Hey, some of you guys need to ease up on the OP. He's a young man that was just asking a question, how is he supposed to know the answer without someone telling him which way to look? Anyway... It probably depends on where you're at. In MI, we have a legal 66' right of way, 33' each side of the road from the center. Also in MI, the land owner does pay taxes on that right of way, where a lot of states the landowner doesn't pay taxes on the ROW. It's still a legal right of way for us and we can do as we please with it, but that's not how we usually do it in the county I work in, unless it's a danger to the public (that we are always liable for). Let me put it to you this way, I don't have to tell people what I'm doing, but it sure helps public relations for myself in the future. My assigned territory has 49 miles of gravel roads and 24 miles of paved roads, in a mostly heavily wooded area with lots of state owned public hunting land as well. I see the same people (residents) almost every day I am out and about, except on days I team up with a cutting a crew in one of their territories instead of mine. Some people are real nice, some are not so nice. I've been threatened before by people vowing to protect their property with force if I try to cut something on it. If it's dangerous, and you ask them to then sign a document stating that they will then be legally responsible for any incidents or accidents that may become of their refusal to have their tree, bush, whatever, trimmed or removed, they'll usually let you cut it. Or if not, a sheriff will come along while it is being removed. That's a VERY rare case though and rarely ever gets to that point. Being honest with a landowner, getting to know them, and then stopping and letting them know what your plan is before you start goes a long ways. You have to get them to trust you, and take your word that you're not just gonna go in a destroy everything. If there's a real nice hardwood tree along the boundary of the right of way, I'll trim it instead of cutting it. Better to have 1 big tree instead of 1000 small ones. Also, if you do a neat job cutting, and trimming the limbs from trees without smashing everything under it and tearing the bark down the trunk, people are less likely to complain, and more likely to not be upset when you want to cut on their frontage after they've seen where you've done a neat and tidy job somewhere else. I always explain to them that they own the wood once it's down, but we will chip anything we can manually carry and put into our chipper, so usually whole trees 8" and under go through the chipper, while the others get all the limbs and tops run through the chipper while the trunks are blocked up into 22-30" pieces. Many times people that you never think will want you cutting in front of their place are more than glad to have it cut back and cleaned up. The land owner can cut the trees off the right of way on his property if he wants to, we don't care about that, but many usually won't, they are terrified of dropping a tree onto a road and not having it out of the road before a car comes, or dropping one on a car. One of the larger power companies around here only cuts trees away from the major power lines, so the smaller residential lines get neglected. Makes it tough for us since we have no way to cut something that is hanging over the road over a line. If it's dangerous enough, we have to hire it done to get it away from the road and the line. Many people along the roads will tell us that either they will take the wood we leave, or that, no, they don't want it and hopefully someone will pick it up. Just have to make sure the property owner knows exactly what your plans are, that way everyone stays happy. That's where you come in if it's along private land. Stop and ask, you'd be surprised at the number of people that don't want the wood along their frontage. And, on the state or public land, here in Michigan, you can buy a firewood permit from the state to remove firewood from state owned land. You can even cut firewood on state land with the permit, and I forget all the exact details, but it must be dead trees, along or within walking distance of a road, or defined accepted orv trail, or 2 track. No making your own trails with your vehicle to get it. If I recall, it was around $20 or $25 to get the permit for the area you were going to be cutting in, and that permit was good for 15 cord of firewood, not facecord. We have had people ask us where we've been cutting previously, and I'll tell them, but I always tell them to ask the landowner. Whether they do or not, I don't know, but I doubt it. I like to see the wood picked up so I don't have to mow around it when mowing roadsides/right of ways, but I'm not in law enforcement. I can't tell someone that they can have the wood, and I can't tell them they can't have the wood, that's for the landowner to decide. If you leave 4 or 6' pieces, the wood will lay for sure, it'll never be picked up. If you cut half the tree into the 24" pieces, they'll pick all of that up, but always leave the longer pieces. Sometimes we conduct small social experiments like that, just to see the results. It's interesting to see what some people will and won't do. A few years back, the gov't increased amounts for home heating credit benefits that people on assistance receive, and the amount of wood that we see picked up since then has dropped dramatically. Coincidence or not, I don't know, just another something that you notice. So now we pile the wood at the back of the right of way, unless the landowner has specifically told us that someone will be picking the wood up. JohnLobb is right though, roadside wood has a lot of trash in it. Especially in an area where it snows and on a gravel road. Every time we go by plowing, we a blasting sand and stones all over those trees, sometimes 15 feet high. Lots of old fencing, stones, screw in there steps, nails from no trespassing signs, wire insulators, and nails from survey markers as well. All sorts of junk in some of them, but sometimes you'll cut a half mile of trees before hitting something other than stones, of which you hit constantly. I guess to sum it up JohnV, if there is private land, just ask, if it is public land, see what the rules are in your state, I'll bet most states have some sort of firewood permit for public land, just have to ask the DNR or whoever the land is oversawn by what their policy is.
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Today's Featured Article - Listening to Your Tractor - by Curtis Von Fange. Years ago there was a TV show about a talking car. Unless you are from another planet, physically or otherwise, I don’t think our internal combustion buddies will talk and tell us their problems. But, on the other hand, there is a secret language that our mechanical companions readily do speak. It is an interesting form of communication that involves all the senses of the listener. In this series we are going to investigate and learn the basic rudimentary skills of understanding this lingo.
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