Thousands of readers have had their experience of being in a forest changed forever byreading Tom Wessels's Reading the ForestedLandscape. Was this forest once farmland?Was it logged in the past? Was there ever amajor catastrophe like a fire or a wind stormthat brought trees down?

Now Wessels takes that wonderful abilityto discern much of the history of the forestfrom visual clues and boils it all down to amanageable field guide that you can take outto the woods and use to start playing forestdetective yourself. Wessels has created a key-a fascinating series of either/or questions-to guide you through the process of analyzing what you see. You'll feel like a woodlandSherlock Holmes. No walk in the woods willever be the same.