Please note: you are encouraged to comment and welcome to ask questions, but Tom does not monitor these posts and probably will not personally respond. -Ray

Came here to learn about forests... learned about geology, history, ecology, agriculture and a whole mess of other subjects... and forests. Awesome.

I’m in my 70s, and have been a student most of my life. I’ve had a lot of good teachers over these many years, far more than bad ones. But I can say without question whatsoever that Tom Wessels is absolutely the best. The time I spent at Antioch under his guidance made more of a difference in my educational journey than any other person I’ve ever known. The insights offered by the kinds of questions he always asked reverberate within me whenever I’m trying to figure something out. And damned if they don’t always work. Tom, thank you.

The UKposts algorithm gave me this despite never having looked at forestry videos before, and honestly I’m quite glad it did

This video makes me second guess my career path.

I’m a huge fan of early American history and never heard this story about merino sheep etc. only 4 1/2 minutes into this video and love it !!!!

Very inspiring. I just retired, was a forester in New Zealand till 1980, and a plant ecologist. In retirement I want to explore the US wilderness and I have personal reasons I want to explore the North East US. I have never been there. Now I have some concepts to apply to what I see. I just love the title - Reading the Forested Landscape. Thanks you for a great video series.

Spent most of my working life in the woods, logging and land clearing. Learned a lot in the past 1/2 hour and can't wait to watch the rest of the episodes. Big thank you to Tom

I'm seriously grateful for this series and this channel.

I was in the nursery landscape business for 20 years. After that I did some logging. I learned more about what the forests can tell us in this one video than decades of working with trees. Brilliant stuff.

anybody interested in forest and trees is a great human.

I had to stop watching 9 minutes in to give myself a few days to process everything I learned in just that 9 minutes. Insane content

Tom is a National Treasure. Thank you.

The knowledge of this man is incredible and his talent at passing it on is just as magnificent

Excellent series, this answers so many questions about things I have seen in the woods on hikes but did not know how they evolved! Thanks to Tom's fascinating discussion I will be looking at the forest with a new appreciation of what took place.

As a young man who's feeding and cultivating his love for ecology and native habitats, this series is a true gem.

I’m glad I stumbled across this. I live in downtown Los Angeles, never been to NH and have really no practical need for this info and yet I find it fascinating. Nicely done!

Such a pure, simple and real way to see life. How it’s all connected, all linked to things we do today that will change tomorrow. Great reasons to do good, and to appreciate nature far more than we do. Thank you for sharing, and thank you Tom, for being Tom.

The audio engineering for the narration is outlandishly good. Excellent use of the lapel along with post compression and noise cancellation. Most outdoors types show are horrifically windy or rough sounding.

What a generous man to freely share the knowledge he's gained over decades of experience. I'm so grateful I came across this series! Watching from Pennsylvania on a snowy day.

This is that environmentalist/historian crossover content I crave.

Starting about a dozen years ago? ...... I really started enjoying his book, "Reading The Forested Landscape". So much more info to inform my hikes through New England. Then, he came out with an illustrated version a few years back, and that was just fantastic! Well, this series is the icing on the cake! Everything is explained and presented in video! Perfect! I am greatly impressed at how this video is produced! Tom Wessels is given plenty of time to communicate each idea, and quick clips are added to further illustrate things. First rate!

Just wonderful! Felt like I was back doing a walk with my undergrad ecology prof! Well done.

I like this guy, he knows his shit. I went on hikes with him in Maine with one of my classes in high school and he could identify everything.

This needs way more views. True knowledge with an understanding of historical evidence shown in a practical and concise format.

I’m literally so EXCITED right now! This is literally all me and my brothers talk about when we go metal detecting

This channel is criminally underrated.

This video has changed my life. I've spent all my life in woods, farming, permaculturing, trail running, river tubing, canoeing... just sitting. My knowledge is vast but miniscule at the same time. In the forests and mountains of North Carolina I constantly am reading the history through topography but missed some links. You have shown me what I want to do with my life. Sure, I'm an electrician.... but this is what I will be doing for rest of it. Reading the land and spending my life becoming intimate with it.

This guy has style, love his beard, and wearing that baldness proud. Such a boss.

This is a wonderful video, I've lived in Connecticut my whole life and find every hike in the woods a good opportunity to learn all about history.

