In this area, a wide variety of trees grow. Eventually, the bush becomes mixed or pure conifer stands. Our bush is fairly young and has quite a bit of poplar, birch and alder. We're just going to let it develop as it will.
The thing to think about when taking out trees like poplar and alder is that affects the amount of sun light on the ground. Some conifer saplings are very shade tolerant and some aren't. Taking out, or leaving, the primary growth trees affects the type conifer stands you eventually get. I like white pine myself, and if I was working our bush, I'd want to do things that favour white pines. I probably could get a stand of maple here, but that would take a lot work.
However, just leaving the bush as it is promotes a wide variety of growth, which attracts a wide variety of wild life. Having the wildlife around is a plus for us, even if the young bush is real difficult to walk through.
We also figured out that we don't want to live in the woods. It's dark, closed and buggy. Our camp is on the corner of an old hay field--mostly meadow with bush on one side. The meadow is well on its way of becoming a conifer stand. Lots of 1" - 5" trees, mostly spruce. We probably have to take out the conifers soon if we want to keep the meadow. That's probably all we'll do to work the land except to till a garden plot.
Guess our route is not to work the land much. That route won't put hours on the tractor, but that's OK. If I start suffering from tractor withdrawal, the neighbours probably have plenty for me to do.
Our bush probably was clear-cut at one time. The recent selective cuts I've seen around here are real messy. A lot of the bush is knocked down to get to the few marked trees. Bush just ends up on the ground as dead wood. Bush with a lot of dead wood on the ground isn't great. I'd probably be tempted to take out a lot of the knocked down bush if I'd had a recent selective cut lot. Wait too long, and you can't get to it easily. There are places I imagine are selective cuts from 20 or so years ago. You can't get through them at all from the dead wood still on the ground.