Well, the dick manager was never our manager but an inspector from the people that contracted with us, either the forest service or a logging/paper company. I worked for a small company that bid on regional contracts from the forest service and major logging companies. As such, I saw all the major clear cut areas. Total devastation and erosion. And you've heard of Agent Orange I presume, the defoliant they used in Vietnam and that people protested against. That was a combination of 2,4-D, and 2,5,4-T, strong herbicides. They were spraying that shit in the Pacific Northwest through the mid 1980's to defoliate after logging and before replanting. I saw it listed in some of our contracts. So, as Americans were protesting this stuff in the 70's, it was being sprayed in the US and continued to be used long after it was used in Vietnam. There were marked rises in birth defects in the areas on the US NW where it was used.

While planting on these units, we had no choice but to drink from runoff, creeks and streams. God only knows how much of that shit I consumed.

Oddly, I have dreams about going back to planting trees regularly, like every few months. It's a really odd, unlikely, just... very unsettling job in the sense that when you do it, everything else in your life is totally disrupted. So, you're living in the boonies, camping out for much of the time... it's just something that does not fit with modern western life at all. But it's exhilarating. So after reading this posting of yours, I had yet another dream of going back to the unit to plant, thinking, shit, I wonder if the knee will hold out. Heavy duty memories there.

Given that much acreage, why don't you take, say, 3 acres and experiment? Or 5? That's enough to play with. We only have 4 1/2 acres in Florida, and I'd have plenty of land to goof around on given the chance. As it is, I'm stuck here if arctic northern Japan, so that Florida real estate isn't doing me much good, but oh well,