One of my dreams (in the category "if I were a billionaire") would be to buy some large piece of land and plant all sort of interesting trees to create a sort of fantasy forest.
As small agriculture consolidates and goes out of business, some wacky rich guys buy farms and turn them in legacy tree farms.
I grew up and went to school in a rural area of NY, one of my old friends maintains properties like this for clients as a side gig for his farm work. The area was selected to benefit from climate change.
In one case, just in terms of black walnut trees, when mature in 50-60 years, there is the equivalent of $10-12M (at todays prices) worth of timber for the owner’s descendants. The trust structure saves cash on taxes as well.
That plot is (measuring, mathing)... about 3 acres. https://www.profitableplantsdigest.com/growing-walnut-trees-... puts it at $100k/acre.
> For those with time and patience, a living legacy of walnut trees can be a priceless gift for children and grandchildren. According to professional timberland investors, the average return from a stand of walnut trees is 14 percent a year, with no taxes due until harvest. That beats returns on bonds, stocks and most other investments handily, and with intercropping, growers can even produce an income while the walnut trees continue to grow.
Even for normal people, some of these properties, especially defunct dairy farms are tragically cheap and not too polluted. My dad bought one for hunting and fishing purposes when he retired and made a modest income by leasing the land for hay. Not much, but enough to pay the taxes.
Also the reason for more monocultural forests like that is because the soil is high quality. If you had really low quality soil (like in the Amazon) you would have developed a lot more biodiversity
Here in Michigan the species diversity of our forests has been declining due to disease. Elm, and now Ash and Beech have all been dramatically impacted by imported diseases.
That's the thing, I'm not in NA, so pretty much any hardwoods available here are "exotic" imports.
"Identifying wood is not easy for a number of reasons. First, there are hundreds of different species of trees in North America. Second, the wood of many species looks very similar, if not identical."
I have worked an "exotic" lumber dealer that can definitely offer different species and grades of wood from all over the world -- including CITES (endangered species list) lumber with the proper certificates. But their customers are typically woodworkers that want a specific species for a specific look. So it's usually cabinet and furniture makers etc.
I have also worked at a "discount" industrial lumber distributer. They are selling wood to be made into pallets or used at a construction site for bracing. In those cases, the hardwood species are a lot less important. The customer just needs something much stronger than the standard SPF.
It's a fascinating industry. I learned a lot working that job -- even tho I was just implement their ERP systems.