This guy is my "spirit animal". I absolutely love going into the forest and discovering old stone foundations, logging railroad right-of-ways, old culverts, Native American trail markers and tons more forgotten, lost or forgotten relics and signs from our past! This video is like therapy! Thanks for taking the time to film it and post it!

I haven't learned so much in a very long time. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

These videos are awesome. I have been looking for this kind of commentary and insight for a long time to help me understand the natural world around me. I am glued to this series.

my buddy and have been going in our woods for years smoking pot with questions of the past. Thank you

I've been hoping to meet a forest guru for 'bout 50 years. I go hiking with my dog in a forest several times a week. Now it's like I finally got the glasses I've needed.

Outstanding video. One of the best I have ever watched. Thank you.

I am so impressed and amazed at the wealth of knowledge you have! I am captivated when you speak. I have been trying to evaluate my mom’s property in NE Pennsylvania. You taught me so much in just this short video. I will most definitely read your book! This is just the kind of information I was looking for. Thank you for educating me.

This makes me want to get out in the woods and explore. My family has around 100 acres in Maine and I’m looking forward to showing what I learned here to my kids this summer. Thanks for rekindling my interest in nature.

I understand why this has almost 1 million views. I had no idea that you could just walk into a forest and look at the trees and earth, and it’s entire history can unfold right before your eyes. I would also like to say, that I have used Tom’s methods to determine past crop fields in the forest where I visit. I found a couple of stone dumps, but what really gave it away was one part of the forest was uneven with pillows and cradles and the other half was completely smooth. I never would’ve realized this if I hadn’t watched these video’s. Thank you Tom.

Wow, a genuine forest detective! We have 90 acres in the southern Adirondacks and I'm always finding rock walls, barbed wire, etc. Now I have some idea what those are there for. I'm absolutely going t purchase Tom's books and learn more. Fascinating!

Regarding the stone walls....When the low lands were deforested for ag, a phenomenon called frost heave occurs. Basically what happens is the exposed soil layers freeze deeper because there is no blanket of vegetation. The soil will then push up stones when it freezes during winter faster. Also, since the pastures were lowlands there were more stone to push out of the ground due to geologic weathering. Every spring the farmers would carry off all of the new stones. Walls were the convenient way to move the stones away from the pastures.

Fantastic!

Not sure why UKposts recommended this to me but I'm glad it did. Fascinating stuff.

Well this was great! So the woodlot i bought here in New Brunswick im building on seems to be 18 acres of 12 original wood lot and 6 pasture at the far end abandoned around the mid 70s with a wire fence along the back to an old field thats been logged out in the 90s. I know I'm going to do a lot of walking in the spring after the snow melt! The growth, tree falls, and ups and downs makes it hard to do when the leaves are on can hardly see 10 or 20 feet in front of me in the places around where I cut out. The previous owner used to cut out his fire wood in here about 10-15 years ago. Lots of thin bushy stuff and huge poplars, many rotten in the middle, like a sponge about 350 feet off the road where im building. Took a lot of cutting and thinning. Been saving all the maple. Just taking anything out close to the cabin.

I love the outdoors & you’ve answered so many questions I’ve always had. So much respect to you and your knowledge!

I’m 24 minutes in and this is absolutely incredible. I feel like I’m on a paid hike/ history/ intellectual geographical lesson about current and historical events about forestry and more specifically the northeast

I don't know how anyone could downvote this. Tom is the best!

WOW! I'm 60 YO and I always wanted to be a Park Ranger/Ecologist, but didn't follow my childhood dream. Your delightful personality and informative knowledge of forests make it intriguing to learn what I always wanted. Subscribed, allowed notifications, and liked. Thanks for bringing out the kid in me.

This spring I'll be walking my woods with a lot of new information. I already have seen a stone dump, a few pillows and cradles, and barbed wire going through a line of old trees. Thanks for the lessons. You've got a new subscriber.

Phenomenal logic. I've spent the better part of sixty years trapesing around central New England forests and all of this knowledge has given an answer to all of the questions that arose in my mind as I did so. Tom Wessels is not only "skilled" in his assessments, but he's also a visionary. This is a tremendous revelation for any New Englander used to mucking about in our forests. Well done! BTW this presentation took a very dry subject and turned it into a riveting presentation. I could NOT stop watching once I stumbled upon it. Cheers.

