24 VIRGINIA FORESTS Sometimes I close my eyes and wonder what it must have been like to be a student at the Biltmore Forest School. I imagine bearded men sitting around a campfire, drinking bourbon, and discussing the day’s events. I open my eyes and realize, that I’m living that same story a hundred years later. Usually, though, I’m drinking coffee in my flannel pants and talking to other foresters on my cell phone from my home office. I can still dream, can’t I? For those who may be unfamiliar with the school, the Biltmore Forest School was the first school of forestry in North America. Carl A. Schenck founded this school of “practical forestry” in 1896 on George W. Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Estate near Asheville, North Carolina. The school grounds are now part of Pisgah National Forest in Transylvania County, N.C., known as the Cradle of Forestry in America, a 6,500-acre historic site which features exhibits about forestry and forest conservation history, summarized in the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. (See en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Biltmore_Forest_School for information and further resources.) At the Biltmore Forest School, they used traditional German forestry knowledge to give birth to North American forestry. They were laying the foundations for the principles that we still use today. Not everything they were taught was right. They were experimenting with new ideas and trying to adapt what they already knew to the new world. In the early 1900s, timber was not harvested, it was mined. It was thought to be an inexhaustible resource. Theirs was the first school of forestry that attempted to think about future sustainability and how to manage the forest resource. Their primary objectives at that time were to protect the forest from fire and to plan for regeneration of young trees. Over the past 100 years, there have been several factors that have influenced forest management. Wood was vital in both World Wars. The early 1970s began the environmental movement. The early 1990s gave us concerns for the Spotted Owl and the timber wars of the northwest began. With each new change, we needed to adapt our management philosophy. As Clint Eastwood professed in the movie Heartbreak Ridge: “Improvise, adapt, and overcome.” I have been talking about these issues almost weekly with fellow foresters as we try to navigate the changes that seem to constantly be thrown at us. I have come to believe that we have entered into another major shift. We are dealing with higher-valued competition for the land base, including land development for housing and industry, solar farms, and data centers. In addition, landowner objectives are changing with a focus on recreation, wildlife, and carbon. Dynamic timber markets play a role with an over-supply of raw materials and weakened competition for our forest Forestry Philosophers: Real Foresters Practicing Real Forestry TAILGATE TALK By Matt Dowdy, Magazine Editorial Committee Sir William Philipp Daniel Schlich (February 28, 1840 - September 28, 1925). Dr. William Schlich, in the middle of the seated row, at the time dean of the forestry school at Oxford, with students of the school on a visit to the forests of Saxony in the year 1892. To his right and left, Saxon foresters. Also seated in the front row, Indian foresters on European leave. At the extreme right, Carl Alwin Schenck in the uniform of a German “forst accessist.” (COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA.ORG, PUBLIC DOMAIN) (l. to r.) Biltmore Forest School Hiram King House, Schoolhouse (interior) and Schoolhouse (exterior), Brevard vicinity. PHOTOS FROM HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY IMAGES OF NORTH CAROLINA, UNDATED.
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