FAIRYLAND OF NATURAL BEAUTY x 3 DEDICATED TO CONSERVATION 
Ivy HILL 
COCKEYSVILLE Wey MARYLAND 
Sie 1943 when Ivy Hill Forest was established as our family’s con- 
servation project, we have worked constantly to develop each facet of it—forest, soil 
water and wildlife—because each related directly to happier living and human welfare. 
In these twelve years we have marked the passing of forty-eight seasons, watched 
four thousand fifteen sunrises and sunsets and seen many a day of rain or clouds or 
snow which had its own particular pleasure as well. In early spring we have anticipated 
the shadbush blossoms, first of all to appear. When they came, often before the last 
snow had disappeared, we heard the cardinals and titmice* calling. 
Since we came to Ivy Hill we have laid out miles of roads and trails, built a house 
ito the side of a friendly hill, dammed a stream and stocked the pond thus formed, 
and harvested part of the one hundred twenty acres of timberland that comprise the 
forest. Forty acres were cut selectively for lumber, pulpwood and fireplace logs. We 
were careful, as we cut, not to destroy the laurel, shadbush (Amelanchier canadensis)**, 
wild azalea, dogwood and viburnum growing there. 
Beauty, as much as the economic benefits of conservation, has been a goal of our 
activities. As trees were cut, we practiced restoration by planting thousands of two- 
year-old evergreens, rhododendrons and azaleas. Their cousins from distant Korea 
were tucked away to thrive in the rich humus around the stumps of dead chestnut 
tyecssa 
We also have been planting chestnut trees at Ivy Hill Forest in hopes that this 
area, known as Chestnut Ridge, might some day have a valuable forest resource re- 
stored and rightly carry the name again. This last hope may be vain; there hasn’t 
been a beaver on nearby Beaver Dam Run for one hundred fifty years. 
Because we cooperated with nature, soil erosion at Ivy Hill Forest ts kept to na- 
ture’s own minimum. When we first cut timber, the brush was stacked in piles which 
were burned when it rained or snowed. Now, however, all limbs and branches are 
scattered, because we have learned that burning ts risky even when the ground is 
moist and that it also deprives us of the humus formed over the years by decaying 
vegetation. Every leaf that falls is saved for mulching. 
Among the species planted, as trees were cut, are what are known as ericaceous 
trees and shrubs, principally the azalea varieties nudiflora, arborescens, calendulacea, 
viscosa and yaseyi, together with such other shrubs as pieris floribunda, japonica and 
tarwanensis, leucothoe and many others. 
After the first buds in March, blooming continues through April to early August, 
when the last fragrant flowers of the azalea viscosa open. Then come the cardinal- 
flower, golden-rod and asters. With the first frost, the foliage of deciduous trees begins 
to disappear, leaving only the golden stars of the witchhazel to light the leafless wood- 
Continued on page 24 
*Note to ornithologists: titmouses, if preferred. 
**One of the largest preserved colonies on the Atlantic seaboard. 
*KA planting idea we learned from Joseph Gable, the famous Pennsylvania hybridist of rhododendrons and azaleas, 
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