Of course you have heard that, "Money grows on trees", or, "Buy land because they're not making any more of it". How many times? Well, I first heard about it when I was 5 from my great uncle, Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill was wealthy, retired, and living the good life in Sarasota, Florida. I was impressed with his big house, his boat, and all his toys that successful people collect. He was a forestry graduate of Penn State and had made a ton of money. As I grew up he would visit us once a year. I always listened to his stories and was convinced that he could never be wrong. He had made his fortune selling traffic signals (stoplights). That was "high tech" for his day. I can remember him telling my father that if he was starting all over he would buy land in Maine and grow Christmas trees on it.

Hmmm, listening in and hearing this I thought it was secret market information that is only repeated to close friends and family. I thought I would never tell anyone, for if I did, well, it would lose its value and everyone would be doing it. Sort of like the pig market cycle. One minute trees would be scarce and bingo, the next minute there would be surpluses and the market value would crash. As I grew up, some say I never have, I wanted to do just that. I wanted to grow trees and buy land, lots and lots of land, and of course plant lots and lots of trees.

In 1973 I graduated from Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, with a BS in Chemistry. It was at Juniata that I met my future wife. I proceded to go out and get a job with in Lahaska, Pa. I really wanted to start growing trees. So I bought 160 acres of land in the mountains of Virginia in Allegehany County. The purchase price for this mountain land was $150 per acre. I was working in Bucks County, Pa., and felt that if I worked day and night I could pay for this property in a few years. The older lady who sold me this property sold it to me for 1/2 down and the balance in one year with no interest. Making about $6.00 per hour and borrowing $12000 for the initial payment, I proceeded to go into debt. During this year I proceeded to start to pay down on the property. I did get married later in the year and my wife and I started our real estate purchases. Within 2 years we had paid off this property. We bought our first house and started saving money for a Bucks County Farm. We both had our day jobs and at night and on weekends we mowed lawns. After 5 years we had enough down money to buy a 38 acre farm in Doylestown Pa. Keeping our first house as a rental, we moved to our farm. This farm had a purchase price of $210,000, and a payment of $1493 a month. We named this property, Highland Hill Farm. It was at this point that we came up with the plan that we followed that helped us to fund the purchases of all our farms and properties. I called this plan," My dollar a day plan". We reasoned that each day we should work on projects that will in the future pay off with an income stream of $1 per day or save me $1 per day from my current costs. Each day would be considered sucessful if that goal was met. All costs and all projects and work was measured in that manner. If we could set up a low cost plan that could reap the benifit of $1 a day we would work on it. The goal of the dollar per day was not important, just the attempt. We would work on the idea until it would be completed or given up on. We reasoned that one could spend hundreds of dollars on each idea, because when it would work out, the pay back would be hundreds of dollars per year. After many days my income would be increasing and it would help fund the plan. Our morgage payment was greater than our combined take home pay. This meant we had to bust xxx. So we had to work every night mowing lawns and doing extra work. We started to plant Norway Spruce and White Pine Trees. We started with the smallest and the cheapest trees we could afford. We started with 2-4" seedlings. Since we felt it would be years before these trees would be saleable we kept up our lawn route. As our children arrived they went with us on our lawn route and we back packed them as we mowed lawns. Within 2 years the first batch of trees were marketable! We sold 2-3' pines and spruces for $8.00 each deleivered and planted. These trees sold like hot cakes! Thus a few pennies for seedlings could be converted to many dollars within a few years. This would add many dollars per day to our plan. We also rented out barn space. Within one month of ownership we had almost $1500 in rent per month from barn spaces. We purchased Scottish Highland cows. These cows would save us from buying meat. We had a garden for vegetables and fruit trees in our pasture. The garden saved on buying vegetables. Being asked to do lawn cleanups and remove items from customer properties, we began to do small hauling jobs. We found that a lot of good stuff is thrown out so we started collecting used mowers , engines, lumber, plumbing supplies, and anything we thought we could reuse or salvage. Everything we did was directed towards being self sufficient, cost saving, and income production. (I know if I told you all the ways we saved you would not believe me so I will save the words.) We heated our house with a wood burning stove. The wood burner saved on fuel for winter heating. We would turn the burner on only for hot water for showers. Since our house was old and large, a lot of fuel would be saved in this manner. Within a few months we realized that this plan was working. We saw that in aquiring rental properties and placing them in service, we could buy properties with positive cash flows. A positive cash flow of $100 per month brought in about $3 per day. It does not sound like a lot but when you calculate in expected appreciation of the property and possible rent increases, this plan looked even better. We thus started to look for more properties. We found another farm in Bedminster Township. The cost was $195,000 for 8+ acres, 2 houses, 2 barns and machinery storage sheds. I estimated that there would be $3500 per month in rents that would support this price. After buying this property our first months rent was $3450 !!! With taxes and insurances, we made at least $1000 per month on this farm. We also planted trees and shrubs on this property and put in a few cows. In seeing that this method was working, I went to the public library. We got books on how to buy and manage real estate. I read everything I could. The book,"Nothing Down" by Robert Allen was an eye opener. It confirmed many of our stratagies. Almost every deal on real estate that we did was with nothing down or creative financing. Every property had to make a positive cash flow. We never bought a property to flip. We became a buy and hold persons. We did buy a few single family homes, but concentrated on farms and land. Gradually our gross income and net income allowed me to quit my day job. That took almost ten years. As we had more and more spendable income, we would invest it in more types and kinds of trees. During the early years, we wanted to plant trees that we could market through newspaper ads. Newspaper ads allowed me to have a store without hours. People would call in for information instead of visiting my location. This saves a lot of time. A phone answering machine acted as my secretary. We would take orders over the phone and deleiver and plant nursery stock directly to the homeowner. Our adds targeted customers who wanted screens and privacy fences. They tended to buy large numbers of small pines, spruces, and arborvitae schrubs and trees. One could deleiver 20 2- 3' white pines on a pickup truck and plant them in an evening. At $8 ea we would gross $160 Our tree cost was 20 cents ea. or about $2.00 per order. We all gained valuable lessons in planting trees in a wide range of conditions. Without a doubt I can conclusively say that I now have found that money does grow on trees. My uncle Bill was right. His secret market information was exactly as I had thought when I was 5 years old. Only after enjoying the trees and nurturing them over the years did I realise that it wasn't for money that he wanted to raise trees, it was for satisfaction in the way of life and quality time that I have been blessed with in following my dream.


Bill Hirst

P.S.
30 acres being cleared



A 30 acre field in Doylestown Has to be cleared this month. We still have about 150 flowering pear trees to be dug. The field next to this plot is the next to be bull dozed. We have app. 60 acres of stock there.





Year 2006 Free Stuff:


We will be giving away free bibles that we got out of the trash as supply lasts. We also want to get rid of some surplus stock. I will determine how much free stock is given away by the size of your order. The more you buy the more you will be given. I want your trucks to go home full so you don't waste gas.