424 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



As THE RESULT OF PROTECTION FOR NEARLY A QUARTER OF A CENTURY PISGAH FOREST is WELL STOCKED 

 WITH DEER AND OTHER NATIVE GAME AND THIS GAME WILL BE CAREFULLY PRESERVED. 



done with an eye single to immediate 

 returns and wholly without regard for 

 the safety of the forest, and fires had 

 been permitted to burn unchecked. 

 There had been much injudicious clear- 

 ing of steep upper slopes, winch, after 

 a few years of unprofitable cultivation, 

 were generally abandoned to erosion, 

 which in the loose soil and exceptionally 

 heavy rainfall of the region, occurs 

 with remarkable rapidity. But here 

 again forest conservation for nearly a 

 quarter of a century has worked a won- 

 derful change. Stock have been wholly 

 excluded from the forest, careful im- 

 provement cuttings aimed primarily at 

 the betterment of its silvicultural con- 

 dition have been carried forward, and 

 cleared lands unfit for agriculture on 

 account of steepness and thin soil have 

 been planted to trees. Biltmore Forest 

 is today full stocked with a thrifty 

 stand, and producing a steady and in- 

 creasing yield of firewood and small 

 timbers. The forest plantations set out 

 on denuded lands, which cover in the 

 aggregate about four thousand acres, 

 are among the most successful in Amer- 

 ica ; and Mr. Vanderbilt had the well- 



earned gratification of seeing harvested 

 as the product of careful thinnings, logs 

 suitable for box boards, grown from 

 seedlings planted as the result of his 

 forethought over twenty years ago. 



I do not want to close this brief ac- 

 count of the first great object lesson 

 in forest conservation in the United 

 States on private lands without a refer- 

 ence to the personality of the man who 

 created and enriched it with each year 

 of his faithful stewardship. Mr. Van- 

 derbilt possessed singular gentleness 

 and nobility of spirit, and had an in- 

 tense and abiding love for the world 

 out-of-doors. As his life lengthened, 

 he was drawn more and more to long 

 sojourns at Buck Springs Lodge, a log 

 structure within a mile of the top of 

 Mount Pisgah ; and probably no scene 

 was so dear to his heart as the view 

 from the Lodge of the green gorge of 

 Big Creek, winding down among a 

 jumble of mountains to the wide valley 

 of the French Broad with the outlines 

 of the Blue Ridge beyond. During the 

 last years of his life, more and more of 

 his pleasure was gained from landscape 

 architecture, of which he was a faithful 



