Michael Spisak, of the U.S. Forest Service, demonstrates proper planting technique on this white pine sapling, prior to the groups setting out on their planting mission.

A cheerful babble of voices filled the Allegheny National Forest Thursday, April 24 as 107 children from two Kane and three Bradford area schools and 30 adult helpers planted trees within the Sugar Run project area. The event, sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service, in partnership with Allegheny Hardwoods Utilization Group, has been a longtime Earth Day tradition.

Wearing hard-hats, and carrying shovels, planting bars, and bags containing 50-60 tree saplings each, groups of four or fewer planted 1200 white pine and red oak trees on the 46-acre plot in about 90 minutes. The volunteers included forest service personnel, AHUG staff and workers from various area timber industry-related companies, and a crew of FCI McKean County prisoners that regularly does work in the forest.

Forest service leaders showed them how to dig holes with their planting bar and shovel, and then how to carefully place the small green white pine, and twig-like red oak saplings into them, with their roots below, and their root collars just at ground level. Then they were instructed to carefully fill the holes back in.

“It’s fun to plant trees because it’s mostly helping out the environment, and we’re going to have more new trees instead of dead trees,” said Mia Bush, a 4th grade student from Chestnut Street Elementary School. This particular group of girls had their adult helper doing most of the hole-digging work for them, but they did the planting.

“When you plant more trees, more animals can come, and you can cut down more trees to make more paper,” said Alexia Zuzek, another Chestnut St. forth grader.

“I thought we’d have to dig it with our hands,” Harley Jefferds added.

Some groups, especially those with all boys in it, did most of the digging themselves.

“It’s pretty fun. It’s a lot harder than I thought,” said Zachary Scholl, of Chestnut Street School. His friend Justin Westerburg agreed.

Justin said his uncle Scott works in the forest with his skidder. Looking around, he agreed that working in the forest seemed like a fun job.

“I thought it would be a little bit easier than what it was,” he said.

Rick Love, one of four volunteers from Domtar Paper Mill, was happily reliving memories of his youth, when he planted trees as a cub scout. The trees he planted then are still there, Love said. Love said he was pleased to help youngsters of today continue the tradition.

The 46-acre stand the forest service selected at Sugar Run is an unhealthy one, filled with dead, or dying trees due to some harmful insect infestations a decade ago, said Jason Rodrigue, a Silviculturist with the Bradford Ranger District. The forest service’s goal is to improve the forest stand by supplementing its regeneration with trees more resistant to insect scourges, and providing better habitat for wildlife.

“By increasing the diversity of the stand, we’re making it a healthier stand in the long run,” Rodrigue said.

Red Oak trees, an important source of food for a variety of wildlife, took the place of the American chestnut trees that once filled the forest, said Al Wetzel, a forest service wildlife biologist. White pine trees also used to be plentiful in the area, and had stood tall, creating shade for the animals and protecting them from the weather, he said.  When the newly planted undergrowth appears, it will help the next generation of wildlife, such as deer, bears, and a wide variety of bird species, Wetzel said. An active Goshawk nest sits just a few hundred yards away, he added.

Following a picnic lunch provided by AHUG volunteers,  David Morgan, a procurement forester with Temple Inland, spoke about the importance of the forest to provide local jobs for people such as loggers, sawmill or paper mill workers, and trucker drivers,

“How many times do we hear that it’s bad to cut down trees, -- that we’re not going to have any left?” Morgan asked. “It’s just not the case. Studies show that we’re growing many more trees than we’re cutting every year.”… “We just have to do it the right way.”

Before returning to their school busses, the students learned of the dangers of forest fires and wildfires occurring during the spring season. As of Earth Day, six accidental wildfires had already burned within the ANF Bradford and Marienville districts —all of them caused by humans, said forester Kurt Bowley. The largest ANF fire, April 18, burned 16 ½ acres off State Route 59, near the Bradford Ranger Station in Marshburg. Another recent wildfire burned 3,500 acres of state forest lands, Bowley said.