My farm was a cattle pasture when we bought it. There were a few trees in gulleys and along the fence row. Since I really wanted to live in a forrest, I 've let about 15 or 20 acres of the the 50 grow up. And I planted 500 trees the first year. The trees that were natural to the farm were a couple hickories, walnut, elm, ash. BL and Hedgeapple. In the 10 years we've had the farm, some of the new walnuts have produced nuts. I have cut maybe 10 osage sapplings for bows and some of the BL are 6" diameter. Oh, and there are a couple ash sapplings that are 3" dia. that may or may not be harvested this year.
These are pics of sappling I harvested last summer. Now some might have been in drainage areas that hadn't been mowed for a year or so prior to us buy the place. But, most grew up in the 10 year period.
So, you might be able to make a bow from osage sapplings before your grand kids can draw one back.
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