Background and management 

Wolf Tree Forest covers 102 acres that was once a mid-nineteenth century farm.  Although few, if any, trees remain from before the land was farmed, many "wolf trees" remain: mostly large, knarly old maples that either spouted or were very young in the nineteenth century when the land was cleared.   A few are majestic hemlocks, and one is an unlikely cottonwood.These trees survived the farm era in hedgerows or on rocky outcrops, or because the cows or sheep wouldn't eat them. Most have large branches or the remnants of large branches close to the ground; an indicator of having once grown in the open without competing trees nearby even though a forest of younger trees now surrounds them.

A robust forest management cycle includes gathering data on trees, soils, rotten logs, understory vegetation, natural communities, threatened and endangered species, historical resources, and more.  Forest data and landowner goals are blended to create a schedule of management activities.  The results of these activities are monitored for feedback on the next cycle of data and planning.