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

(Page 6 of 6)

January/February 1977
By Ronald A. Person 
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As a result, the survival rate of Hoedad?planted seedlings is close to a phenomenal 99% (the Forest Service is pleased with only 85 to 90%). And, according to Jerry Rust, the cooperative set more trees?one million?in just the past season alone than the famous Civilian Conservation Corps did during its entire existence in the 1930's!

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Perhaps the Hoedads are so successful because they work, instead of administrate. The position of president, currently held by David Straton, constitutes the organization's entire executive branch. All of the cooperative's decisions (except in specific instances, when a referendum of the entire membership is called) are made by a council composed of one representative from each crew . . . and this council is advised by committees (Bidding, Treasury, etc.) as necessary.

At present, the Hoedads are experimenting with the idea of diversifying (as a group) into other occupations, especially during the summer when there are no trees to plant. Some crews have torn down and recycled old buildings and done other salvage work. Others have begun tree nurseries in which they propagate seedlings which are then sold to the private timber companies and government agencies that let out reforestation contracts. Still others hire out to fight forest fires in the dry season.

The Hoedads have also?both of necessity and by choice?entered the political arena to contest the treating of fir seedlings with a chemical deer repellent called thiram. Co-op members have found that the treatment causes nausea and headaches among planters who handle such seedlings, and the Hoedads have usefully sponsored a bill in the Oregon State Legislature which will ban thiram by 1977.

Thus does a high-spirited, altruistic cooperative group of young men and women blend the often conflicting aims of idealism and pragmatism into an earth-oriented way of life that we can all envy. Go get'em, Hoedads!

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