5 acres in Illinois

[Western]

You should "analyze The infrastructure" of your property, you may decide to keep most of those better trees Of course, I would'nt expect you to know anything about "infrastructure analyzing"

Joking aside, I would still look strongly at Ginseng, same as I posted in my 1st reply. Me personally it would be that and maybe some greenhouse high dollar plant/berry or expensive hard to find produce. If Ginseng wold grow in Texas, my place would be covered in it.

 

[dave1949]

Are the black walnut nut meats good? I mean not wormy or whatever.

If so, maybe you could sell those if you take the husks off. I know that can be a sticky and hard job, must be a relatively easy way though.

 

[forgeblast]

You could look at permiculture. You have areas where you have shade and sun and just match the plants for those areas. You could do all edibles when you plant, eg hazelnuts, blueberry's, etc... The maples if you ever want to tap later on you could make syrup from them.