DIXFIELD – A pungent aroma of pine hung in the chill air Wednesday at Harlow Park after four large pine trees were quickly felled.

The trees, which were taken down adjacent to Weld Street by Peru loggers Dan and Gilles Anctil, were the first of nine pines to be cut down and hauled away, just two days after selectmen gave the order.

The two men are expected to cut the other half of the $2,700 job – five big pines – Thursday if it doesn’t rain, said acting Public Works Director Tim Hanson.

Because those trees line Nash Street and are in close proximity to SAD 21’s Dirigo High School, a large, new crane will be used to cut them – from the top down, Hanson said.

Ben Welch, a Region 9 forestry instructor, estimated the age of all of the pines, which can live for 300 years, to be between 75 and 80 years old.

Welch brought a group of second-year forestry students to the site at noon Wednesday to critique the loggers’ work, hoping to watch the felling process. They arrived too late.

Hanson said the trees were being felled and trucked away because their acidic pine needles made it difficult to grow newly seeded grass on the athletic fields.

Other pines in the park may soon meet the same fate once officials determine who owns them.

And while it currently looks odd without trees lining the park by Weld Street, town officials expect that Liberty elms planted along the park edges last year by Code Enforcement Officer Jay Bernard and schoolchildren, would grow to replace the pines.

Charlotte Collins said the town was also going to plant woodbine – a deciduous vine that grows vigorously and sports scarlet leaves in autumn – along the fence.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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