BROOKSTON, Ind. — An Indiana man with fond childhood memories of spending time on his grandfather’s farm has now made his way back to the land 30 years after leaving it. 

Rich Hines has drawn closer to his roots in agriculture and in retirement has become a maker of syrup and honey.  He’s also learned how to become the forester on his 38 acres of woods near Brookston where he draws sap for boiling down into syrup from 400 maple trees.                                                                  Hines, 73, said he used to marvel at his grandfather’s ability to get things done in his childhood visits at the farm. Hines bought the land along the Tippecanoe River in the early 1990s. “It was a plan to kind of plug back into my ag roots and prepare for a retirement that was more in tune with that ag background,” he said.   

Hines grew up in Lafayette but agriculture never left his blood during his professional career in advertising.  He was the marketing director of a farm equipment company in Ohio for close to 10-years early his career. Some of his clients were also involved in agriculture during his 30-years or so one of the principal owners of an advertising agency in Lafayette.     

The hands-on work is what he craved the most. Almost right away, Hines started removing truckloads of refrigerators and other appliances along with cans from a section of the woods long used as an illegal dumping ground.  “It was a mess,” he said.          

He also enrolled the property in the Classified Forest and Wildlands Habitat Program through the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and worked with a district forester on developing a forest management plan. They planted about 500 black walnut trees where the junk was cleaned up to add diversity to what was already growing. 

Hines, who also did his share of research on forestry in the years to come, said a wider variety of trees is one of the components of making a woods more attractive to migratory song birds and other wildlife.                                                                                                                 Initially, Hines used the property primarily for hunting and fishing but gears shifted drastically when a forester during an annual visit to the property some 15 years later took notice of the wealth of sugar maple trees in the woods. The forester mentioned how fun it would be to make syrup and, suddenly, Hines became interested.         

Hines started out by tapping three trees and using a turkey fryer to boil down the sap. He then began adding trees to his taps every year. Eventually, he was pulling enough sugar water that he had to ditch the turkey fryer and put up a sugar shack with an evaporator to make the boiling easier. He now taps 400 maple trees with help from his brother, Jim, and friend, Joe Velovitch, on what’s become known as Springboro Farms. 

Hines also turned into a beekeeper with about 20 colonies of bees producing roughly 50 to 60 gallons of honey every season. Some of his syrup and honey are sold but he donates the rest to help local not-for-profit groups raise money.                                                                                            

One of the key components of his forest management plan is removing invasive plants before they spread too heavily across the ground, blocking the sunlight needed for trees to regenerate. In 2014, his dive into forestry picked up steam when he was accepted into the Environmental Quality Incentives Program through USDA for technical assistance with building trails and landings throughout his woods. 

He also received cost sharing from the program to combat invasive species like bush honeysuckle and multifloral rose. Hines said the trails help reduce erosion but also make reaching taps and hauling sap to the sugar house easier on all-terrain vehicles. He said eliminating invasion species also makes reaching taps on foot much easier without having to fight through brush or thorns puncturing a sap collection bag.       

Hines is also out to help rebuild the population of migratory song birds, which has noticeably declined over the past half century from forests giving way to development in the U.S. and other places like South America. He works with the Indiana Audubon Society, a group dedicated to the enjoyment of birds in their habitat through conservation, education and research.                                                                                                                                   His Springboro Farms also received the 2021 Charles Deam Forest Stewardship award from the Indiana Forestry & Woodland Owners Association.                                                                                                                         This past year, the Indiana Maple Syrup Association adopted the marketing theme that Indiana syrup is produced in bird friendly forests.  One of the USDA initiatives he’s enrolled in currently provides resources aimed at bird habitat maintenance.

“It’s really good support for those sugar makers desiring to make their sugar bush a truly bird friendly woodland,” he said.