TOM, i love how wise you are. i live in farm country in upstate ny. ive always built stone walls gorgouse step down with fountains into a koi pond. you are AMAZING !!!!! i WISH YOU WERE MY DAD OR UNCLE, your the kind of person that will survive whats coming to the world. HOW DO YOU KNOW SOO MUCH. my dad passed away, youd fit right into my family. . i have learned SOOOOOO much from you today. very clean , and pollite person id like to know. i am american indian and hungarian. i have an orchard i planted when i was young, huge gardens i grow 1000 squash and cukes and tomatoes a year to donate to food pantrys. plus a really kewl 200$ do all incubator, i started with 12 JERSEY GIANTS.....i now have 200 chickens assorted breeds now. yes i get 200 eggs a day. i donate them to an amish family up the road from me, they have 7 kids. mom and i help them every week. buying them grain, flour, lots of food . blankets, tarps. they dont have or wear shoes. i own a huge antique/ junk shop and i had them come down and gave them all a 50$ credit. ive never seen 7 little kids soo happy, 3 to 15. i love how they live soo much, but i could never go without my puter n phone.lol . i am 60 yrs old , but i love god and he keeps me young. your a tree guy, heres a funny tree story for ya. my wife and i in 1988 didnt have money for a xmas tree, so we walked threee miles to where there were 80yr old pines. well i was young and gutsy so i got my hack saw and started to climb, and climb, and climb, the higher i got the windier it got and that pine was swaying back and forth, so i start cutting, going back in forth with the saw and the tree moving. i got SOOOOOO SICK i hurled a huge lunch we had. it went all down thru the tree that i had to climb down thru. whenever i see a 80ft northern christmas tree i think of thst. feels like yesterday. she gone now, im losing everyone and its not fair. i feel deserted. another VERY KEWL THING I OWN, i have the UNDERGROUND rail road cave system under my shop and huge victorian. it goes id say ten miles each way, and im the only one that knows abot it. i think i should get lanterns nice ladder and charge 50bucks a day for them to go caving. theyd have to sign a waiver. i looked up the laws and it says if you own a cave system you only own the part under your property. that sucks!!! well, im glad i found you program. my uncle joe is a woodsman too. take care you wise ole owl! may god richly bless you and you partner. signed, pastor richard h smith jr. also known as richie rich. (richie richs is my shops name). lmk if you want 20 baby chicks. free to you,

This is one of the best videos I have ever seen.

I'm impressed with the interesting, detailed, well researched, and engaging presentation on information that havent found to be readily available. I appreciate the lesson.

What an incredible analysis! 👌🏽 Great video!

The algorithm won't stop suggesting this video, I finally relented.

I ADORE how nerdy all of this was. Thank you! 💚

Great video! Recently learned about old-growth and sparked my interest in forest-life. Can't wait to watch the rest in this series. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!!!

What an interesting and lucid explanation of forest scenarios that I have seen but not realized the significance of. Great presentation!

this is awesome forensic evidence of past use of land, cant wait to get in the woods!

so much awakening info 🙏

Great job! So refreshing to hear and learn from an expert. I spent a few years of my youth picking stone off of plowed fields. It was an awful task.

Not sure how I came upon this video, but the most interesting thing I've seen on the internet in ages! WOW! Fascinating stuff and does this guy ever know his stuff. Looking forward to watching Part 2 and 3!

I don't know how this came up in recommendations, since I haven't been actively searching for it, but I'm a permaculture nerd and a CG hobbyist looking to understand geomorphology, and the apparent chaos of landform at all scales, better. This tickled every one of those fancies. Thank you Tom.

This is low key one of the more interesting videos about the outdoors

The absolute highlight of my month thank you sir. This explains so much for me. From around Albany NY. Area Schoharie valley. Great information 👍👍

Great content, great story telling. Tom should be a guest panel member on the BBC TV program QI.

This feels like a PBS show my fam and I would watch on a Sunday afternoon

Incredible. Thank you for sharing!

Great collection of videos. You have made me so much more observant when I am on hikes and I am able to pass on all this information to my kids. Tom Wessels has some great books out there too!

This might be the most interesting video I have ever watched, I was unaware of even the simple concepts at the start of the video like pillows and mounds being formed by down trees - but he took that to a whole other level talking about wind patterns and directions - then when he started aging the trees on the mounds and confidently estimating which particular storm knocked those trees down I nearly lost my mind. This is so cool!

