In 1895, George W. Vanderbilt brought Carl A. Schenck from Germany to the Biltmore Estate in western North Carolina to manage the vast expanses of forest lands on the estate's property.[2] Schenck replaced Gifford Pinchot as Vanderbilt's estate forester.[2] He began introducing new scientific management and practical forestry techniques. As Schenck worked throughout Vanderbilt's vast forests, he filled his need for help, in part, by using local young men and other volunteers who were interested in working for free as an apprentice.[3] Because of the growing interest in forestry, Schenck decided to formalize his forestry education program.[3]
Although 1898 was the first year the school published a catalog, Schenck operated the school "on a voluntary basis and highly informal" in 1896 and 1897 for a small group of students, including Alfred Gaskill, Edward Merriam Griffith, Frederick E. Olmsted, Overton W. Price, and George H. Wirt.[2] Schenck countered the 1898 opening date, writing, "There was never a formal opening. The first catalog was issued in 1898. … Entrance conditions were lenient—graduation from high school―but once in, strict requirements were enforced. Those who could not make the grades were dropped."[2] The purpose of the school was "to provide foresters for lumber companies."[2] Later, the Biltmore Forest School had so many applicants that Schenck had to create a waiting list.[2]
The Biltmore Forest School offered a one-year course of study, and the curriculum focused on providing traditional classroom lectures in silvicultural theory supplemented with extensive hands-on, practical forest management field training.[2] The school lacked academic standing and was instead modeled on the German "Master Schools."[2]
Schenck's students spent most afternoons in the forest doing hands-on work and directly applying the theories they had learned in the classroom.[8] One of his former students, Cap Eldridge said, "He just lectured to us three or four hours a day, and the rest of the time we were strung out behind him, traveling full speed while he tended to his duties, which he explained as he went along."[9] This made Biltmore Forest Schools more like the last year of traditional German training and contrasts strongly with the newly formed American college programs which took place indoors.[5]
Schenck proudly said, “My boys worked continuously in the woods, while those at other schools saw wood only on their desks.”[8] The students learned felling, logging, sawing, operating machinery, transplanting seedlings, and caring for tree nurseries.[10] In addition, their studies included botany, dendrology, fish and game, and forest economics.[10] Schenck also took students with him on his annual vacation to Europe.[2]
However, student residences were less than desirable; students were told to "find yourself a place to stay" amongst the abandoned farmhouses and cabins in the area.[11] When the students were at their summer camp at Pink Beds in Transylvania County, five of the buildings they lived in were called Hell Hole, Little Bohemia, Little Hell Hole, The Palace, and Rest for the Wicked.[11][3] Some students were lucky and found a place to stay with the rangers.[11] Despite this, tuition for the school was expensive at $200 a year, meaning that its students mostly came from wealthier families.[9][5] In contrast, tuition was $175 a year for Harvard University in the same year.[5] By 1906, the school's brochure indicated that a year at Biltmore Forest School cost closer to $750, with a horse, food, boarding, travel, and the $200 in tuition.[5] During a national financial crisis, Schenck was forced to raise tuition to $250, and again in January 1909, to $300.[5]
Geographically, the school's students came mostly from the South and Midwest.[5] Many were the children of lumbermen who wanted to increase profits in their family business.[5] However, there were also students from the Northeast who were interested in conservation.[5] These students tended to be from upper-middle-class families and lack a background in forestry or lumber.[5] Regardless of background, the graduates of the Biltmore Forest School were hired into the new United States Division of Forestry which was under the leadership of Biltmore Estate's former forester, Pinchot.[5] This mutually beneficial relationship was short-lived; Pinchot helped establish the forestry school at Yale University with a $150,000 endowment from his father.[5] These students were being taught Pinchot's view of forestry and were, therefore, more likely to be hired by him.[5]
