APSAF From the Beginning The First Century
History of the Appalachian Society of American Foresters: 1921-2021
‘APSAF From the Beginning’ Introduction The creation of this document outlining the history of the Appalachian Society of American Foresters, known as APSAF, was a long time in process. APSAF leadership, under Chair Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr., initiated the process in 1999, intending completion by the time of SAF’s Centennial celebration in 2000. A contract was made with Ms. Susan Yarnell of Durham, NC to research, develop and write the history of APSAF, working closely with Judd Edeburn. Ms. Yarnell did a tremendous amount of quality work on the project, but it was not completed at that time and remained incomplete for a number of years. The scope of the project, in Ms. Yarnell’s words: This project was initiated by APSAF to document the organization’s history, and funding was available from SAF’s Centennial celebration. I have focused primarily on producing a chronological record of APSAF and its membership, and have also conducted seven oral history interviews with former and current leaders. The main themes of the project are the history of forestry as reflected by the history of APSAF and the role of APSAF and its members in the history of forestry. The development of forestry in the Carolinas, Virginia and adjacent areas prior to APSAF’s founding is included to illustrate the events and trends that led to creation of APSAF. APSAF was organized just after the establishment of the US Forest Service Appalachian Forest Experiment Station in Asheville, NC. Station foresters and those from neighboring national forests (particularly Chattahoochee, Cherokee, Nantahala and Pisgah) formed the nucleus of the organization, but they were immediately joined by foresters with links to state organizations, universities and industry. Consequently, the APSAF history is integrally connected to developments and activities in federal and state forestry programs, area universities and colleges, and private forestry, including industrial forestry. In addition, the APSAF has both participated in, and been affected by, political and social developments, both generally and directly relating to the environment.” (Susan Yarnell, 1999) In 2016, APSAF Chair Barry New asked Derryl Walden, APSAF Historian, to gather the partially completed document and develop a process to finish and publish it. Susan Yarnell’s unedited draft was about 80% complete for the period of 1921 through 1999. Along with completing the original draft, additional research was required to compile complete listings of past meetings, leadership and award recipients. As this was being done, Charlie Finley, SAF member and Trail Blazer editor and publisher, was contracted to edit the material and put it into a printable format, which he has done very well. As this work neared completion, a decision was made to expand it by also fully updating the narrative of the document to include the period from 1999 to the present time. Bob Emory and Lee Spradlin have each written a chapter on Environmentalism and APSAF, which includes this period. Joann Cox and Tom Straka were tasked to lead in creating a chapter designated as Into the New Millennium to address the past two decades. They reached out to a number of long time Society members to help provide input into this chapter. Current APSAF Council Representative Christa Rogers also agreed to project into the future of the Society as to what may likely be upcoming priorities and challenges with Reflections on the Future. Much appreciation is owed to these individuals and others who have contributed to the development and completion of this look-back to where APSAF has been and what it has accomplished. Even more appreciation is owed to the several generations of forestry leaders who have lived and led the many activities that have made this organization, and the culture of forestry itself, such a remarkable story of progress and success.
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Note to APSAF members: The decision to initially publish this document only on our website offers two opportunities. The first, obviously, that it makes it readily available for viewing by all. Secondly, it allows the opportunity for additional supportive material, especially photographs related to the content, to be added to the document. Anyone who has photos or other material that you feel might be a meaningful addition related to any of the activities or individuals discussed, feel free to offer them for inclusion. Please contact derrylwalden@gmail.com, or charfinley@mindspring.com. Those involved with the creation and publication of this document: Ms. Susan Yarnell, Primary author Derryl Walden, APSAF Historian Charlie Finley, Editor Tom Davidson Judson Edeburn Barry New Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr. Contributing writers to the document: Bob Beason Joann Cox Joe Cox Fred Cubbage Judd Edeburn Robert Emory Tres Hyman Jamie Lewis John Palmer Ginger Reilly
Christa Rogers Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr. Pat Straka Tom Straka John Thurmes Derryl Walden Scott Wallinger Mike Wetzel Susan Yarnell
APSAF members are most grateful for the exhausting work of Susan Yarnell. It was an heroic effort pulling all this together. Susan L. Yarnell is a former doctoral student in the Department of History at Duke University. Her areas of study included Colonial North America, Native American History, Environmental History, and Agricultural History. Susan received her BA at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in Anthropology and Linguistics in May 1985. At Duke, she completed her Master's thesis entitled “Half-Ploughed Fields: English and Anglo-American Attitudes towards Extensive Land Use in the South.” She also held the F.K. Weyerhaeuser Forest History Fellowship with the Forest History Society in 1995-1996 where she researched and published numerous studies. Susan has been a history instructor at Appalachian State University and at Duke and has worked with the Duke Women’s Studies Program. She has done extensive research in a number of areas and has been a popular presenter of her research at numerous conferences. The final compilation and edit has been made by Charlie Finley, (SAF golden member #5315) from Richmond, Virginia.
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The Appalachian Society of American Foresters ~The First Century~ Contents Chapter 1, The Early Years, Seeds and Roots ……………………………………. 6 Chapter 2, From Roots to Growth ……………………………………………….. 15 Chapter 3, The Great Depression and the New Deal ……………………………. 27 Regulation Controversy: Old and New................................................. 30 Timber, Game, and Fire ....................................................................... 32 FDR and the APSAF............................................................................. 36 Article X ............................................................................................... 38 The New Deal Adapts........................................................................... 39 Wildlife and the New Deal.................................................................... 43 The CCC’s Multiple Uses .....................................................................45 The Soil Conservation Service ............................................................. 46 Society Developments: The APSAF within the SAF.............................51
Chapter 4, The Expansion of Forestry in Universities and Colleges …………….. 56 Clemson ............................................................................................... 57 North Carolina State College .................................................................59 Duke University..................................................................................... 62 Virginia Polytechnic Institute ................................................................66 Further Examples of Early Forestry Education in the APSAF ……..... 67
Chapter 5, Extension and Vocational Forestry during the New Deal ……………..70 Chapter 6, Industrial Development and the Coming of World War II……………..75 Preparation, Apprehension, Expansion, and Response..........................76
Chapter 7, Expansion of Forestry and Employment of Foresters …………………85 From a Tiny Acorn: APSAF’s Rise to Prominence................................89
Chapter 8, APSAF in World War II………………………………………………. 90 Forestry in the Military and the Military in Forestry...............................91 APSAF Members’ Experience in WWII ………………………………93 Trees for the Siege...................................................................................99 Impact of War on Forestry Research ......................................................100
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Perennial Tasks, Unsettled Matters ........................................................102
