I have business meetings on the East Coast on Monday and Tuesday so I'm traveling this Sunday. The first leg was from Portland to Cincinnati. -- I flew from the cool green in Oregon to the hot and humid green in Kentucky. I'm in Kentucky because the "Cincinnati Airport" is across the river in Kentucky.

Flying in here, I noticed something that I've seen around the East -- large tracts of trees. There are clearly farms that consist of half field and half stand of trees. What economic or cultural or agricultural impetus causes this to happen? In the Northwest, most of the expanses of trees are owned either by large logging companies or the Federal Government (who manages them for the large logging companies). So, trees are cut or they are clearly growing so they can be cut. But here, from Ohio to New York, it looks like half of the land is in forest. And the forest does not have that patchy look of clear cuts that we get in our western forest. What economics is allowing or promoting the existence of all of this "unproductive" land? Something is happening in the East. I'll have to do some research.