operating huge old portable circular sawmill, with an ancient 100HP Budda diesel engine the size of a small house, for $4,000.  They decided that was the best deal around on Friday afternoon after the week long hunt.  Monday morning, Bill told Jim that he and Mom had decided to buy a brand new Wood-mizer Bandsaw mill instead of the old wood monster previously agreed upon.  "Just when you think you're starting to know your parents, they go and do something completely opposite of what you expect," said Jim that day. 

next page