OK, a few thoughts from another of the "depends on location" people:
My family owns ~70 acres about an hour from my mom's house. We used to have issues with people hunting illegally on it, tearing things up, etc, until we finally worked out a deal with some cousins who live nearby. They have exclusive hunting rights, and they keep an eye on the place in exchange for that. Point being that it would be good to have a lot of eyes on the place, watching for trouble. And if the name on the No Trespassing signs is a local one that people recognize, there's less likely going to be trouble.
We are currently going through the sustainable timber harvest process ourselves...as mentioned, there are some great tax breaks if the land is being forested according to procedure. Not sure how much income that will bring, but it should be a nice chunk of change...something to keep in mind as this progresses...
Anyway, location is the key for me...heck, it's hard enough for me to drag my junk 100 miles to URE, so it would really need to be within a half hour or so's ride from me to make it worthwhile...but then again within a half hour of Hickory are some great mountains, hills, rocks, etc...and this area is close to Charlotte, Asheville, and decently close to Winston, Salisbury, etc...but as mentioned unless we buy an Eastern location and a Western location, some people are going to be "too far" away...
$500 isn't too much for me to come up with, and that's actually not a bad investment financially, assuming that the ownership LLC has all the paperwork, and all that fun stuff in a row...eventually we'll want a good lawyer to get all that straightened out, address responsibilities & liabilities, etc...
and one last FYI - I think a square mile is 640 acres...
