July, 
1909 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
Bridge building on the Biltmore estate 
ber has been very low in cost. This industry has been con- 
ducted along the most improved principles of forestry, care 
being taken only to select trees which, from their size and 
location, would interfere with the growth of younger trees. 
The dense thickets on many parts of the estate and the 
great area of woodland have rendered it necessary to cut 
down a very large quantity of first-growth timber in order 
to give space for second-growth timber and small trees. 
The lumbering system has required many miles of snaking 
roads—forest openings through which the logs could be 
hauled to the main road or to the mill. All of these have 
been built by the Biltmore employees, and are located upon 
grades wherever possible, so that the advantage of gravity 
can be taken in hauling logs from the woodland. Practi- 
cally all of this forest product is sawed into commercial tim- 
ber on the estate, as a large steam sawmill, also a planing- 
mill have been installed especially for this purpose. The 
income from timber alone has been so large that the plans 
carried out by the forester and his assistants have well re- 
paid the expense of the system in addition to the benefit to 
the younger forests, while a large area within this zone has 
been planted with young trees where none has before been 
grown. 
RG OR RI tI, 
The havoc wrought by fire in a forest 
Young foresters getting the value of logs 
Other features of the industry at Biltmore include the cut- 
ting of fire-;wood. Nearly three thousand cords of this fuel 
are sold yearly, coming from trees which are deemed value- 
less for commercial timber. ‘The cord-wood comes from a 
tract of eight thousand acres, so situated that the material 
can be readily hauled to Asheville and neighboring towns. 
Another source of revenue from the forests is bark from the 
chestnut oak, of which about fifteen hundred cords are 
secured yearly, supplying a plant which manufactures tannic 
acid. The growth of chestnut wood is such that the estate 
also furnishes fifteen hundred cords of this for making 
chestnut extract. In short, the income from the forest 
industry is so large that it more than balances the expense of 
caring for the woodland in spite of the large force of men 
needed. One of the principal items of revenue is lumber- 
ing, a large sawmill being located upon the estate to convert 
the timber into boards, planks and other building material. 
One of the most interesting features is the success which, 
as already stated, has been attained in foresting worthless 
land such as abandoned farms and clearings. This was 
taken up several years ago, and up to the present time about 
two thousand acres of abandoned fields within the Biltmore 
forest have been covered with forest plantations, and the 
A ruinous fungus growth 
