When we came to this country in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, we were dumbfounded by the plenty of the land. Sturgeon and other fish swarmed in the rivers and the ocean waters were teeming with all sorts of food that was overfished in the Old World for a century or more. The European forests were long gone and here in America, as it said in a documentary about Columbus on TV, a squirill could go from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi without ever touching the ground. That plenty ruined us. We deforested here faster than we had in Europe. We built large wooden houses with 8 ot 9 fireplaces that we stoked from September to June and keeping room or Summer kitchens burned wood year round. Waste, Waste, Waste. And we continue the waste today. One saving grace for wood heat is that eventually forests have the potential of growing up again, thus sequestering carbon in the new wood growth. New forests regrowing from the old have a slight problem though. When they regrow, the trees tend to bolt up fast and close together. While this makes nice straight planks and beams, the wood that grows that fast is much weaker and more featureless than old growth wood. This is a minor problem when you are just trying to get wood to grow for the woodstove. But there is a problem in all this for the minor land owner. We cannot all have fifty or a hundred acres at our disposal. And, invasion by deer and neighbors' livestock can be tough on your land. If a deer wants to get to your gardens....weeellllll they will do it no matter what. But simple measures may make them and the neighbor's goats say to themselves..."Hey that land over there is a little easier to get to so why work at getting to this land". If, like me, you have a few acres, you will probably have to buy your wood. Here, cut and split is about $240 a cord delivered. So, it is probably wise to supplement it when you can. After you have cut your property, then what. 20 years have to go by to get the next cut? In Italy, where they are not as cold as here, they heat rooms and sometimes whole houses with vine trimmings. Wood is available in bundles of sticks...Here we chip the small stuff and use it for mulch! One of the most maddening things about that maple you cut down last year is that 20 slim saplings are going to come up from that stump. I cleared three weeks ago and they are already up 8 inches. Instead of pissing and moaning, just let it happen, thin them out judiciously for baskets and Adirondack twig furniture and let the rest grow to a 2 to 5 inch diameter and cut them down again...dry and burn the suckers in your stove! If you have a small place you might never have to buy wood again. This is a basic Coppicing activity. England has its own variety of trees and shrubs, but these age old practices can work with our own wood species. Willow, ash and maple will work very well for this. Now, lets say you are clearing ten year old growth for a new house. Cut the trees down. Everything smaller than your thumb gets trimmed off and set aside. Cut the tiny stuff up for the wood range(in Europe a box is built into a kitchen counter and the top surface is a layer of tiles. A fire is lit under the tiles and you cook on them. Cook with pots, pans and just right on the surface like a cookstove. You can also lay the top surface with the same surface that an old cookstove has in place of the tiles. A flue goes out into a hollow stone wall or some other method of dispersing the smoke. The small stuff can be used in a brick or clay oven in the yard. Hell, we live in a country where we pay a fortune for wood chips to put in our BBQ to smoke our meals on a summer afternoon. Save all those apple trimmings. All the brush and all the softwood trees can be piled in fallen domino style along the borders of your property...neatly... till the layers reach 6 feet or much more. Pressed down on itself and threaded between saplings or larger trees or even woven like a basket in the saplings along the property line. I certainly would not be climbing these fences that are as tall as I am and several leg scratching, balance defying feet thick. Trees continue to grow up through the fence and as the old material decays, new layers can be added. Field stone that you do not want to use for raised beds for your garden can be heaved in along the base of this barrier to make it even stronger. Roots, stumps, anything really, will work into these fences. Also, you can take the cut up larger chunks of softwood and old fallen trees that may have few other uses and pile it onto the fence and along the base. Another practice is to allow slim saplings to grow up in this barrier or in a new fence loacation. About four feet from the ground...always in line with the fence on only one side you notch the sapling trunk and carefully bend the sapling over parallel to the fence. Trim off most of the branches except those that point upward after bending. Then with a new sapling repeat this bending the new one over the last one slightly to hold the first one down...Like the rim of a woven basket. They can also be very close to the ground. the remaining branches will continue to grow straight up forming a palisade of saplings. Now you can use this boundary to weave brush into a fence like basket work or just stuff brush into it along the fence line between saplings. The larger wood from your clearing can now be cut for stove wood. Perhaps not enormous, but certainly good wood...possibly no larger that your arms. This has the advantage of being easy to handle and it dries very quickly. Pehaps this can be burned the same year. Ash can be burned in the first year in any form. The smaller the faster and also hotter burning. Coppiced wood has many uses and is a worthwhile investment of your time. Another thing is that; I often watch the men and women in my area sawing and splitting wood all Summer to have enough for the Winter. This is a tedious and heavy job...not to mention chainsaw loud and dirty, sawdust spewing work. I love doing this pseudo English style kind of hedging and Coppicing work. Quiet..little stress...bucksaw and loppers instead of chainsaw (of course you can use a chainsaw) You do this work quietly and without strain. Your dog and children spend time with you doing this light and relaxing work (the dog will only take joy in the abundance of sticks available). It is a ton of work...but lovely pleasant work without gas fumes and noise...and think of the money you save in fencing and in cord wood. Eventually the piled and constantly renewed layers of wood form a raised mound of soil along your property lines that become refuges for small game...food animals like rabbits. It also becomes an inpenetrable barrier against all but the most determined large animals and people.