Chapter 190
8/27/2008
Ch 190 Finch Pruyn
Chop a Tree, grab a Mona Lisa
They go hand in hand, or claw to claw.
Kathy and I were aghast this week visiting the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, that you'd find an Original Mona Lisa "Study" by Leonardo Da Vinci along with 3000 other elite works of art from Rembrandt, Picasso, Cezanne etc at arms reach in this little Podunk city. Kathy even bought a Degas on the way out ($3.58 for repro).
You see Mrs Hyde had the good fortune of being born daughter to Samuel Pruyn of the great Finch Pruyn logging dynasty that goes back to the Civil War days. Other chapters (eg Ch 82 , 165 )have touched on my family's relationship to logging, but I've never really thought about getting rich by cutting down trees until now.
This industry caused major headaches in my government regulating days but now is being looked at in a very green way. A watershed moment is happening now as the Nature Conservancy (our quasi-governmental step-sister) has bought up 161,000 acres of prime Finch Pruyn forest lands in the Adirondacks and is reallocating those resources to meet multiple use and sustained yield practices (includes network of connected snowmobile trails).
These are 2 terrific videos by:
One can admire these entrepreneurs or despise them, or both. Irrespective, it seems we all benefit.