[AT] Fwd: Re: Test

charlie hill charliehill at embarqmail.com
Wed Dec 9 20:19:43 PST 2015


Follow up on Hoffman forest.
Here is google maps for Hoffman.
What you see in those cuts is plantation pine, not farmland.
Some of it is farmland but most is trees.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hofmann+Forest/@34.9392194,-77.4474963,20588m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x89a91789dbcb7bef:0x1fcabf2324adff2e!6m1!1e1

-----Original Message----- 
From: charlie hill
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2015 10:55 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] Fwd: Re: Test

There are a few farms of that size in coastal NC but they are indeed few and
far between.  That particular cut was wood lands that actually belonged to
a fellow I knew until it was bought and cleared by investors about .. hmmm..
I guess maybe 40 years ago.   The current owners are Italian but the one
family member that runs the farm has been here long enough to get his
citizenship and they have American born children that are probably about
grown
by now.

Up to the north of that farm about 100 miles as the crow flies there is a
tract of
land that covers parts of about 4 counties that was cleared into farm land
at about the
same time.  It was bought and cleared by Malcolm McClain.  McClain was the
guy that
owned McClain trucking out of Charlotte and he was the guy that invented
containerized
shipping, so called ConEx or Land Sea containers.  When he sold out in the
early 70's he
had to do something to limit his tax liability so he bought all of that land
that is highly organic
and acid and grew only scrub pines and bushes.  He bought 500 Cat dozers in
one order!
The order was split between two salesmen, one from S/E Virginia and the
other was a guy
I knew here in New Bern and who’s son I still know.   The commission was
enough that the
guy from New Bern was able to retire from it and what he had already
accumulated.
In the mid 70's I hauled lime out there for that farm.  It was at the time
called First Colony Farm.
It has now been sold off to smaller but still large farmers.  The initial
land they cleared
was also in the 35 to 40,000 acre range.   The land was so acid that they
were putting as much
as 8 tons per acre of lime on the cut over and KG'd timber land just to get
the PH up to where the
roots would start to rot.  I hauled a lot of that lime myself in a Brockway
road tractor with a 22' Ravens dump trailer.
There was probably 25 or more dump trucks hauling lime to that farm 6 days a
week for 5 years or more.
We hauled lime from as far as 200 miles away.  We spent a lot of time stuck
and tore up a lot of equipment.
They had specially prepared motor graders with smaller diameter and very
wide drive wheels just to pull us out
when the farm roads collapsed under us.  If we got stuck in the field it
took dozers and sometimes shovels and sometimes
excavators and men with shovels to get us out.  It was Calcite lime.  That
is basically just rock fines from limestone
deposits.  It was completely unprocessed, just dug up, screened and hauled.
For several years they limed it, planted corn in it with no intent of
harvesting it just to try and get the land in shape.  It is now beautiful
farm land but it took a
multi-millionaires fortune to make it so.  Maybe you can see it on this
link:
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.6626088,-76.4616949,81623m/data=!3m1!1e3

There is another tract of timber land that belongs to NC State University
that is less than 40 miles from
me that is in that size range.  NC State wants to sell it and a family farm
corp out of Iowa was going to
buy it, clear and farm it but the environmentalist raised so much hell that
both parties backed out
of the deal.  That was last year.  Here is a link to an NC State web page
about it. https://news.ncsu.edu/2013/01/hofmann/
Personally I think it would be environmentally positive to sell it.  The
buyers were going to clear and farm some of it,
replant some of it in plantation pine as a lot of it already is and develop
a small portion of it that borders
the town of Jacksonville.  Jacksonville needs room to grow.  NC State wants
to sell it so they can use the money
for research and we all need to eat but the rabid environmentalist threw a
fit.  This is not too far from where Al Jones
lives or I guess about half way between Al and me.

Here is another pretty big cut up near Elizabeth City NC, about 40 miles as
the crow flies and across a big river
from First Colony.
https://www.google.com/maps/@36.3082908,-76.430065,20425m/data=!3m1!1e3

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Thomas O Mehrkam
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2015 7:54 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] Fwd: Re: Test

I measured 38,000 acres or about 60 sq miles.

About right.  I lease a hunting property that is over 20,000 acres.
That is a nice size.

On 12/9/2015 6:26 PM, Dean VP wrote:
> Charlkie,
>
> Wow, is that 35,000 acres all one farm? Owned by one company?  That is
> Montana, Wyoming type acreage.
> What is grown there?
>
> Dean VP
> Snohomish, WA
>
> If we can employ guards with guns to protect money, we can and should
> employ guards with guns to
> protect people. Bernard Goldberg.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
> [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of
> charlie hill
> Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2015 1:57 PM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] Fwd: Re: Test
>
> Dean about 40 miles from me is a 35,000 acre farm that is as flat as
> a pancake, literally.   The elevation of the fields is between 6 and 9
> feet
> above sea level and the water in the ditches is mere inches above sea
> level
> depending on how they have the flood gates set.
>
> Here it is in Google maps:
> https://www.google.com/maps/@34.8429444,-76.5627101,20397m/data=!3m1!1e3
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dean VP
> Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2015 4:01 PM
> To: 'Antique tractor email discussion group'
> Subject: Re: [AT] Fwd: Re: Test
>
> Charlie,
>
> Out west in NW WA where we have real mountains 1000's of feet high
> surrounding lush farmlands those
> 30' hills would be considered gopher mounds!  :-)  In NW  IA, the farm
> land
> was called gently rolling.
> I suspect the difference from high to low was quite small too. East of us
> about 30 miles there was a
> large farming area that was flat as a pancake which caused real problems
> whenever they had heavy
> rains.  Whenever we had heavy rains by us it drained away quite well but
> without a lot of soil loss.
> Contour farming became quite popular in the late 50's.
> .
>
> Dean VP
> Snohomish, WA
>
> If we can employ guards with guns to protect money, we can and should
> employ
> guards with guns to
> protect people. Bernard Goldberg.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
> [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of
> charlie hill
> Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2015 4:44 AM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] Fwd: Re: Test
>
> Ralph, the county I live in here in coastal NC has a maximum elevation of
> about 55 feet above sea level and that is the
> top of the mound at the regional land fill.   My house is on one of the
> highest hills in the county and it is about 23' above
> sea level!  We do have some hills but as you can tell none of them are
> over
> about 30 feet high!
>
> Charlie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ralph Goff
> Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2015 8:52 PM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: [AT] Fwd: Re: Test
>
>
>
>
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> Subject: Re: [AT] Test
> Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2015 19:36:57 -0600
> From: Ralph Goff <alfg at sasktel.net>
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
>
>
> Tried sending this yesterday but the photo is too many kb even though it
> is quite small.
> So here is the message minus the photo.
>
> Ralph in Sask.
>
> On 12/7/2015 2:21 PM, pga2 at basicisp.net wrote:
>> Man, that looks a lot like the Texas panhandle near Amarillo.
>> It's so flat out there that if you stand on a pennt, you can
>> see Dallas! :o)
>>
>> Phil in TX
> I don't think so Phil. I took a look on google earth at the area around
> Amarillo
> and hopefully won't insult anybody when I say it looks dead flat and
> boring.
> Nothing at all like my part of Sask. in the parklands. If you have
> google earth
> just search out Mcdonald Hills , Sask. I will admit it does look a
> little flatter
> than real life. I farm some land there and it definitely has it's ups
> and downs.
> Here is a picture from last summer of another of my antiques. Its
> a driver.
>
> Ralph in Sask.
>
>
>
>
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