Chapter 9, Post-War Forestry ………………………………………………………107 Post-War Research...................................................................................107 Chemicals and Herbicides .......................................................................108 Wildlife and Forestry after WWII………………………………………108 The Growing Recogniton of Forestry Research ………………………..108 SAF Postwar Concerns …………………………………………………108 Professionalism versus Politics …………………………………………114 Recreation ………………………………………………………………115 New Chemicals …………………………………………………………116
Chapter 10, Oral Histories by Noted Foresters …………………………………….118 1. Harold Olinger ……………………………………………………..118 2. Arthur Cooper ……………………………………………………...126 3. Stephen G. Boyce ………………………………………………….140 4. Horace (Boe) J. Green ……………………………………………..156 5. Scott Wallinger …………………………………………………….174 6. Kenney Funderburke ………………………………………………176 7. Rhett Bickley ………………………………………………………182
Chapter 11, Environmentalism and the APSAF…………………………………….187 by Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr…………………………………………187 by Robert Emory ……………………………………………………… 191
Chapter 12, Into the New Millennium……………………………………………….199 by Joann Cox and Tom Straka
Chapter 13, Reflections on the Future of APSAF……………………………………217 by Christa Rogers, Board Representative
End Notes …………………………………………………………………………….218 Appendix: APSAF Awards and Service Recognition 1. APSAF Annual Meetings, Location, Chair, Vice Chair, etc. Vice Chair Position Became Chair-elect Position in 1965 and State Positions Added, 1965, etc. 2. APSAF Distinguished Service Award 3. APSAF Young Forester Leadership Award 4. APSAF Volunteer Service Award 5. SAF Presidents from APSAF 6. Award in Forest Science 7. Barrington Memorial Award 8. Carl Alvin Schenck Award 9. Diversity Leadership Award 10. W.D. Hagenstein Communicator of the Year Award 11. John A. Beale Memorial Award 12. National Young Forester Leadership Award 13. Gifford Pinchot Medal 14. Presidential Field Forester Award 15. Sir William Schlick Memorial Award 16. Student Leadership Award 17. Technology Transfer Award 18. APSAF Fellows
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The Appalachian Section of the Society of American Foresters: 1921 - 2018 The organization of local sections of the Society has been a great step forward. These local branches afford excellent opportunities for the growth of comradeship among foresters and for the discussion and solution of forest problems of peculiar importance to the various regions concerned. Many of the Sections have submitted their own plans for the prevention of forest devastation and in other ways have shown a lively interest in worthwhile forest affairs. In many instances, moreover, the sectional organizations tend to inject a fresh point of view into the often-restricted horizon of official routine. The further development of Sections should be heartily encouraged. Frederick E. Olmsted, retiring president, at the SAF annual meeting, New York City, January 14, 1920.
Carl Schenck
Gifford Pinchot
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Chapter 1 The Early Years: Seeds and Roots The roots of the Appalachian Society of American foresters are closely intertwined with the roots of professional forestry in America. Both the “Cradle of Forestry� and the birthplace of the APSAF lay in western North Carolina, where the forested slopes of the southern Appalachian Mountains proved a fertile nursery for forestry as a whole and for the APSAF in particular. The Biltmore School of Forestry, the first professional forestry school in America, was located near Asheville, North Carolina on the Vanderbilt estate. The third national meeting of the Society of American Foresters outside of Washington D.C. was held in Asheville as well, in conjunction with the first Southern Forestry Congress, during July, 1916. Also in 1916, Congress approved plans for the Blue Ridge Parkway. Coincidentally, Asheville suffered a major earthquake that January and record-breaking floods in July. Perhaps these natural disasters gave natural resource management a special urgency in the city. Five years later, the Appalachian Section was founded at a meeting held at the Asheville Chamber of Commerce, on October 28 and 29, 1921. 1 The
French Broad River in Asheville, North Carolina: the remaining railroad span went out shortly after the photo was taken. Severe flooding occurred from Mobile, AL northward into the Appalachians as a result of a hurricane. From: "The Floods of July, 1916," published by Southern Railway Company, 1917
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Fifteen foresters and others interested in forestry attended the first meeting and technical symposium. Of these fifteen, eight were Senior members of the Society of American Foresters and signed a petition to the Executive Council of the SAF for the establishment of a new Section. From the beginning, members of the Appalachian Section included representatives from national, state, and private forestry. Earl H. Frothingham was the Station Director of the newly founded Appalachian Forest Experiment Station in Asheville. Clarence F. Korstian and Edward F. McCarthy, later a professor at the New York State Ranger School, were silviculturalists working with Frothingham. Pisgah National Forest, established only five years earlier, provided two petitioners, Forest Supervisor Verne Rhoades, and Forest Examiner Ira T. Yarnall. Two men from the North Carolina State Forestry office in Chapel Hill endorsed the petition. One was John S. Holmes (photo at left by NC Forest Service). After working for the USDA Forest Service for four years, Holmes (not to be confused with Joseph A. Holmes) was hired in 1909 as North Carolina’s first professional forester in the Geological Survey Department and later in 1915 as its first State Forester. The other was Chief Fire Warden W. Darrow Clark, formerly a professor of forestry at Pennsylvania State College and Massachusetts Agricultural College. Clark had been appointed in the latter part of 1920 to assist with forest fire prevention efforts and served until his premature death from pneumonia in 1923. The eighth signer was Walter J. Damtoft, Forester for the Champion Fibre Company of Canton, North Carolina and first industry forester in the South. Damtoft’s first forestry position in western North Carolina was in Pisgah National Forest just after the original purchase units were approved in 1911. Some of the early participants in the Appalachian Section were not yet members of the SAF. Arnold C. Shaw, supervisor of a forest crew in Pisgah National Forest at the time, attended the organizational meeting and became a member in 1921. Two of his crew members, Frederick B. Merrill and John Wasilik, Jr. also attended and joined the SAF in 1923. Various SAF members residing within the new section did not sign the petition, but were probably involved in organizing the new section. These include Ferdinand W. Haasis, Assistant Silviculturalist at the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station, and Mervin A. Mattoon, then a Forest Examiner at Pisgah National Forest. During World War I, Mattoon had served in the Twentieth Engineers, a forestry and construction division of the U.S. Army under the command of Col. William B. Greeley. Haasis and Mattoon also were elected for membership in the SAF in 1923. Other SAF members located in the original territory of the Appalachian Section were Senior society members Rufus S. Maddox, State Forester in Nashville, Tennessee; Richard Chapin Jones, State Forester in Charlottesville, Virginia; Robert W. Shields, Forest Supervisor at Nantahala National Forest in Franklin, North Carolina; and Seward H. Marsh, Forest Supervisor at Shenandoah National Forest in Harrisonburg, Virginia. SAF associate member Joseph Hyde Pratt, North Carolina State Geologist, likely also took an interest. Pratt was principal executive officer of the Southern Forestry Congress, an organization founded with the co-sponsorship of the SAF and the American Forestry Association (AFA). Another associate member, Charles Holmes Herty, resided in Chapel Hill, where he was a professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina. Herty was a former employee of the USDA Forest Service and conducted important research on problems in the naval stores industry and on the use of southern pines for pulp and paper manufacturing.2 Originally designated the Southern Appalachian Section, the new Section’s territory included Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. SAF members residing outside these states who wished to be affiliated with the Section were also eligible for membership. The original territory of the Southern Appalachian Section was centered on the Southern Appalachian Mountains. This territorial base was a result of important developments in forestry that preceded the Section’s charter.
