Cradle of Forestry in America

For details on our visit check out our Cradle of Forestry in America Field Report

The Cradle of Forestry in America’s Place in History

When Europeans first arrived in the New World, they found what seemed like an endless forest. Woodlands covered over a billion acres which was almost half of the continent. Settlers set about the process of clearing the forests for farms and pastures. Timber was abundant and cheap in the New World, so unlike in Europe, everything was made of wood.

Forests were seen as taking up land that could be put to productive use. Because of this attitude and the seemingly endless nature of the American forest, the United States lagged behind Europe in the science forestry or the practice of planting, managing, and caring for forests.

By the turn of the 20^th Century, forested areas in the US had declined to 34 percent of the total land area. Deforestation had become a major problem in the United States. To make matters worse, once cleared, many of the former forests made very poor farm land.

Western North Carolina wasn’t immune. Deforestation threatened not only native wildlife, water, but also the very timber supplies needed to continue expansion. But for some people, it simply ruined their view.

Pisgah Forest and the Cradle of Forestry in America began with Biltmore Estate

After visiting the area in 1888, George Vanderbilt started to slowly buy up land to build his dream home in the mountains. Eventually his Biltmore Estate would encompass over 120,000 acres. Much of that land was former forest that had been used for timber production or cleared for farmland.

Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed the formal gardens at Biltmore Estate and is widely considered the father of American landscape architecture, told Vanderbilt that the woodlands beyond his gardens would never provide the type of view he wanted without extensive work. He advised that European forestry methods be used and that a professional forester be brought in to plan and supervise the work.

Unfortunately at the time there were no forestry schools in the United States and only two trained foresters in the entire country. Gifford Pinchot had recently graduated from forestry school in Europe and arrived in Asheville in 1892 full of ideas.

Pinchot instituted a plan that would simultaneously rehabilitate the forest and return a profit to the landowner. By 1893 he was in Chicago promoting his ideas at the Worlds Fair. His work at the Biltmore Forest would later become a national model for forest reclamation.

As his fame grew, Pinchot asked Vanderbilt to hire a second forester as an assistant. Carl Alwin Schenck was brought in and soon became the head forester at Biltmore when Pinchot left in 1895 to head what would become the U.S. Forest Service.

Carl A. Schenck Creates the Cradle of Forestry

After graduating from the Institute of Technology in Darmstadt at the age of 18, Schenck attended the University of Giessen which had one of the oldest and most respected forestry programs in Europe. While there he studied under Sir Dietrich Brandis the former British forestry administrator of Burma and India. Brandis is known as not only the father of tropical forestry but the father of scientific forestry. As Schenck’s mentor, he imparted many of the concepts that would become the cornerstone of American Forestry.

As he took over the reigns at Biltmore Forest from Pinchot, Schenck was determined to continue his predecessors work. Both were strong believers in “practical forestry” which would at the same time restore and preserve forest land but be a profitable endeavor as well.

Managing a team of rangers and laborers, Schenck introduced new scientific forest management techniques to America, and Biltmore Forest soon became a model for the rest of the nation. He not only supervised the construction of roads and harvesting of trees but the planting of seedlings as well. Schenck went as far as setting up tree nurseries to aid in his forest regeneration efforts.

Schenck’s work at Biltmore didn’t go unnoticed. Time and time again he found himself explaining what he was doing to many local young men and why it was important for maintaining healthy forests. As interest in his techniques grew, he found that he couldn’t keep up with the number of applications to apprentice under him. Over time Schenck formalized his educational process and opened the Biltmore Forest School, the first school of forestry in the United States.

Biltmore Forest School Becomes the Cradle of Forestry

When the school opened on September 1, 1898, there were only 10 people in the United States with any forestry training. All of them had studied in Europe.

The school didn’t have formal textbooks or even buildings. Schenck devised his own curriculum, brought in outside experts as lecturers, and made use of any buildings in the forest that had been abandoned when Vanderbilt bought the land.

Schenck promoted his school to the sons of the leaders of the timber and logging industries. By teaching them scientific methods of forestry and modern logging techniques, he hoped to not only grow his school but spread his methods as well.

The one year program consisted of classroom instruction in the mornings followed by field work in the afternoon where students would apply the theories learned.

Biltmore Forest Fair

On the 10^th Anniversary of his school, Schenck hosted a forest fair to show the world what his scientific management techniques had been able to accomplish. From November 26 to the 29 of 1908 Carl Schenck acted as personal guide to his invited guests who included federal and state officials, lumber magnates, furniture manufacturers, and the press. He not only gave them tours of the forest but detailed lessons of forest maintenance, sustainable logging, and soil composition as well.

The fair was meant to promote his ideas as well as show off his accomplishments, and served as the high point of his career at Biltmore.

Legacy of the Biltmore Forest School lives on at the Cradle of Forestry in America

While the school was financially self sustaining, Biltmore Forest was in such poor condition when Dr. Schenck was brought in that it never turned a profit. In 1909 tensions between Vanderbilt and Schenck boiled over and he was fired as head forester at Biltmore Estate.

Forced to move his school from Vanderbilt’s land, Schenck struggled to continue for the next few years holding classes wherever he could, but in 1913 he closed his school and returned to Germany.

In 1914 just a year after his former personal forester was forced to close his school, George Vanderbilt died. Upon his death, his wife Edith sold 86,700 acres of forest land including the site of the school to the Federal Government. These tracts of land later formed the basis of Pisgah National Forest.

Although his school only lasted for a few years, it provided the foundation for the scientific maintenance of forests in America. His graduates became the first generation of domestic foresters and carried on his legacy long after he returned to his homeland. Thanks to their hard work, forest cover in the United States has remained stable for the past hundred years. In fact despite population growth and industrial growth in the past hundred years, the majority of deforestation occurred prior to 1910.

Much of the work undertaken by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930’s can be traced back to Schenck’s work at Biltmore Forest. Not only in planting trees and building state and national parks around the country, but in the reforestation of marginal farm land ravaged by erosion. Many of the techniques used were pioneered right here in Western North Carolina.

In 1968 Congress recognized the work of these early pioneers with the creation of the Cradle of Forestry in America. Located in the heart of Pisgah Forest, the cradle of forestry tells the story of Schenck’s, Pinchot’s, and even Vanderbilt’s contribution to maintaining sustainable woodlands.