Thanks Tom. That was fascinating. Now I can go out into the woods and impress my kids.

I’ve done a lot of long distance hiking and have gotten very good at being able to “see” the history of the area I’m walking through. These videos are really helping me contextualize and understand precisely what I’m seeing. Fascinating!

absolutely phenomenal knowledge being passed here. I visit the old hemlock forest in Wachusett quite frequently and this is all invaluable to understand the fingerprint of the forest. thanks tom and new england forests crew.

Hands down the most informative video I've ever watched on UKposts. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.

Every time I rewatch this video I appreciate it more. Truly a wealth of knowledge. Just amazing stuff, thank you so much to Tom Wessels, and to the New England Forests team for putting together such great content.

Absolutely enrapturing! Great stuff!! I'll listen to it repeatedly. Thank you!!

Wonderful video. Your teaching style is so pleasant and captivating. Everyone strives to have as much expertise in their field as you obviously have in yours.

Thank God for the fine work Tom Wessels has done over his career. He has made ecosystems and their history more fun and accessible for hundreds of thousands of people including myself. Thank you also for posting all the fine work on this channel. Marc Sutherland

Fascinating. Thank you!

Fascinating and super informative. Well done, Mr. Wessels! Now it's on to Part 2.

Have wondered about those walls, and more regarding forests, for 50 years. I’ve wondered if related to depression era work programs but seem to pre-date all that. Also thought they may represent practical rock clearing to borders of land owned, but for what? Totally unaware of sheep fever. Thank you!

You're as much a history teacher that explains 'history' through the land

Although I'm not as old and experienced as a lot of others here, I just want to say, my generation could learn a great deal from you and these videos. I'm absolutely hooked and I thoroughly enjoy the knowledge that you provide not just of the forest itself but of the history, events, and life that altered the landscape as well. Thank you!

This is so good that I’m watching it bit by bit as I don’t want it to end! Thank you for this awesome information.

Hey Ray, just took some time to peruse your New England Forests episodes. Great job on this Tom Wessels series. A great compliment to the book. See you (and Bob L.) out in the forest again sometime, hopefully someday soon.

Absolutely fascinating. Someone needs to get this man together with a graphic artist who can bring to life the landscapes that he's describing.

Fascinating. I don’t know anything about trees and stuff but I live in Rhode Island and those stone walls in the woods are all over the place. This guy knows so much about this subject, very nice to learn from him.

Came across your video by chance. Very interesting and informative. I'm on the other side of the pond in South East England and its great to compare your reading of the woodland with mine. I have 'ancient woodland ' , so it's been forested for at least 500 years but has been continuously managed for various purposes. Lower areas on heavy clay, planted with Sweet Chestnut (coppiced for poles in the hop fields) and with Oak standards. Chestnut now suffering rot and being replaced by self seeded Birch and Sycamore Maple. Higher ground on sand, remnants of ancient coppiced Oak with multiple stems and Hornbeam . Then was overplanted with Chestnut, but didn't do so well, so 40 years or so they planted Scots Pine. I have spotted several circles from charcoal burning,(for local iron industry) and saw pits for wood. Also high cut (pollarded) Hornbeam marking end of a coppice sector.

Incredible...lived here my entire life and never knew for sure about all of this but only assumed...I knew they cleared stone for farming but not sheep and all this other history

I’ve just discovered your ‘reading the forest’ series. Fascinating! Thank you. Do you know of anyone who does what you do for the forests of the Pacific Northwest where I live?

Fascinating. Thanks for posting.

Soon as you said “forest forensics” I was immediately hooked 🪝

New England has some of the nicest woods on the planet. I wish they would stop developing them, we're losing out on the most gorgeous country in our backyards.

Glad I found you Tom Wessels the other day. You explain everything so clear, with not too much to begin with, explaining the history too. Thank you. Yes, we are all interconnected. Watched your video on mutualism too--very informative and accessible.

Thanks, can't wait to see you other videos! 🌹 🙌

I was amazed at how much I learned from this thank you so much

This is a FANTASTIC video! Thank you so much for making it!

Amazing....very interesting and informative...I love the forests thank you

Thank you for such a wonderful lesson. I love the Forest and rocks and all things natural. So enjoyed watching this.

I have got to get his books. This man is a wealth of knowledge.