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Mount Mitchell, North Carolina after removal of spruce and balsam, followed by fire (early twentieth century). Area appeared to be developing into a shrub-dominated bald. [American Environmental Photographs Collection, AEPNCS3, Special Collections, University of Chicago Library]
The developments preceding APSAF’s formation included many major events in American conservation history. During the second half of the nineteenth century, construction of railroads opened
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most areas of the southern Appalachians to mining, lumbering, and tourism. Expansion of resource extraction in the region led to concern for conservation of the land and its resources. Tourism played a double role, bringing both potential investors to the region and potential conservationists. Some visitors to the southern mountains saw the region’s forests as a business opportunity. Their investments in forest lands contributed to widespread logging and deforestation. Removal of large areas of forest increased runoff from rainfall, erosion, and flooding. By the late 1800s, extensive logging of southern Appalachian forests jeopardized the region’s tourist industry by marring the scenic beauty of the mountains. As a result, many tourists and residents of the mountains who depended on tourism became concerned about the effects of large-scale logging. Reflecting this growing concern, proposals for parks and forest reserves in the southern Appalachians began in the 1880s. In 1885, Henry O. Marcy, M.D. of Boston read a paper before the American Medical Association recommending the establishment of a national park in the higher ranges of North Carolina for the use of recovering invalids. In 1892, Charles S. Sargent published a plan for a Southern Appalachian forest reserve in Garden and Forest.3 Although these early efforts were unsuccessful, they added to the pressure for increased conservation nationally, and they laid the groundwork for later achievements. Another event of lasting importance for forestry in this region during the late nineteenth century was the establishment of Biltmore Estate near Asheville, North Carolina by George Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt hired Gifford Pinchot, then just beginning his distinguished career, to manage the forests on his estate. Joseph A. Holmes, State Geologist of North Carolina from 1891 until 1905, visited Pinchot at Biltmore and discussed with him the importance of establishing a forest reserve in the North Carolina mountains. 3 Both Holmes and Pinchot were integral to the movement to establish National Forests in the eastern United States. J.A. Holmes went on to direct the US Geological Survey, to establish and direct the US Bureau of Mines, and to serve on the National Conservation Commission under President Theodore Roosevelt. Correspondingly, Pinchot’s subsequent career in forestry and politics made him one of the most important figures in American conservation history. In addition to his experience at Biltmore, Pinchot collaborated with William W. Ashe of the North Carolina Geological Survey on a survey of the timber trees and forests of North Carolina. The resulting book was one of Pinchot’s earliest publications. When Gifford Pinchot became head of the Division of Forestry in 1898, he took his knowledge of southern Appalachian forests and their problems to the national level. Thus, the rise of Pinchot, coupled with his involvement with conservation in the southern Appalachians, helped to maintain the momentum of the conservation movement in the region.4 Feeling the need for an organization of professional foresters, Pinchot founded the Society of American Foresters in 1900. The society, like Pinchot, was based in Washington DC, and its early meetings were all held there. However, the problems of the southern Appalachians remained an important focus for professional foresters. Besides Pinchot, several early members of the SAF had worked in the South. For example, H. B. Ayers gave a talk on “Some Economic Features of the Southern Appalachian Forests” at an SAF meeting on February 28, 1901. Also in 1901, Joseph A. Holmes of the North Carolina Geological Survey addressed the Society on “Forest Problems in the Southern Pine Belt.” Ferdinand A. Silcox, future Chief of the USDA Forest Service, wrote his 1904 thesis for the Yale School of Forestry on “The Lumbering of Loblolly Pine in South Carolina.” Franklin W. Reed, future Executive Secretary of the SAF, wrote a report on a tract of forest in western North Carolina, issued in 1905. Thus the foresters and forestry concerns of the future Appalachian Section were brought to national attention even before and during the turn of the century.5 After Pinchot left Biltmore Estate, forestry work continued there under Carl A. Schenck, a professional forester from Germany. In addition to managing the forests on Biltmore Estate, Schenck founded the Biltmore Forest School (photo below from Forest History Society) to provide practical training for American foresters. Located on lands that later formed the nucleus for Pisgah National Forest, the Biltmore Forest School helped to train many state, federal, and industrial foresters. Biltmore alumni, in turn, helped shape American forestry in the twentieth century. During its first few years, four of the fifteen 9
members of the Society of American Foresters were “Biltmoreans”: Carl A. Schenck, Overton Price, Frederick E. Olmsted, and Edwin M. Griffith, first state forester of Wisconsin.
Other “Biltmore Boys” in the SAF included Inman F. “Cap” Eldridge who attended in 1904 and 1905 (elected to the SAF in 1911), Wilbur R. Mattoon (elected 1906), and Verne Rhoades (elected 1915), all trailblazers in southern forestry. Another, Dr. Joseph S. Illick (elected 1915), was a Chief Forester of Pennsylvania, a forestry professor, and dean of the New York State College of Forestry. Illick also wrote several popular books on trees and a standard textbook, An Outline of General Forestry (1935). Biltmore graduate Hubbard W. Shawan, a native of Asheville, N.C. who graduated in 1913, was elected to the SAF in 1923. Shawan became State Forester of West Virginia in 1931, and Director of Conservation for West Virginia in 1934. Another Asheville native, F. McLeod Patton, graduated in 1903, then managed his family’s stock farm and apple orchard. Although not a member of the SAF, he worked for the CCC for three years during the thirties and his son became a forester for International Pulp Company in eastern North Carolina (APSAF member Forrest W. Patton, later an employee of the Chesapeake Corporation in West Point, Virginia). George H. Wirt, a 1901 graduate and 1910 elected to the SAF, was the first State Forester in Pennsylvania and the first director of the Mont Alto Forest, along with its forest tree nursery and the State Forest Academy. George H. Cecil, who graduated with Patton in 1903 and joined the SAF in 1917, was appointed District Forester of the North Pacific District in 1911. Inman Eldredge’s classmates from 1904 to 1905 included several more career foresters: D.D. Bronson became a chief inspector in the USDA Forest Service, Fred Prey joined the Philippine Forest Service, Marcus Schaaf (elected 1919) was later State Forester of Michigan, and C.W. Griffith made his career in private forestry. Another, Kennan Damon, manufactured and sold lumber in Concord, Massachusetts. Robert Murray Ross, class of 1912, joined the SAF in 1921 and returned to the southeast in 1935 as a forester for the USDA Soil Conservation Service. In 1944, he became Assistant Chief of Operations in Washington D.C. Clearly, the southern Appalachians played a crucial role as an early training ground for state and federal foresters. Many other Biltmore graduates had successful careers in the forest products industries, both as foresters and as businessmen. For example, Walter J. Damtoft, although educated at Yale, was considered an honorary Biltmorean, a distinction also held by SAF Fellows Ralph S. Hosmer and Royal S. Kellogg. Schenck himself also operated a consulting company, C. A. Schenck and Company, which primarily surveyed standing timber in the South. Schenck may well have been the first professional timber cruiser in 10
