276 
process is still be- 
ing carried on at 
the rate of one 
hundred acres 
planted yearly. 
The plantations 
are composed 
chiefly of white 
pine and_ short- 
leaf pine with a 
mixture of oak 
and hard maple. 
E x peri mental 
plantations of tu- 
lip, black walnut, 
black locust, ash 
and cherry have 
been made. ‘The 
young trees for 
the _ plantations 
are raised on the 
estate. 
In connection 
with the Biltmore 
forest service is a 
school of forestry 
which is open to young men of good character. It is the 
most important private forestry school in America. <A 
specialty is made of field-work, and the students play a most 
important part in measuring timber lands, lumbering, operat- 
ing the sawmill and the planing-mill, seeding and tree plant- 
ing, also in the nursery. All of this forms a portion of their 
out-door instruction while the lectures and study include a 
very complete course in sylviculture, the business of forestry, 
the quality and variety of the tree as well as so-called 
timber cruising and log and timber measurements. ‘This 
also embodies surveying in all its branches. A large mile- 
age of the lumber roads which have been constructed at 
Biltmore represent the surveys by the forest school. 
Again referring to the destruction by fire, it should be 
said that the spread of the flames was prevented only by 
the efforts of the mountaineers not only on the estate but 
in the vicinity who showed their friendship for the owner 
in this way. Three hundred men are employed at Bilt- 
more, and this force, with the students and the neighboring 
mountaineers, greatly assisted in extinguishing the fires, 
Digging trenches to check a forest fire 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
Transporting bark from Biltmore forest to the tannery 
July, 
but one of the 
best sections of 
the woodland 
was entirely 
ruined, represent- 
ing a work which 
has been in prog- 
ress for the last 
twenty years. It 
is what is known 
in forestry as the 
regeneration of 
the poplar tree, 
and the success of 
the foresters had 
attracted  atten- 
tion to it through- 
out the United 
States. It must 
be said that the 
fire was the work 
of incendiaries, 
strange as it may 
seem. Although 
the object lesson 
which Mr. Van- 
derbilt has furnished the Southern people, and especially 
mountain folk, in his model farm, forests, dairy-work, and 
other features have been widely appreciated and have proved 
of much educational value to the South, he has had enemies 
like others who have tried to better their fellows. In pur- 
chasing lands to add to the estate he has at times been obliged 
to have the property appraised on account of the exorbitant 
price charged by the owner, and in this way has aroused 
1909 
A fire that started in burning 
pine stumps 
enmity in some quarters. It is be- 
lieved that the fires were started by 
persons of this class, and the van- 
dalism has aroused a strong feeling 
of indignation in the vicinity. 
Relative to this Biltmore disas- 
ter and the menace of fire to forests 
in general, Dr. Carlos Schenck, the 
chief forester of Biltmore, gives the 
following statement: 
‘Nothing can be more welcome to 
