VARDAMAN VIRTUAL FORESTRY COMPANY

The Most Direct Link to Knowledge Workers in the Southeast Forest Economy

"HOW TO MAKE MONEY GROWING TREES"

We wrote the book on this subject. It was first published in 1965 and has since been updated and added to twice. The current edition is in its fifth printing, and continuing sales indicate that it is still the best source of information on all basic operations.

We began reporting on current events in the Green Sheet in 1974 and explaining new technology in the early 1980’s. All important articles are also posted on www.vardaman.com. We’ve written in detail about new developments, and every proposal made by JMV&CO managers on individual tracts is based on them.

From JMV&CO’s founding in 1951, our mission has been to help you earn high returns on invested capital in every way. In selling sawtimber, for one example, we must get the highest price, net to you. Therefore, we measure each tree, not a sample that is always subject to large errors, so that you know exactly what you are selling. We guarantee tree count by DBH classes so buyers know exactly what they are buying; we provide easy-to-read, accurate location and tract maps to help them examine it. We send more than 200 invitations to bid on each sale, and we list the sale on the Internet. In other words, we follow the example of the world’s greatest merchants in displaying the merchandise. If we can’t get more for your timber, net to you, we’ll do our work for nothing.

Back in 1951, with nothing but a diameter tape, an increment borer, and a volume table, it was easy to determine that natural stands of trees don’t grow fast enough to earn adequate returns on invested capital, and this is still true. Consequently, if you insist on natural-stand management, you may get a return in recreation and esthetics or beauty, but you can’t get it in money.

When you switch to plantation management to boost income, you must learn how to use high tech. All successful gardeners will tell you that you must do things right, and plantation forestry is just gardening on a large scale. Using dollar values from actual transactions wherever possible, we do our best in the Green Sheet to explain the processes. But the subject is not simple, and we can’t make it simple. You must do your share of the work needed to understand your investment. Every stock-market investor does this.

You’ll get a lot richer for several reasons. 1) The trees will grow so rapidly that their growth alone will produce 10+%. If you get price increases, they will add frosting to your cake. 2) You will know exactly when to thin and which trees to remove. You especially won’t apply one of today’s worst practices: removing every fifth row and leaving 70 square feet of basal area per acre. 3) After thinning, you can calculate quite accurately the volume of your crop and the sizes of your trees each November. This information will help you capture big premiums from temporary market opportunities. And you will become as fascinated with how the trees grow as we are.