the region. He employed both students and graduates of the Biltmore School in his business, thus expanding their practical experience with forestry and helping to expand forestry throughout the region. At least one Biltmorean, Paul Gearhart, continued to work as a consulting forester in western North Carolina after Schenck had returned to Germany. Additionally, graduate Howard R. Krinbill surveyed timber in western North Carolina during 1911, served as “forest engineer” for the John L. Roper Lumber Company of Norfolk, Virginia and New Bern, North Carolina from 1912 until 1921 and joined the SAF in 1918. After completing his Biltmore studies in 1910, Edwin F. Conger went into the utility pole business, establishing his own company which first sold chestnut poles and then creosoted pine. His operations eventually included Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. When Conger sold his business interests during the 1930s, he became a consulting forester with offices in Staunton, Virginia. He also purchased a large tract of forest near Aiken, South Carolina, which he developed as a tree farm and forestry center. He left the Aiken property to the N.C. State College School of Forestry and to two other non-educational institutions at his death. N.C. State College School of Forestry used the proceeds from the sale of its portion to fund the Conger Distinguished Professorship in forestry and to give scholarships in forestry with priority for students from Virginia. Donald E. Lauderburn, a 1907 graduate who joined the SAF in 1923, used his Biltmore B.F. to set up a forestry consulting business in New York City. As a consultant he worked up and down eastern North America from Newfoundland to South Carolina, west to Missouri, and in Cuba. In the 1920s, Lauderburn worked for the Pejepscot Paper Co. in Maine, became an extension forester in Mississippi, then joined the Soil Conservation Service in 1934. In a similarly varied career, 1910 graduate William J. Mills worked in industry from Chicago to Missouri, Georgia, South Carolina, and then Michigan before doing management and land use planning for the Tennessee Valley Conservation Products Corporation of New York. He was District Forester for the State of Tennessee from 1936 to 1943, then became a consulting forester. W.A. Peterson used his Biltmore degree to become a District Forester in Fayetteville, N.C. for the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development. Joseph E. McCaffrey of International Paper Corporation went to Asheville in 1914 hoping to study with Schenck, only to find that he had returned to Germany for military service in World War I.6 After Schenck ended his association with the Biltmore estate in 1909, he operated the Biltmore Forest School for a time at Sunburst, N.C., an unused company town on lands of the Champion Fibre Company. This was one of the first long term connections between a forester and a wood products company in the APSAF territory. In 1907, Peter G. Thomson, owner and founder of Champion Coated Paper Company, had invited Schenck to tour his plant at Hamilton, Ohio. Schenck, in turn, invited Thomson and his wife to his headquarters in Pisgah Forest. Schenck greatly admired Thomson’s plans to build a wood pulp factory at Canton, N.C. in Haywood County. The plant would be supplied with spruce from ten thousand acres that Thomson had purchased along the Pigeon River. Thomson also owned the patent to a pulping process that used chestnut chips after their tannin had been extracted for use in tanning leather. In spite of Thomson’s far-reaching vision, Schenck was unable to interest him in forestry. Thomson’s son-in-law, Reuben B. Robertson, proved more responsive to Schenck’s message. As general manager of the newly formed Champion Fibre Company, Robertson saw the value of forestry for protecting Champion’s investments in land and their wood pulp plant. His goal was to provide a steady supply of raw material for Champion’s operations in North Carolina. As a result, Robertson and Schenck developed a close and friendly relationship, leading to Robertson’s assistance for the Biltmore Forest School a few years later. While in residence at Sunburst, Schenck and his students surveyed Champion holdings in the Canton area.7 Champion Fibre Company continued its interest in forestry after the departure of Schenck and the closing of the Biltmore Forest School. Most significantly, Champion hired Appalachian Section member Walter J. Damtoft in 1920 as the first full-time industry forester in the South. Champion’s forestry operations were an early example of a growing concern in the pulp and paper industry about safeguarding pulpwood supplies in the vicinities of pulp and paper plants. 8
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Gate to Pisgah National Forest
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Despite the interest of foresters and industry in the southern Appalachian forests, and a growing movement for parks and forest reserves in the eastern United States, progress in forestry was slow during the first decade of the twentieth century. Although the President of the United States was empowered by Congress to establish national forests on public lands in 1891, little public land remained in the East. As a result, eastern national forests awaited the Weeks Law of 1911, which authorized the purchase of lands by the federal government.9 The constitutional basis for the Weeks Law was federal authority over navigable rivers. Land purchases were to protect the watersheds of navigable rivers, and as this authority was interpreted to include the headwaters of such rivers, early purchases focused on mountainous areas. The first decade of the twentieth century also saw accelerating demands on American forests. A report published in 1901 on forests in the Southern Appalachians (by William Willard Ashe and H.B. Ayers) estimated forest cover to be 75 percent including 10 percent old growth. In 1908, the Secretary of Agriculture’s report estimated that 86 percent of the forest acreage in the Southern Appalachians had been cut over. Much was in various stages of regrowth or in young secondary forests, but “practically all of it, whether cut or not, had been burned.”10 After the passage of the Weeks Law in 1911, national forest purchase units were designated in the Southern Appalachians including portions of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Between 1911 and 1919, the USDA Forest Service purchased much of the land that became Pisgah, Nantahala, Chattahoochee, Cherokee, George Washington, and Jefferson National Forests. Northern Alabama received its first national forest, now the William B. Bankhead National Forest, in 1918, and the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia was declared official in 1920. The establishment of national forests in the southern Appalachians was directly connected to the founding of the Appalachian Section of the Society of American Foresters. Most of the founding members of the APSAF either were or had been federal employees who came to the southern mountains to work on federally-owned lands. The original territory of the Appalachian Section of the SAF paralleled the original membership of the APSAF; the regional extent of the APSAF at its inception coincided with the regional extent of national forests in the southern Appalachians. 11 The connections between the growth of the National Forest system and APSAF’s growth paralleled the events that produced SAF sections collectively. After the forest reserves were placed under the Forest Service’s authority in 1905, more and more foresters were stationed at National Forests and had little direct contact with the SAF in Washington D.C. The SAF constitution was amended to allow local sections in 1911, and foresters quickly organized local societies. Most early sections were located in the West, where National Forests had already been established. In 1918, the first eastern Section was founded in New York, followed by Madison, Wisconsin in 1919, and New England in 1920. In 1921, the Appalachian Section became the thirteenth section and the first section in the South. Like the Southern Appalachian Section, the other early eastern Sections were centered on regions important to forest industries. Also like the Southern Appalachian Section, they focused on areas important to the early conservation movement, particularly the Adirondacks and the White Mountains. As such, these were areas where efforts to establish eastern parks and forest reserves began. Another parallel between the earliest eastern SAF Sections and the APSAF was the connection to forestry education and research. Cornell University in New York had been the site of Bernhard Fernow’s forestry school, and New England boasted a master’s program in forestry at Yale, sponsored by the family of Gifford Pinchot. Likewise, the University of Wisconsin in Madison became the home of the Forest Service’s Forest Products Laboratory in 1908. Although the universities in the APSAF territory had no major forestry programs in 1921, professors from area schools were active in the Biltmore School and in the North Carolina Geological Survey. Likewise, the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station soon provided research opportunities for foresters pursuing advanced degrees. 12 Foresters employed at the state level were yet another vital element in the foundation of the APSAF. The movement for state forestry in the Southeast grew alongside the movement for eastern national forests. The North Carolina Geological Survey, established in 1891, included forestry 13
