An Appreciation of Dr. Schenck 565 



lumbermen and others had their wits sharpened, their horizon 

 broadened ; got starts and slants that will direct their thinking 

 and modify their actions through all their succeeding lives. 



Dr. Schenck in the last number of "Biltmore Doings," suffer- 

 ing doubtless under intense disappointment, minimized his own 

 results. He need have no such feeling as long as the young men 

 whom he stimulated and taught were of the right stamp to start 

 with, and at the finish got foothold in the industry. Results 

 will be in evidence in due time, all the sounder for being a little 

 delayed. If, on the same occasion, he forgot some men who 

 have reached prominence in other lines, it is but fair to remember 

 the set purpose of the man, to work through the industry itself. 



In the hurry and scramble of actual life, men do not always 

 carefully consider their words or maintain a position of nice 

 balance. It was so with Dr. Schenck, as has been indicated 

 above. Of an intense nature, his reactions and sympathies were 

 strong. When, for instance, as he did before the Society of 

 American Foresters, he said that forestry was anything that 

 had to do with the woods, he went to an extreme, and his friends 

 had to take him up. Forestry in any meaning sense is no more 

 that than it is German forest practice introduced on a large scale 

 in America today. Both are extremes, and the sensible, practical 

 mean lies between them. This, as far as private land in large 

 areas is concerned, consists in the first place, as all so far agree, 

 in good utilization and in protection that is efficient and on an 

 adequate scale ; and these things we know depend, in turn, on 

 the maintenance of values. Further than that, forestry includes 

 in some cases conservative cutting, reservation of young and 

 thrifty stands and cheap measures for re-stocking, all under con- 

 ditions imposed by sound finance. These things, to be sure, are 

 not ideal, but they are practicable to an extent, and they secure 

 something that is actual and worth while. All are in operation 

 at one place and another within the industry today, carried out 

 under actual business organization ; and extension of these de- 

 sirable things halts mainly for lack of men so equipped and so 

 placed as to carry them out. To the extension of the area over 

 which those things should hold, Dr. Schenck's school contributed ; 

 being, in fact, in that line, the most effective thing we had. The 

 two-year plan that was in Dr. Schenck's mind when he quit 



