[Blzbba]

"Much of our deforestation has occurred naturally. We are losing our oaks here in the mid-Missouri Ozarks because the oaks took over when other trees were removed or died out. Too many oaks accelerated oak borer populations and this has kicked off a big increase in woodpeckers and bluebirds, etc.
Nobody 'did' this."



Actually, from your own words (because I'm not familiar with the Missouri oak situation), it appears that the oak population boomed when "other trees were removed or died out". Since oaks don't generally have massive natural die-outs, it sounds like human activities involving the removal of other trees certainly aided the oak boom, whose downstream effects include a boom in the Woody Woodpecker and bluebird populaces (a good thing, IMO).

[Eric in the Ozarks]

At about the turn of the century, RR ties were cut from the pines that grew extensively in the Missouri Ozarks. Trees by the thousands were cut and floated to the many saw mills which supplied the growing railroad industry thought about 1930. The last bit of this pine forest is in SE Missouri in the Mark Twain National Forest areas. When the Pines were removed, the oaks took over and this has presented a new opportunity (at least for white oak timber) for the barrel stave industry. Oak barrels from Missouri are sent around the country and the world for wine and whiskey. The red oaks are good for firewood, mostly.