investigations among the duties of state geologist Joseph A. Holmes. William W. Ashe was appointed assistant in charge of timber investigations. Joseph Hyde Pratt succeeded Joseph A. Holmes in 1905, when Holmes resigned to organize the new U.S. Bureau of Mines. In 1908, North Carolina created a forestry division within the Geological and Economic Survey; John S. Holmes was hired as a forester in 1909. Two early projects included re-seeding cut-over longleaf pine areas on the Sandhills State Forest in Hoke County, begun in 1916, and regeneration of spruce on Mt. Mitchell State Park (established 1915), begun in 1918. b Tennessee created a State Geological Survey in 1909 which conducted a forest survey and employed its first forester, Rufus S. Maddox, in 1914. In 1921, Maddox became the first head of Tennessee’s new Bureau of Forestry. The Virginia General Assembly also created the office of state forester in 1914, held by R. Chapin Jones until after 1930. South Carolina lagged behind somewhat, establishing its State Commission of Forestry in 1927 and funding the appointment of Lewis E. Staley as state forester in 1928. 13 The development of forestry on the federal and state level led to an increasing number of foresters working within the Southern Appalachian region. The establishment of a new SAF section in the region was the logical and practical response to this growth. The topics and issues addressed in the meetings of the new Appalachian Section were also logical and practical outgrowths of developments within the region. The first technical session examined minimum silvicultural and forest protection requirements for national forests, the states, and private timberlands. The second session on June 23, 1922, focused on forests and stream flow, including soil erosion. A resolution was passed urging federal and state agencies to continue studying the subject. Other papers dealt with forestry in North Carolina and with forest fires. The January 1923 meeting focused primarily on forest fires and the prevention efforts of federal, state, and private organizations. The chestnut blight held Appalachian Section members’ attention in 1924, probably in connection with research in the Southern Appalachians by investigators from the Bureau of Plant Industry’s Division of Forest Pathology. Forest fire research and a newly completed report on forest types were discussed during meetings in 1925. The report, produced by a committee chaired by Earl H. Frothingham, was published in the Journal of Forestry in 1926, and was the first publication to result from Appalachian Section activities. The first field trip at an Appalachian Section meeting, to fire damaged plots on the newly established Bent Creek Experimental Forest in western North Carolina, also took place during 1925. Research at Bent Creek centered on rehabilitating land that had been over farmed, over grazed, or had burned frequently.14 The Committee's choice for that year was Columbus, Ohio.
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Chapter 2 From Roots to Growth Although the mountains remained the center of the Appalachian Section for many years, other physiographic regions received attention from the beginning. Section members employed by state and federal agencies were responsible for territories extending beyond the mountains. The state geological surveys encompassed all types of terrain and their respective types of forest cover. In North Carolina, W.W. Ashe published a survey of the forests and forest products of eastern North Carolina in 1894, a survey of state-owned swampland in 1906, and several studies on loblolly and shortleaf pines between 1910 and 1916. William Willard Ashe (1872-1932, photo, left) graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1891 at the age of nineteen and received his MS in botany and geology from Cornell in 1892. He then worked
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as a forester for the North Carolina Geological Survey, conducted special projects with the US Forest Service, and researched floristics and systematic botany in his spare time. In 1905, Ashe joined the US Forest Service full time. Other activities: Secretary, National Forest Reservation Commission (1918-1924); vice-president, SAF (1919); chairman, Forest Service Tree Name Committee (1930-1932). John S. Holmes investigated the possibilities for private forestry in eastern North Carolina in 1912. Wilbur R. Mattoon (not to be confused with APSAF founding member Mervin A. Mattoon) studied reforestation of eroded farmlands on the piedmont and coastal plain during the 1910s and 1920s. 15 At the federal level, two Yale-trained foresters who went on to Forest Service careers in the Pacific Northwest made significant contributions to early forestry in the Carolinas. Thomas H. Sherrard developed a forestry plan in 1903 for Hampton and Beaufort counties in South Carolina. Charles S. Chapman, then employed as forester by the E.P. Burton Lumber Company in Charleston, authored a USDA Bureau of Forestry Bulletin on forestry needs in Berkeley County, SC in 1905. Francis Marion National Forest was later established in the area covered by C.S. Chapman’s report. Stanley L. Wolfe, a Forest Assistant with the USDA Forest Service, wrote a 1913 pamphlet WoodUsing Industries of South Carolina, which discussed the entire state. At the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station, Clarence F. Korstian conducted research projects on both spruce in the high mountains and Atlantic white cedar in the coastal swamps. Korstian published two articles on Atlantic white cedar in the mid-1920s. Illustrating foresters’ concern for both farm woodlands and private forestry throughout the region, Earl H. Frothingham reported on the potential for profit in piedmont wood lots in 1926. Likewise, early APSAF meetings included presentations on areas outside the Southern Appalachian Mountains. 16 Further demonstrating their involvement in the field of forestry as a whole, APSAF founding members participated in national affairs and addressed national issues. National activities often complemented and extended functions and concerns specific to the Appalachian Section of the SAF. The Section’s tradition of service in the parent Society began immediately; Earl H. Frothingham held the position of SAF Treasurer in 1921, served as a Council member from 1924 to 1928, and as Council Member in Charge of Admissions in 1924 and 1925.17 The APSAF also took positions on national issues from the start. In addition to urging state and federal agencies to study important forestry problems, the Section passed a resolution in February 1924 endorsing the Clarke-McNary Act. This endorsement reflected a hard-won consensus and compromise among foresters in general, preceded by a period of controversy and contention. Because the issues debated during this period would have affected the APSAF profoundly, and because both these and other related issues have continued to cause debate within the field of forestry, the developments leading to the Clarke-McNary Act warrant discussion.18 Foresters have always generally agreed on the overall goals of forestry, to conserve forests and their resources. Foresters have also always debated the specific objectives of forestry, the best methods to achieve forestry objectives, and the appropriate ways to implement forest management practices, especially on private land. Specifically, the role of government in private forestry, whether cooperative or regulatory, has stirred debate perennially. During his tenure as Chief Forester, Gifford Pinchot established policies of federal cooperation with forest products industries and forest landowners. His successor, Henry S. Graves, continued these policies, but by 1919 decided that some regulation of private timberland was necessary to protect timber supplies. Graves’ first step was to begin an effort to define “minimum silvicultural requirements” that would comply with the standards of the USDA Forest Service. Next, Graves proposed federal legislation allowing state and federal cooperation for fire protection and state regulation of logging on private lands. This proposal touched off widespread debate among foresters, forest owners, and the forest industry. Individual positions ranged from opposition to regulations of any kind on privately owned forests to support for full federal supervision of commercial logging. An SAF committee, headed by Gifford Pinchot, recommended direct federal regulation to forbid devastation of private forest lands. The Journal of Forestry carried many articles and comments during the early twenties, both for and against federal regulation, as well as articles suggesting various compromises. In 1920, the Journal carried nearly fifty articles that addressed the issue. A 1920 SAF referendum 16
