The Collins Companies: Pennsylvania forest overview

An Environmental Hardwood Forest



	There is no logging allowed on the rivers, streams, creeks or wetlands in the Collins Pennsylvania Forest.

Overview: Stewards of the Land
Kane Hardwood, a Collins company, manages the 126,000-acre FSC-certified Collins Pennsylvania Forest. These lands sit in the center of the finest black cherry hardwood forests in the world, the Allegheny Mountains of northern Pennsylvania. Mixed with red and white oak, soft and hard maple, ash, beech, yellow poplar, and basswood, this thriving hardwood forest is the result of the Collins family’s commitment to sustainable forestry, ecosystem management, and natural biodiversity.

Let the land dictate the practices, not the mill’s need for logs. Be patient, be prudent, be good stewards of the whole forest—the watersheds, the birds, the plants, the animals.

The Collins Pennsylvania Forest has an abundance of natural resources and is valued not only for its commercial veneer and hardwood lumber products, but also for its water quality, recreational use, and wildlife habitat.

Let the people enjoy the forest. Be open. Be a good neighbor. Be a partner in the community. Protect the land for hiking and hunting, for camping and fishing, for the pure aesthetic joy of the forest.

Kane Hardwood employs eight professional foresters, all of whom strongly believe in sustainable forestry. Our foresters are personally responsible for selecting the sites to be harvested. Careful planning allows our harvests to actually increase the quantity and quality of future yields by concentrating on the regeneration which will become the next stand.

In addition to harvests from our company lands, we also purchase timber from the Allegheny National Forest, Pennsylvania State Game Lands, State Forest lands, and other private lands in the area.

Beyond sustained yield, the company’s management plan calls for environmental sensitivity. Our practices reflect the Collins philosophy of conservation—the careful balance maintained between logging for a business and maintaining the ecosystem health. Logging roads are carefully located to protect water quality. Potential denning and nesting trees are reserved in our harvest areas, and plenty of woody debris is left to enrich the soil of the forest floor.

A Family Commitment
The Collins Company was founded July 8, 1855 in Pennsylvania by T.D. Collins. The 24 year-old Truman Doud (Teddy) Collins, along with four partners, bought 1,600 acres of virgin white pine and a steam sawmill near our present location in Kane, Pennsylvania. By 1860, Teddy had bought out his partners and the company has become the second largest private landowner in Pennsylvania. In the late 1800s, Collins expanded operations beyond Pennsylvania, westward. Today, over 145 years later, The Collins Companies remains family-owned, and manages additional certified forests in California and Oregon.

	Recreational Use of Collins Pine Company Lands
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