Vermont History & Sustainability

There are virtually no old-growth forests left in Vermont. The state was heavily logged in the 1800s and the floods that followed later in the century didn't just wipe out the water-powered mills that processed the timber, they taught a hard lesson about laying entire mountainsides bare. While Vermonters have a reputation for being stubborn. We'd also like to think we're pretty good at learning from experience. 

After years of logging and floods in the early 1900s, Vermont was just 20% forested by the early 1900s. Over time, as dairy farms consolidated and let go of their steeper, less productive hillside fields, trees repopulated the land. Today, Vermont is roughly 80% forested, with a working balance between how fast the forest grows and how much gets harvested.

80%/20%

We built our business with the health of Vermont forests in mid, and we are committed to continuing that effort at Maple Landmark and across our family of brands. Here's how we think about it.

Most of the wood that grows isn't premium material as it's filled with knots, mineral streaks, and other character marks that keep it out of fine furniture. Because we make small items, we can cut around those defects and put that wood to good use. This takes pressure off the demand for rarer, high-grade lumber.

Wood moves through a hierarchy of use: the best logs go to veneer mills, the next best become sawlogs that are milled into lumber, and afterwards, that lumber is graded. Top grades for furniture, middle grades (the ones with a few defects to cut around) for us, and lower grades for pallets and industrial use.

Even the chips and branches get sold for biomass heat. We take the largest cuts first and work our way down to the smallest pieces from what's left. Nothing goes to waste that doesn't have to.

For as long as we've been in business, we've bought the majority of our lumber from local mills, typically owned by our neighbors. These family-owned, multi-generational operations steward their own woodlands and work with responsible loggers for wood harvesting elsewhere. Just as we're careful to fully use the wood we buy, they're careful about how it's harvested in the first place.

Some companies advertise that they replant trees to make up for what they use. Here in Vermont, that claim doesn't really hold up. Trees take root on their own, often too thickly for their own good, and over time the healthiest ones are thinned out around so they can keep growing. What happens in Vermont is selective harvesting: stands get thinned, which gives nearby trees room and light to thrive. A more varied forest with young trees, old trees, gaps in the canopy leads to a more biodiverse stand. New growth in the under brush draws in wildlife you wouldn't otherwise see. By many  measures, there's more wildlife in Vermont today than there was in colonial times.

We're always glad to hear about forestry practices that make logical, scientific sense, and the knowledge base keeps improving. But cutting a tree isn't inherently harmful. Trees are a renewable resource when it's managed well. 

We've even been asked whether we could build our toys from tree prunings and fallen limbs instead, so healthy trees could keep growing uncut. The truth is, downed limbs are usually down because they're weak or rotten, which makes them unsuitable for lumber in the first place. We often say, trees aren't starfish; cutting healthy branches off a healthy tree to spare the trunk isn't safe, practical, or actually better for the tree.

We've been reusing material since day one — call it good old-fashioned Yankee frugality, or a modern concern for limited resources. Either way, we look for the chance to reuse or conserve at every step. Our wood shavings are pulled off by our dust filtration system and dropped into a hopper outside. Local farmers pick up the hoppers and use the sawdust for cattle bedding (We've got happy cows in Vermont too.) Our leftover wood scraps go out front for anyone in town to take for kindling, which matters more than you might think in a state where plenty of households still heat with wood in the winter.

To us, it comes down to the right materials, the right people, and the right place, working together — which is what lets us keep making wooden products you can feel good about.