supported federal regulation 3 to 2, but because only 38% of the members voted, the referendum was not conclusive. APSAF discussions of minimum silvicultural and forest protection requirements at their first technical session in 1921 revealed members’ attention to this national debate. 19 In the meantime, Colonel William B. Greeley had replaced Graves as Chief Forester. Greeley immediately set about building forest industry support for an alternate proposal stressing increased USDA Forest Service appropriations for fire control. He assured industry representatives that his policies would be based on cooperation, and the USDA Forest Service report to the Senate stressed cooperative fire control as well. Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas, however, introduced a bill based on Pinchot’s report. In response, the National Forestry Program Committee, with Greeley’s support, prepared an alternate bill then introduced by Bertrand Snell of New York. The Snell Bill included federal funding for state regulation, based on proposals by Graves and Greeley. A second SAF referendum in March 1921 recorded 109 votes for federal control and 195 for state control, with a turnout of nearly 70% (approximately 25% for federal regulation, 45% for state regulation, and 30% not voting). With opinion divided amongst foresters and industry support weak for the Snell Bill, neither bill was enacted. Instead, the Senate appointed a Select Committee on Reforestation, chaired by Charles L. McNary of Oregon. The Senate committee began hearings in 1923 emphasizing the need for fire prevention and control in all forests and avoiding more controversial issues. APSAF sessions in 1923 paralleled the Senate committee’s activities by focusing on fire prevention efforts of federal, state, and private organizations. 20 The Clarke-McNary Act passed Congress June 6, 1924 and provided for expanded cooperation between federal, state and private forestry. The Weeks Law had restricted federal acquisition of land for national forests to the watersheds of navigable streams. The Clarke-McNary Act allowed federal participation in forestry programs not tied to watershed protection, and provided federal matching funds for establishing tree nurseries and fire-fighting efforts. In response, the North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey hired Harry Lee Baker as Assistant State Forester in charge of fire prevention. In 1925, the Survey was reorganized as the Department of Conservation and Development. That same year, Baker resigned and William C. McCormick was appointed to replace him. The cooperative fire program most noticeably affected private timberland owners. In 1924, no landowners were involved in state efforts to prevent and fight fire. In 1925, five were involved in the cooperative program. By 1930, sixty were involved. Tennessee responded to the Clarke-McNary Act by hiring an Assistant Forester and two District Foresters, all of whom worked almost entirely in fire control. The 1924 SAF membership list shows two members in Tennessee besides A.C. Shaw and R.S. Maddox: William H. Stoneburner of Bristol, and Johannes Wulff of the Tennessee Division of Forestry in Nashville. In 1927, the Tennessee Division of Forestry consisted of the State Forester, Assistant State Forester in charge of forest fire control, four District foresters, a nurseryman, and four field assistants. One district forester was in charge of wasteland reclamation in West Tennessee; the others were in charge of fire control districts. South Carolina foresters on the 1924 SAF membership list were S.C. State Extension Forester Henry H. Tryon and Cleland H. Vaux of Columbia. South Carolina’s legislature created a State Commission of Forestry in 1925, but it employed only a State Forester and an Assistant State Forester until 1930. Even so, the passage of the Clarke-McNary Act caused a discernable increase in interest in forestry
Senator Charles L. McNary (1874-1944), Oregon Republican (1917-1944). An advocate of farm, forestry, and reclamation legislation, he supported most New Deal legislation. Senate minority leader 1933-1944; Chairman, Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Lands (1919-27); Committee on Agriculture and Forestry (1925-33); Republican Conference (1933-45) http://bioguide.congress.gov/ scripts/ biodisplay.pl? index=M000583 (July 2002)
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on the part of South Carolina’s state government. Another result of increased funding for fire control and reforestation was an upsurge in the publications aimed at public education within the region. 21 The new law also allowed national forest land purchases for timber production as well as stream protection. Verne Rhoades, Forest Supervisor of the Pisgah National Forest quickly produced a pamphlet emphasizing a wide range of forest uses. The expanded authorization of land purchases paved the way for an expansion of National Forests during the New Deal of the 1930s. With similar intent, the ClarkeMcNary Act provided money for states to distribute tree seedlings to farmers for reforestation. This provision allowed North Carolina to hire Frederick H. Claridge and have him establish a small tree nursery at what is now North Carolina State University. A less successful, but historically important feature of the Clarke-McNary Act was its provisions for forestland tax reform. In particular, the act sought to encourage land taxation that would encourage reforestation of land rather than penalize it. Finally, the act continued and expanded the emphasis on cooperation between forest owners and the USDA Forest Service and the use of incentives to promote good forest management. It did not create legal constraints that compelled private land owners to follow USDA Forest Service mandates. As a result, extension forestry in the APSAF area experienced a small but significant growth spurt as foresters worked to encourage private forestry. The extension services of the states handled distribution of tree seedlings to farmers and gave demonstrations for farmers and 4-H Clubs showing the methods and results of forestry practices. 22 Little direct evidence is available for the specific opinions of APSAF members during the 1920s. However, APSAF’s endorsement of the Clarke-McNary bill in 1924, after silence concerning both the Capper bill and the Snell bill in 1921, suggests that the APSAF shared the national Society’s lack of consensus with regard to regulation. Virginia State Forester R. Chapin Jones attended a state foresters’ conference in 1920 that endorsed the concept of forest regulation by the states, and therefore the Snell Bill. Walter J. Damtoft’s paper from the first Appalachian Section meeting in 1921 appeared in the Journal of Forestry in 1922. In this paper, Damtoft expressed the opinion that timberland owners could not “be expected to consider more than the simplest and least expensive systems of forest management...to attempt to force on him at this time highly complicated and involved systems would result probably in completely discouraging him and killing what little enthusiasm he might already have.” Damtoft pointed out the lack of concrete data on the long-term effects of many management practices. Consequently, he felt that the timberland owner could not “be expected to apply methods the results of which are entirely uncertain...particularly the more intensive methods.” For these reasons, Damtoft supported the Snell bill and opposed the Capper bill. He characterized the Capper bill as “radical” and premature. The provisions of the