You Can Make $30 A Day Planting Tree On Contract!

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THE HOEDADS: OREGON'S TREE PLANTING COLLECTIVE

Unlike large?scale reforestation work in Minnesota?which is done almost entirely during a 30-day period in early spring?the replanting of commercial?sized tracts of trees in Oregon goes on from October to June. And one of the prime contractors for the jobs (which are let out by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and private timber companies) is a loose-knit cooperative known as the Hoedads.

The Hoedads (who take their name from the adze-like tool with which they set Douglas fir seedlings) were organized by Jerry Rust, John Corbin, and John Sundquist. The two Johns and a Jerry got together in 1970 to bid on a 60-acre Forest Service contract, won the job, successfully fulfilled their contract, bid on other work, brought in friends to help with the new contracts, and so on.

Today, the Hoedads' membership (each individual in the group holds an equal co-op share) ranges from 150 to 200 people divided into 12 work crews identified by nicknames such as "Cougar Mountain" and "Mud Sharks". Most of the members are between 18 and 32 years old, about 30% are women, and they come from Oregon farms, affluent suburbs, and urban ghettos. Some hold college degrees, most don't, and all profess a love for the outdoors and a desire to improve the environment.

The Hoedads calculate that each member of a work crew can plant 500 trees a day (the fastest set 1,000 or more) and figure their bids so that the cooperative earns ten cents for each seedling the group sets. Individual planters take home about eight cents of this dime . . . and the other two cents are split into a cash reserve fund (each Hoedad must accumulate $1,000 as liability insurance) and a general operating fund (for equipment, maintenance, transportation, and the reliability bonds required by most contracts). So far, the cash reserve fund has worked pretty much like a savings account . . . since every person who has quit the cooperative has been repaid every nickel that he or she has put into this kitty.

Perhaps the most noticeable thing about the Hoedads is the co-op's esprit de corps. Rather than drive back and forth each day to planting sites, each work crew camps out in tents and buses right on the tract of land that's being worked. Living together this way?sharing cooking facilities and food . . . facing long hours in rain, mud, cold, and rugged terrain shoulder to shoulder . . . getting to know each other around a campfire at night?has created a solid core of close, dedicated, and stable planters who genuinely like, trust, and rely on their fellow cooperative members.

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