AN APPRECIATION OF DR. SCHENCK.* 

 By Austin Gary. 



When Dr. Schenck gave up his work among us, American for- 

 estry lost its most picturesque figure, also one of its strongest 

 individual forces. 



Carl A. Schenck, a trained Hessian forester, came to this coun- 

 try in 1895 to assume the management of Mr. George Vander- 

 bilt's forest estate in North Carolina, succeeding Mr. Pinchot, 

 who started the work. Here he found the only field at that 

 time open in America which was suited to his training or tastes. 

 Here he could plant and thin, and try experiments. Here he 

 could build roads for the orderly and permanent working of a 

 forest property. Here, without necessity of producing immediate 

 profit, he could lay out a plan of development and improvement 

 that had in view income, and that on a limited scale, only at the 

 end of twenty years. 



All this Dr. Schenck, being not only a well trained but a bright 

 man, could do most competently; but he did much more than 

 this. His system of protection, in the first place, was an original 

 and effective one. Then, finding that to get his products to mar- 

 ket, methods of operation and transportation were required 

 suited to the country and of a style new to him, with the utmost 

 energy he set himself to meet the situation. His experience at 

 this point was interestingly related at the last Pacific Logging 

 Congress. In the end and in the main, he succeeded, and the 

 fact was a triumph for his persistence and ingenuity. Incident- 

 ally, he acquired, as he often expressed, a great admiration for 

 the competence and initiative of plain American men. 



Those men are very blind to facts who look on the Vanderbilt 

 property as a fair sample of genuine American forestry, as that 

 must be conducted on a large scale. As a matter of fact, it was 

 a German forest district transplanted to America, made possible 

 by a benevolent millionaire. It was, however, a mighty useful 

 thing to have among us, and no man in the world, probably, 



* Written in June. 

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