Capper bill would become acceptable when necessity forced the use of more intensive forestry methods and when research produced “sufficient information to allow of the intelligent application of the provisions.” He urged timberland owners to take an active interest in forestry research and the legislation that research would inspire. North Carolina State Geologist Joseph H. Pratt weighed in on the side of federal regulation in his pamphlet “Forestry Problems of the Southern Appalachians and Southeastern States.” Originally presented as an address to the Southern Forestry Congress in Jackson, Mississippi, Pratt’s appraisal stressed the need for fire protection and for stock laws to control grazing in timberlands. While calling for expanded state forestry programs, Pratt also felt that some form of federal regulation was necessary to provide uniform regulations for nationwide problems. On this point, Pratt’s viewpoint was in direct opposition to those who feared uniform regulations would not allow foresters to respond appropriately to local conditions. Taking a different tack, John S. Holmes felt that too much time and too many resources had been spent promoting private forestry. J.S. Holmes supported increased public ownership of land as the solution to expanding the practice of forestry. In his view, “the demand for the products of the forest comes chiefly from the non-landowning public, namely, the residents of our towns and villages. It is right, therefore, that they should be taxed for growing the timber and share the cost of maintaining protection or recreation areas.” Holmes pointed out the high percentage of publicly owned forest land in Europe, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. He also pointed out the other important uses of forests besides timber production, 18
particularly emphasizing wildlife and the need for public access to forests for hunting and recreation. 23 APSAF members remained actively involved in deliberations concerning private forestry thereafter. Virginia Assistant State Forester James O. Hazard participated in a program on the practice of forestry on private lands at the December 1926 SAF annual meeting. Damtoft continued to represent industrial foresters and was appointed as the APSAF representative to a new SAF committee on industrial forestry in 1928. Clarence Korstian became perhaps the APSAF member most closely identified with the debate over private forestry and regulation. In an interview conducted by Elwood R. Maunder on February 16, 1959, Clarence Korstian commented that his views on regulation had not changed over the years. He favored state regulation, if necessary, to keep forestland productive, an opinion repeated from his book Forestry on Private Lands in the United States (1944). State regulation was preferable to federal regulation in Korstian’s view because the states already had authority over land through taxation, zoning, and forest fire protection. Korstian also believed that state regulation would allow more flexibility than federal regulation in dealing with local conditions and problems. However, he felt that cooperative efforts had been successful on large holdings and regulation would be needed only on small tracts of land. In 1942, however, Korstian wrote an editorial on the political handicaps of forestry for the Winston-Salem Journal. In the editorial, he wrote against “monopolistic control” of forestry by either state or federal governments, preferring that private forestry remain independent. Korstian characterized his position on regulation as that of a “lone wolf in some circles,” although in 1944 he concluded, “There seems to be essential agreement...that such public regulation as may be necessary can best be effectuated by the states.” Industry spokesmen joined this view, with the caution that “there should continue to be the fullest possible public reliance upon private enterprise and initiative.” Support for full-scale federal regulation of private forests was confined mostly to foresters with the USDA Forest Service, but some Forest Service employees also opposed federal regulation, and others opposed all forms of regulation in favor of cooperation.24 Resolutions and actions at early APSAF meetings also provide clues to other priorities and opinions of Section members. The bulk of APSAF resolutions during this period concerned important research topics, often paralleling meeting themes. Examples include the 1922 resolution for state and federal study of the relation of forests to stream flow, and the 1923 committee on forest type condition and classification. The forest type committee, led by Earl Frothingham, published its work in the Journal of Forestry during 1926.25 The APSAF forest type report, together with a call by Frothingham for eastern forest type classification at the 1928 APSAF meeting, helped to stimulate work on the SAF’s Forest Cover Types of the Eastern United States (1931). Following a presentation in 1924 by forest pathologist and VPI graduate G.F. Gravatt on chestnut blight’s rate of spread and behavior, the APSAF adopted a resolution recommending research into the chestnut blight. The resolution advocated public and private funding for the research and may have helped bring the region’s first forest pathologist to the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station. In 1925, C.J. Humphrey was stationed in Asheville in cooperation with the Division of Forest Pathology, Bureau of Plant Industry. Humphrey studied the tannin content of decaying chestnut wood until he resigned to take a position in the Philippines. He was replaced by George G. Hedgecock and his assistant Ralph M. Nelson, who together continued research on chestnut. Following Hedgecock, Nelson served as head of the Division of Forest Pathology in Asheville from March 1927 until August 1931. Nelson began the formal study of decay in southern pines, particularly the relationship between blue-stain and pine bark beetles. In 1925, another APSAF resolution supported the Appalachian Forest Research Council of the USDA Forest Service. The Appalachian Council was one of the advisory councils set up to foster communication and cooperation between Forest Service experiment stations and other groups interested in forestry research. The Appalachian Council held its first meeting the next day, also in Asheville, suggesting a close relationship between the APSAF and Forest Service research during these years. 26 At their December 1927 meeting in Nashville, TN, APSAF members heard presentations on two more federal research projects with both regional and national importance. In the first, Dr. Eloise Gerry, a botanist with the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, WI, spoke on forest fire damage in the turpentine 19
industry. Dr. Gerry pioneered the microscopic study of wood physiology at the USDA Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, WI. Starting in 1922, she collaborated with Austin Cary on his naval stores research. APSAF member Elwood L. Demmon, who attended the 1927 meeting where Gerry spoke, remembered Austin Cary and Eloise Gerry as a team who pioneered conservative methods of turpentining. Dr. Gerry’s work complemented Austin Cary’s observations on turpentine yields by explaining those observations at the cellular level. She joined Austin Cary, Charles Herty, and other prominent naval stores researchers in recommending shallow chipping of pine trees in gum production to reduce the damage inflicted on the trees. Naval stores researchers of the era also emphasized the dangers of fire in turpentined stands and the advantages of thinning stands of pine to foster the growth of larger trees, rather than tapping small trees. The first point was featured in Eloise Gerry’s talk at the 1927 APSAF meeting. The second point led directly to Charles Herty’s efforts to expand the paper industry in the South. 27 Although southern companies had been producing kraft paper and white paper since the 1890s, the market for pulpwood was saturated and could not absorb more wood from turpentine stand thinnings. To provide the turpentine industry with a market for their thinnings, Herty researched and promoted the manufacture of newsprint from southern pines during the 1920s and 1930s. Thus, the interaction between forestry and the turpentine industry propeled the development of the southern pulp and paper industry.
Heald's Bark Mills was later known as Mead Paper, and today as Rock-Tenn Company. Across the river is N&W (Percival's) Island, once home to a busy railroad yard. (Miller/Webb photograph collection.
