Ross Forests is 7500 acres of privately owned timberland in Hardin County, Tennessee, that is managed for wood production, wildlife, recreation and protection of water quality. Ross Forests Partnership property consists of approximately 7,500 acres of timberland on six tracts in the southeast corner of Hardin County, Tennessee. The current managing partner is Ike Ross’ great-grandson John J. Ross,
an attorney in Savannah, who is a director of the Tennessee Forestry Association. John is also a member of the Tennessee Forestry Commission, a Trustee Emeritus of the Tennessee Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, President of the Hardin County Landowner’s Association, and a director of the Forest Landowners Association. He is on the Tennessee Forestry Association Legislative and Tree Farm Committees, and teaches law at TFA’s Master Logger schools in the area. John was the 2003 Tennessee Tree Farmer of the Year, received the Tennessee Wildlife Federation awards for Land and Soil Conservationist of the Year in 2004 and Forest Conservationist of the year in 2009, and the Herman Baggenstross Forestry Recognition Award from the Society of American Foresters in 2007. About two-thirds of Ross Forests land is managed primarily for income from pine plantations. The remainder is in hardwoods and mixed pine and hardwood stands with wildlife food plots, beaver ponds, small hayfields and limestone bluffs. The acreage in each use is as follows:
Ross Forests management zones acres
New pine plantations 1999-2007 5000
1994 pine plantations 50
1979 thinned pine plantation 50
Hardwood plantation 1994 75
special natural areas 908
hay fields, food plots, gas row. etc. 150
roads 150
other streamside management zones 600
natural hardwood management areas 600
James Graham House National Register of Historic Places 7
other home sites 5
total 7583
Ross Forests Natural Areas Acres
Sugar Camp Hollow/Chalybeate Spring 100
Scott Branch/Graham Mill natural area beaver pond 60
Ross Cabin Bluff 30
Wetland Reserve and adjoining smz 75
Allen Hollow 20
Maddux Mill Natural Area 35
English Creek Bottom 20
English Creek Hardwood Management area 85
Pompey Branch natural area 120
Clack Springs natural areas
Holly Branch 37
Shelby Hollow 51
Rogers Creek
Center Star/Porter Mill Branch natural area 185
Roger's Creek riparian zone 90
total 908
Professional forestry services are provided by Forest Management, Inc. which manages timber sales, tree planting, and forest inventory work. Ross Forests participates in and receives cost share support from the USDA Conservation Reserve Program, the Stewardship Incentive Program, the Forest Land Enhancement Program, the Wetlands Reserve Program, Southern Pine Bark Beetle Program and Environmental Quality Incentivies Program (EQUIP). Ross Forests has been a certified family forest in the American Tree Farm System for over 25 years, and is certified as a Stewardship Forest by the Tennessee Division of Forestry. Hunting rights are leased to nine hunting clubs on an annual basis. Mountain bike trails are constructed and maintained and a local club the Sugar Camp Hollow International Mountain Bicycle Association (SCHIMBA) has regular weekly rides year round. Ross Forests also has put-in and take-out points for canoes and kayaks on Horse Creek and John is eager to take guests paddling whenever the water levels are adequate. Three areas have been included in the voluntary state natural area program, Sugar Camp Hollow/Chalybeate Spring, Clack Spring, and Factory Hollow. These sites were selected based on a five year biodiversity inventory done by Conservation Southeast, Inc. which identified the species of fish, aquatic insects, mussels, nesting birds, bats, reptiles and amphibians on the property. The qualification for the SNA program is primarily the presence of the rare Beaked Trout Lily Erythronium rostratum as well as the threatened species Ginseng and Goldenseal. Recently another rare plant Prices Potato Bean, Apios priceana, was discovered. The property is included in the Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count for the Savannah area and John takes a party of bird watchers on the property each year in early January as part of the count. About 40 to 50 species of birds are usually identified on the property on these counts. Three streams on the property have been selected by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation as reference streams to evaluate the quality of other similar size streams in the same ecoregion. The SCH branch, Pompey Branch, and Rogers Creek are identified by TDEC as Exceptional Tennessee Streams: http://environment online.state.tn.us:7654/pls/enf_reports/f?p=9034:34304:1904506375503216
There are five residences on the property, one of which is an 1820’s home of James Graham which is on the National Register of Historic Places. There is also a recreational log cabin built by John’s parents in the 1930’s where the TCW lunch and dinner will be held, and an abandoned log building that may have once been a church.
