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News
Kelly farmer named
tree farmer of year
By JEFFERSON
WEAVER, Staff Writer
A third-generation
farmer from Kelly has been named District Eight
N.C. Forest Association Tree Farmer of the
Year.
Elliot Henry, 82,
still actively farms over 750 acres of trees and
crops, on the same land his grandfather purchased
in 1887. Henry Farms also holds a Century Farm
designation from the state.
“I just like to see
things grow,” Henry said.
Bill Holmes works for
Georgia-Pacific Co., and volunteers with the N.C.
Tree Farm Association. Henry Farms has been a
certified tree farm since 1959. The Tree Farmer of
the Year program was inactive from 1991 until
2001, Holmes said.
“It gives us a chance
to recognize outstanding tree farmers across the
district, state and nation,” Holmes said. The
program is active in 46 states, and works closely
with both producers and buyers of pulp wood,
timber, and lumber.
The association uses
the same district lines as the N.C. Forest
Service. District Eight comprises Bladen, New
Hanover, Duplin, Brunswick and Columbus Counties.
It provides workshop and seminars on improving
timber management to tree farmers at no
cost.
Volunteer inspectors
with the Association will, at the landowner’s
request, visit tree farms and evaluate everything
from terrain and timber to soil quality. They then
offer advice and support to farmers who want to
improve their forests.
Certified tree farmers
use proven land- and forest-management methods to
improve both the environment and their crop,
Holmes said. Henry “actively” works his farm,
Holmes said.
“He doesn’t like to
see the land bare,” Holmes said. “He regularly
reforests, and he doesn’t like to see the ground
lay idle.”
Henry said the ethic
is one taught by his father and
grandfather.
Henry’s grandfather,
Edward Luther Henry, farmed and harvested naval
stores on the farm. Later he grew crops and
timbered with Henry’s father, Reuben. The family
has always held a reputation for embracing new and
improved techniques and farming
practices.
“My grandmother used
to give my grand-daddy all kind of trouble when
he’d buy up another field covered in broomstraw,”
Henry laughed. “She saw it as something else to
pay taxes on. He knew it could come back, if you
cared for it. He passed that down to my
daddy.”
“They taught me the
land doesn’t wear out,” Henry said, “but man can
abuse it.”
Much of Henry’s land
is also in row crops, and is linked with a network
of canals and laterals that he built to help the
drainage. Henry is an active proponent of improved
drainage in the lower Bladen area. Trails and
roads crisscross the property, where Henry enjoys
horseback riding, hunting, and riding all-terrain
vehicles. He occasionally allows Scout troops and
families to use a small cabin he built deep in the
woods.
The forests of Henry
Farms have a wide variety of growth and terrain,
from plantation loblolly pines to slash pines and
even some heritage longleafs on the original
portion of the property.
“They planted some
trees for me,” he said, “and I have planted some
for the next generations. I just like to see
things grow.”
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