After a disagreement with Schenck in 1903, Pinchot wrote Vanderbilt requesting that he end Schenck's ability to award a master's degree and that he also close the Biltmore Forest School altogether.[5] Schenck responded with a measured five-page letter noting the professional accomplishments of the Biltmore Forest School's graduates, including those who worked for Pinchot at the Forest Service.[5] He also stated that none of his students had failed the Forest Service exam.[5] In addition to noting that Pinchot's request would unfairly benefit Yale University, he also wrote:
"As regards to my personal knowledge of forestry, I can only say that no forester in the United States had a better chance of training than myself; that no forester in the United States is held in higher esteem by Sir Dietrich Brandis and Dr. William Schlich than myself; that no forester in the United States has ever passed his university examinations more satisfactorily than myself; that no forester in Hesse Darmstadt has ever reached a higher standing in the government examinations than myself; and that no forester obtained the doctor degree ‘summa cum laude’ excepting myself. I do not want to talk of these matters boastingly. I just want to emphasize that my forestal knowledge is, to say the least, equal to Filibert Roth, Henry Graves, or Mr. Fisher, the young sapling who now occupies the chair of forestry at Harvard."[5]
Students inspecting a forest rail line, Darmstadt, Germany, circa 1912
In 1908, Schenck had a heated disagreement with Vanderbilt who wanted to sell off part of the estates' forests to ease his financial crisis.[3] In addition, Vanderbilt disagreed with some of Schenck's strategies to raise money for the estate.[5] In 1909, Schenck quarreled with Charles Beadle, head of Biltmore Estate's nurseries, resulting in a criminal charge for assault.[6][13] Vanderbilt asked Schenck to resign in April 1909, with Schenck working to the end of his contract in November 1909.[6][13][5]
Although the Biltmore Forest School was financially self-sustaining, Schenck could no longer operate it on Vanderbilt's property.[2] His students and alumni unsuccessfully tried to raise the funds to purchase Pisgah Forest from Vanderbilt.[5] The school continued to operate by using a variety of locations.[6] It was based at the logging village of Sunburst in Haywood County which was owned by Champion Paper and Fibre Company for a time, with the company providing classroom space and student housing.[6][3] Students spent winters in Darmstadt, Germany, and Mimizan-les-Bains, France, and the rest of the year in forests in upstate New York; North Carolina; Cadillac, Michigan; and Coos Bay, Oregon.[2][6][13][10][5] In 1910, Schenck tried to take his students on a tour of the pine plantations on Biltmore Estate—because they were barred at the door, they jumped a fence in an isolated spot.[5]
House estimated that there were 300 graduates from Biltmore Forest School; 100 entered the field of forestry.[2] However, there may have been as many as 350 students.[12] The school closed in 1913.[2] Schenck noted, "It could not compete with the many state schools of forestry which had by then been set up."[2] In addition, Biltmore Forest School "lacked support from lumbermen."[2]
In 1914, Schenck was called back to Germany for World War I.[6] Although he lectured in both Europe and the United States after the war, he did not try to reestablish his forestry school.[6] He wrote, “Retrospectively, let me assert that the Biltmore Forest School died at the right time. It died when it had reached the apex of its career. Be it man or tree or institution, it is better to die too early than too late.”[3]
Biltmore Forest Fair
In November 1908, Schenck hosted the Biltmore Forest Fair which was designed to "demonstrate the accomplishments and possibilities of scientific management and practical forestry techniques."[14] The fair also recognized the tenth anniversary of Biltmore Forest School and the twentieth anniversary of private forestry at Biltmore.[14][5] Schenck wrote personal letters to nearly 400 people, inviting them to attend the fair.[14] Along with these letters of invitation, he enclosed a 55-page illustrated booklet, A Forest Fair in the Biltmore Forest, which provided information about the forest and conservation.[14][15] The 50 to 100 attendees included botanists, foresters, furniture manufacturers, lumbermen, and university professors.[14]
The three-day festival ran from November 26–29, exhibiting forestry practices taught at the school and providing lessons in logging operations, planting techniques, seed regeneration, and soil composition.[14] Schenck guided attendees on forest plantation tours.[14][5] Guests also toured Biltmore Estate's nurseries.[14] The fair showcased Schenck's forestry and conservation practices and resulted in various newspaper articles.[14]American Lumberman magazine wrote that the festival was the beginning of a new “epic in American forestry.”[3]
Legacy
First Ranger's House on exhibit at the Cradle of Forestry.
