Timberati

Why was old growth liquidated by timber companies?

Alston Chase’s 1995 book, In A Dark Wood, chronicles the clash over the last century between forest productionists and forest preservationists. He wrote about the strategy of removing decadent timber from timberlands, owned by timber companies or the government (though not from parks), to make way for young trees:

[Private companies] sought to convert old, uneven-aged stands to younger, even-aged ones [...]