26 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



A Real Forest School 



Dr. C. A. Schenek, the well-known forester 

 who has had charge of George W. Vanderbilt 's 

 Pisgah Forest and has conducted a forest 

 school on that estate for the past twelve years, 

 has recently returned from Germany with his 

 class of students, where they have been located 

 for the past four months studying German 

 forests near Darmstadt. The students, save 

 the graduates, were established the latter part 

 of April at Tupper 's Lake in the Adirondack 

 region of New York. Here they had oppor- 

 tunity to analyze the Adirondack forests, and 

 especially the timber area, both depredated 

 and undepredated, belonging to the state of 

 New York. A feW days ago the school was 

 transferred to Sunburst Village, on the prop- 

 erty of the Champion Fiber Company near 

 Canton, N. C, where lectures and studies will 

 go on for a few weeks. 



During the present month the school will be 

 transferred to the timber properties of the 

 Little River Lumber Company on the upper 

 reaches of the Little Tennessee River in Blount 

 County, Tenn., where the logging operations of 

 this big corporation are being conducted. This 

 move wUl be made just as soon as suitable 

 housing and commissary arrangements can be 

 made for caring for Dr. Schenek, his assist- 

 ants and the students. 



Early in August the school will make 

 another move to Selma Township, Wexford 

 County, Mich., at the woods operations of the 

 Cummer-Diggins Company, fifteen miles north- 

 east of Cadillac. Arrangements have been 

 made with W. L. Saunders, vice-president and 

 general manager of this company, to erect for 

 the Biltmore Forest School a temporary bunk 

 house at one of the principal camps, and the 

 instructors and students will be fed at the 

 eamp dining-room. A country school-house, 

 three-fourths of a mile from this camp, has 

 been engaged, which will afford a place for 

 the morning lectures, and the afternoons will 

 be devoted to dendrology, timber cruising, sur- 

 veying, railroad building and kindred work 

 embodied in the active and energetic course 

 that Dr. Schenek outlines for his students. 



Eight here it may be observed that Dr. 

 Schenek 's Biltmore Forest School is coming 

 into its own. This eminent educator, beyond 

 doubt the best-posted practical forester in the 

 United States, working as he has for years on 

 eleemosynary lines, has now secured the inter- 

 est of practical lumbermen in his school to 

 such an extent that the success of the enter- 

 prise is assured. Hitherto his students have 

 had good opportunities for the study of forest 

 growth, as it prevails in wonderful variety in 

 the North Carolina country near Asheville, but 

 they have been dependent on small and per- 

 sonally conducted sawmills and crude logging 

 methods for training in logging and saw- 

 milling. Now his school has access to the best 

 types of timber, logging, sawmilling and re- 

 manufacturing enterprises in the United 

 States, which together with Dr. Schenek 's 

 knowledge of botany, dendrology, tree growth. 



cruising, estimating, etc., gives the students 

 an opportunity of acquiring specific training 

 in every detail necessary to the proper educa- 

 tion of a competent forester and practical 

 lumberman. 



It is possible that visits to other lumber 

 operations may be made during the year, but 

 the principal work of the school year will be 

 in the neighborhood of Townsend, Tenn., and 

 Cadillac, Mich. 



The tree growth at the Little River Lum- 

 ber Company's operations involves poplar, 

 hemlock, white oak, red oak, soft maple, 

 white ash, hickory, cherry, holly, beech, birch, 

 and a considerable variety of other woods. 

 The great timber property of this company is 

 being handled on lines of forest conservation, 

 based on the fact that the land is suitable 

 only for the reproduction of timber growth. 

 Permanent railroads have been built and log- 



C. A. 



scHENCic, rn. d., director bilt- 

 more FOREST SCHOOL 



ging involves only the mature and hyper- 

 mature trees, the remaining growth being al- 

 lowed to reach maturity. The company prac- 

 tices forest conservation in the best possible 

 way on an area of that type. 



At the operations of the Cummer-Diggins 

 Company of Cadillac, Mich., forest conserva- 

 tion is practiced wisely, but on different lines. 

 In this section timber lands are valuable for 

 agricultural purposes, and the forest is 

 stripped clean. Such timber as is valuable for 

 lumber is made into lumber, and the residue 

 is utilized in the chemical plants at Cadillac. 

 The Cummer-Diggins Company practices for- 

 est conservation just as does W. B. Townsend, 

 manager of the Little River Lumber Company, 

 but the systems of the two are diametrically 

 opposite. 



Dr. Schenek 's students at Townsend will 

 not only engage in the study of wood physics, 

 surveying, estimating, road building, etc., but 

 will have opportunity to analyze the possibil- 



ities of forest regeneration, and by the study 

 of the soil will be able to demonstrate the 

 most profitable types of timber growth to 

 foster and perpetuate. 



Going from this region to Cadillac the stu- 

 dents will be able to compare and check 

 largely the same types of timber growth as 

 those at Townsend, and to note the difference 

 in the physics of trees of the same botany 

 growing in different latitudes. 



This work which Dr. Schenek is doing, not 

 for profit, but in his enthusiasm and love of 

 the calling, to educate young men to a thor- 

 ough knowledge of practical forestry and lum- 

 ber manufacturing, is in no wise an experi- 

 ment, but is a successful demonstration of the 

 possibilities and value of training of this sort. 

 The lumbermen who have so generously as- 

 sisted in this undertaking are to be congratu- 

 lated on their enterprise and level-headedness 

 in assisting to this most desirable end — prac- 

 tical education for young men in a work of 

 usefulness and profit. 



Dr. Schenek plans to keep his class of stu- 

 dents in the woods the year round, which is 

 surely the only way of teaching forestry and 

 lumbering on practical lines. A forest school 

 without close contact with the forest would 

 have little more chance of success than a med- 

 ical school without a laboratory or hospital 

 connected with it. It is a great work that 

 this eminent, enthusiastic and expert fores- 

 ter is undertaking in giving practical train- 

 ing to such young men as desire to become 

 competent in lumber affairs, and the assistance 

 of lumbermen to this end is certainly most 

 worthily bestowed. 



The locations of Townsend, Tenn., and Cad- 

 illac, Mieh., are such that the work of this 

 school during the year will doubtless attract 

 the interest of many leading lumbermen, and 

 it goes without saying that visits from those 

 having an interest in practical forestry wUl 

 be welcome. Before the year 1910 comes to 

 an end it seems probable that there will be no 

 difficulty in securing for Dr. Schenek and his 

 Biltmore Forest School a permanent headquar- 

 ters' camp and suitable buildings for a lab- 

 oratory, lecture room, etc., at some central 

 point, from which the school can emigrate to 

 various timber areas throughout the country ia 

 the pursuance of its studies. 



Palmetto Wood, for Parlor Furniture 



Vast areas covering thousands of acres in 

 South .\merica are covered with nothing but 

 palmetto trees, a species which has formerly 

 Ijeen considered utterly worthless for anything 

 but tiers for buildings and wharves. For some 

 years back experts have been working on this 

 problem, and a large amount of money has l>een 

 expended in an effort to commercialize this tree, 

 but up to this time no reasonable use could be 

 discovered outside of the aesthetic quality of the 

 tree as an ornamental feature of the general 

 landscape. There has been a plan adopted now, 

 bowever. which has in view the manufacture of 

 a commercial hardwood from the fibrous trunks 

 of the palmetto. When sawed, the grain shows 

 an artistic and gnarled appearance, somewhat 

 resembling the grain of the Mexican onyx, and 

 lias even now been manufactured into furniture. 