Despite the school's short existence, it laid the foundation for American forestry education. Schenck's theories of sustainable forestry greatly influenced the field, remaining important long after he died in 1955. Graduates of the Biltmore Forest School became the first generation of American professional foresters.[16] Instructor Homer D. House estimated that 25 of its students became well known in American forestry.[2]
The Biltmore Forest School's first reunion was in Wilmington, Delaware, after World War I.[4][12] This was followed by several reunions in New York City, the last one taking place in the 1930s[12] In May 1950, the alumni of Biltmore Forest School had a reunion at the George Vanderbilt Hotel in Asheville, North Carolina.[12] They toured Schenck's pine plantations on the Biltmore Estate, a had a barbecue at Pink Beds and held an event at Lake Logan clubhouse of the Champion Paper and Fibre Company.[12] They also placed a commemorative tablet called "The Plymouth Rock of Forestry" at the site of the former schoolhouse and planted three pine trees in memory of Schenck.[12] The plaque reads: “In memory of Carl Alwin Schenck, 1867-1955. This memorial forest is dedicated to honor a great teacher and founder of the Biltmore Forest School, the first school of forestry in the New World. His ashes have been spread here among the trees he loved."[5] The event drew 36 alumni from seventeen states.[12] Dr. Hans Schenck, Schenck's nephew from Germany, brought hand-carved reunion emblems for each alumnus.[12]
Today, the school continues to be celebrated as the Cradle of Forestry in America heritage site on Vanderbilt's former lands in Pisgah National Forest in Transylvania County, North Carolina.[17][11] The Cradle of Forestry in America was dedicated on October 20, 1964.[11] The 6,500 acres (2,600ha) historic site includes the Forest Discovery Center, an indoor forestry and forest conservation history museum, gift shop, and café.[18][4] There are two guided trails that include several of the school's original buildings, a 1914 Climax logging locomotive, and a portable sawmill.[17] The center offers special programs, crafts demonstrations, nature education programs, and special events.[17]
Biltmore Hall, home of the College of Natural Resources at North Carolina State University, was named in honor of the school.[19] Schenck considered the forestry program there the successor to the Biltmore School.[19]
Released in 2015, the Emmy Award–winning film America’s First Forest: Carl Schenck and the Asheville Experiment tells the story of Schenck and his work at Biltmore.[20]
Gifford Pinchot was an American forester and politician. He served as the fourth chief of the U.S. Division of Forestry, as the first head of the United States Forest Service, and as the 28th governor of Pennsylvania. He was a member of the Republican Party for most of his life, though he joined the Progressive Party for a brief period.
A forester is a person who practises forestry, the science, art, and profession of managing forests. Foresters engage in a broad range of activities including ecological restoration and management of protected areas. Foresters manage forests to provide a variety of objectives including direct extraction of raw material, outdoor recreation, conservation, hunting and aesthetics. Emerging management practices include managing forestlands for biodiversity, carbon sequestration and air quality.
Biltmore Estate is a historic house museum and tourist attraction in Asheville, North Carolina. Biltmore House, the main residence, is a Châteauesque-style mansion built for George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895 and is the largest privately owned house in the United States, at 178,926 sq ft (16,622.8 m2) of floor space and 135,280 sq ft (12,568 m2) of living area. Still owned by George Vanderbilt's descendants, it remains one of the most prominent examples of Gilded Age mansions.
George Washington Vanderbilt II was an American art collector and member of the prominent Vanderbilt family, which amassed a huge fortune through steamboats, railroads, and various business enterprises. He commissioned the construction of a 250-room mansion, the largest privately owned home in the United States, which he named Biltmore Estate.
Bernhard Eduard Fernow was the third chief of the USDA's Division of Forestry of the United States from 1886 to 1898, preceding Gifford Pinchot in that position, and laying much of the groundwork for the establishment of the United States Forest Service in 1905. Fernow's philosophy toward forest management may be traced to Heinrich Cotta's preface to Anweisung zum Waldbau or Linnaeus' ideas on the "economy of nature." Fernow has been called the "father of professional forestry in the United States."
Articles on forestry topics include:.
Pisgah National Forest is a National Forest in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina. It is administered by the United States Forest Service, part of the United States Department of Agriculture. The Pisgah National Forest is completely contained within the state of North Carolina. The forest is managed together with the other three North Carolina National Forests from common headquarters in Asheville, North Carolina. There are local ranger district offices located in Pisgah Forest, Mars Hill, and Nebo.
Edith Stuyvesant Vanderbilt Gerry was an American philanthropist and wife of George Washington Vanderbilt II and Peter Goelet Gerry, a United States senator from Rhode Island.
Yale School of the Environment (YSE) is a professional school of Yale University. It was founded to train foresters, and now trains environmental students through four 2-year degree programs, two 10-month mid-career programs, and a 5-year PhD program. Still offering forestry instruction, the school has the oldest graduate forestry program in the United States.
