Stumps and tree tops are of little interest to most, I think, but foresters look at them and pay attention to them. Stumps show you the recent history of timber, information that we need when figuring out what has gone on, and how to plan for the future. Here's one little bit. Trees in the red oak group decay much faster than trees in the white oak group. This stump is a black oak, cut nine years ago. It looks about the same as a white oak stump would look after thirty-five or forty years. The annual rings in stumps will show you how fast your timber is able to grow on a site, too, and you can see in those rings when disturbances happened in the past. Foresters are easily amused.