The Biltmore Company is an American firm that owns and operates Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. The company is owned by the family of William Amherst Vanderbilt Cecil, the younger grandson of George Washington Vanderbilt II.
Cold Mountain falls in the mountain region of western North Carolina, United States. The mountain is one of the Great Balsam Mountains which are a part of the Blue Ridge Mountains within the Appalachian Mountains. Cold Mountain and the Shining Rock Wilderness surrounding it are part of Pisgah National Forest.
Raphael Zon was a prominent U.S. Forest Service researcher.
Carl Alwin Schenck was a German forester and pioneering forestry educator. When Schenck came to the United States to work for George W. Vanderbilt at the Biltmore Estate, he became the third formally trained forester in the United States. He established and operated the Biltmore Forest School, the first forestry school in North America, on Vanderbilt's property.
The Biltmore stick is a tool used by foresters to estimate tree trunk diameter at breast height. The tool very often includes a hypsometer scale to estimate height as well. It looks much like an everyday yardstick. With practice a Biltmore stick is considered to be exceptionally accurate, more often within 13 millimetres on diameters. Some foresters use the tool regularly, however, many prefer to use more accurate tools such as a diameter tape to measure diameter at breast height (DBH) and a clinometer to measure height. On the other end of the spectrum, some foresters consider the use of a Biltmore stick to be no more accurate than their own visual estimates, and make it practice for their surveys to be largely completed in this manner.
The Forest History Society is an American non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of forest and conservation history. The society was established in 1946 and incorporated in 1955.
The Society of American Foresters (SAF) is a professional organization representing the forestry industry in the United States. Its mission statement declares that it seeks to "advance the science, education, and practice of forestry; to enhance the competency of its members; to establish professional excellence; and, to use the knowledge, skills and conservation ethic of the profession to ensure the continued health and use of forest ecosystems and the present and future availability of forest resources to benefit society". Its headquarters are located in Washington, D.C.
The New York State College of Forestry, the first professional school of forestry in North America, opened its doors at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, in the autumn of 1898., It was advocated for by Governor Frank S. Black, but after just a few years of operation, it was defunded in 1903, by Governor Benjamin B. Odell in response to public outcry over the College's controversial forestry practices in the Adirondacks.
The Forest Heritage Scenic Byway is a 76.7-mile (123.4 km) National Forest Scenic Byway, National Scenic Byway and North Carolina Scenic Byway that traverses through the Pisgah National Forest, in Western North Carolina. It features the Cradle of Forestry, waterfalls, trails and scenic vistas.
The Pennsylvania Academy of Science was founded and organized on April 18, 1924, and is an independent non-profit organization that strives "to embrace all disciplines of science and help ensure the scholarly and ethical pursuit of all scientific endeavors." Today the Pennsylvania Academy of Science has members throughout the United States and in other countries. The current president is Andre Walther of Cedar Crest College and the President-Elect is Tammy Tintjer of King's College. Matthew Wallace of East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania serves as Immediate-Past President.
Frederick Erskine Olmsted, also known as Fritz Olmsted, was an American forester and one of the founders of American forestry. Through his work with the United States Forest Service, Olmsted helped establish the national forest system in the United States and helped train the next generation of Forest Service agents and college professors. He was instrumental in the creation of at least twenty national forests in California and Alaska including the Muir Woods National Monument and Tongass National Forest. He also wrote the Use of National Forest Resources, a foundational Forest Service manual that laid the groundwork for the nation's enduring forest management system, elements of which remain in use today.
1 2 3 4 5 Biltmore Company, The. July 24, 1998. "Cradle of Forestry Celebrates Centennial of The Biltmore School of Forestry: America's First School of Forestry." [press release] Brevard, NC. Available: http://www.biltmore.com/media/topics/nr_archives_gardens_04.asp. Accessed February 13, 2010.
↑ Anderson, Steven. 1998. "Introduction". in Cradle of Forestry in America: The Biltmore School of Forestry, 1898-1913, Carl Alwyn Schenck. Durham, NC: Forest History Society.
Schenck, Carl Alwin. Cradle of Forestry in America: The Biltmore School of Forestry, 1898-1913. Ovid Butler, ed. Durham, NC: Forest History Society, 2011. ISBN 9780890300558
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