In another presentation at the Nashville meeting of 1927, Edward F. McCarthy and Elwood L. Demmon reported on “the flood control Study.” This study was probably the Wagon Wheel Gap study described in a 1927 report by Ralph Zon, Forests and Water in the Light of Scientific Investigation. Zon’s report detailed investigations on forest-flood relationships conducted at the Wagon Wheel Gap Experiment Station on the Rio Grande National Forest in Colorado. These investigations were intended to provide support for USDA Forest Service assertions that forests regulate floods. However, the findings at Wagon
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Wheel Gap indicated a more complex relationship between forests and streamflow than foresters had initially expected. As a result, Zon’s report retracted the more radical claims made during testimony in support of the Weeks Law of 1911. Although this episode raises questions concerning the way USDA Forest Service politics has shaped research, the willingness of researchers to report inconclusive findings, and of SAF members to discuss inconclusive findings, illustrates the interest of foresters in honest and accurate research. 28 Resolutions passed at the 1927 APSAF meeting reiterated APSAF members’ interest in and support of federal research. One resolution recommended a national inventory of forest resources by a federal agency while another requested that the American Association for the Advancement of Science endorse the McSweeny-McNary Bill. The McSweeny-McNary Bill provided funding for USFS research and authorized a national inventory of forest resources. At the December 1928 APSAF meeting in Raleigh, NC, Appalachian Forest Experiment Station silviculturalist Jesse H. Buell recommended a phenological study of important trees in the Southern Appalachian region. Members approved Buell’s recommendation and assigned responsibility for the study to the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station. 29 APSAF’s support of USDA Forest Service research in its territory paralleled the national Society’s support of USDA Forest Service research nationally. Most notable was the SAF’s role in promoting the research goals of USFS Chief of Research Earle H. Clapp and in promoting the McSweeny-McNary Act of 1928 that supported Clapp’s goals. The SAF also supported the McNary -Woodruff Act of 1928, which authorized expanded land purchases under the Weeks Law and allowed funding up to $8 million over the next three years. The effort to enact these bills began in 1924 when Chief Forester Greeley asked both the National Academy of Sciences and the Society of American Foresters to study the status and needs of forestry research. The two organizations formed committees for this purpose that cooperated, but produced separate reports. The SAF committee, chaired by Clapp, released its detailed report first, in 1926. The SAF report focused on Clapp’s ideas for a national program of forestry research and promoted his drafts of enabling legislation. With broad-based support from the SAF, the American Forestry Association, the American Tree Association, and the industry-based National Forestry Program Committee and National Lumber Manufacturers’ Association, the bills passed easily. 30 The next “first” in APSAF history occurred in 1926, when the fifth annual meeting was held outside of Asheville for the first time. The January, 1926 meeting was held in Richmond, Virginia in conjunction with the second annual meeting of the Appalachian Research Council. APSAF members in attendance were Dupre Barrett, Harry Lee Baker, E. Murray Bruner, Walter J. Damtoft, Earl Frothingham, Edward F. McCarthy, John S. Holmes, Rufus S. Maddox, and associate members Andrew Gennett of the Gennett Lumber Company in Asheville, N.C., Joseph Hyde Pratt and R.B. Robertson. The choice of meeting place probably reflected the expansion of state forestry in Virginia from an office of State Forester to a Conservation and Development Commission in 1926. The theme of the meeting was The place of forestry education in the graded schools. R.S. Maddox described the introduction of forestry into the fifth-grade curriculum in Tennessee by means of legislation supported by the State Board of Education. Those in attendance deliberated the merits and drawbacks of using legislation, teacher instruction, elementary-level forestry texts, and other means of accomplishing forestry education for youth. The majority favored R. Chapin Jones’ proposal of incorporating forestry in the curriculum through work with the State Board of Education, rather than through legislation. During the discussions, Harry Lee Baker mentioned a report on education being prepared by a national committee that included the topic of forestry. He also outlined the various approaches that had been tried and the textbooks that were available. Guest speaker Harris Hart, State superintendent of Public Instruction for Virginia, spoke against the use of compulsory legislation or the addition of more textbooks. He suggested that foresters meet with State Boards of Education to encourage incorporation of forestry into the curricula. Joseph H. Pratt supported Jones and Hart. The discussion benefitted from several practical examples. Visitor Fred W. Besley, State Forester of Maryland, described the forest week lessons used in his state. Another visitor, State Forester William 21
A.L. Bazeley of Massachusetts added his opinion against legislation. Bazeley described how forestry was incorporated into secondary education in his state through nature study, activities in town forests, and by using gypsy moth inspectors as speakers in the schools. The State Forester of Texas, Eric O. Siecke, also described his state’s strategies. Dupre Barrett suggested use of publications such as the manual of trees sent out by the Florida Forestry Association. At the meeting, the APSAF formed a committee on forestry education in public schools to cooperate with state officials. The long tradition of APSAF involvement with youth programs had begun. 31 In January, 1927, APSAF members reaffirmed their commitment to public education with a discussion of an educational program to be fostered by the Section. Towards this end, APSAF sponsored a series of talks on forestry topics that were broadcast from an Asheville radio station in 1927. Two participants in the discussion at the 1926 APSAF meeting served on the parent Society’s Committee on Forest Education in the late 1920s; these were Robert B. Robertson and Texas State Forester E.O. Siecke. 32 The timing of APSAF’s first forays into public education coincided with a proposal made in 1925 by Ovid Butler, then executive secretary of the AFA, for an educational program against woods burning in the South. Butler’s proposal led to the Southern Forestry Educational Project, or “Dixie Crusaders,” carried out between 1928 and 1931. The Southern Forestry Conference, under the leadership of APSAF member Joseph Hyde Pratt, collaborated on the project, carried out in cooperation with the states of Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, and South Carolina. North Carolina provided the project’s director; W.C. McCormick left his position as Assistant State Forester in Charge of Fire Prevention to aid the cause. McCormick also played the lead in “Burnin’ Bill,” one of the two movies made for the project by the AFA. Horace L. Tilghman, later an associate member of APSAF, was another prominent supporter of the Dixie Crusaders. Tilghman was the president and general manager of the Tilghman Lumber Company in Marion, S.C. and the chairman of the South Carolina State Forestry Commission. To spread the message, young foresters took films and exhibits promoting fire protection and proselytizing against woods burning to schools, churches, women’s clubs, 4-H camps, homes, sawmills, and turpentine camps. APSAF member James B. Lattay left his position with the Savannah River Lumber Company to work as a motion picture operator for the project. By the end of the campaign, the program had visited every rural school in the participating states at least once. 33 “Cap” Eldredge recalled foresters’ efforts to educate the public this way: The American Forestry Association...sent people all over the South with moving picture vans and exhibits, and they went all through the backwoods...to try to educate people of the danger of fire in the woods. At that time it didn’t look like it was achieving much, but it did. Then there was an effort made, prompted by the Forest Service and the state foresters, to get it into the schools, and the school textbooks were written...They were written by foresters in the Forest Service and in state forest services. All of us had a hand in it to some extent.34
Examples of APSAF member contributions to the effort include John S. Holmes’ report for the APSAF Committee on Forestry Education in the Secondary Schools, presented at the 1928 APSAF meeting; “Forestry for Vocational Agricultural Studies” was published by the S.C. State Commission of Forestry in 1931. W.K. Beichler’s paper, “Education as an Outstanding Forestry Need in the Southern Appalachians,” was also published. Beichler discussed methods of public education and favored the use of motion pictures and demonstrations of forestry practices. In 1932, the N.C. Department of Conservation and Development distributed a bulletin written by APSAF member and NC Assistant Forester Frederick H. Claridge entitled “Forestry Lessons for Vocational Agriculture in High Schools.” During the same period, Wilbur R. Mattoon was put in charge of federal forestry education in the South, working out of Washington D. C. Mattoon was the first federal expert on extension forestry to work in the South and trained many of the first state extension foresters. He began this work even before the Clarke-McNary Act of 1924 provided federal funding for cooperative and extension forestry. One instance particularly affected the development of extension forestry within the APSAF territory; the director of Tennessee’s agricultural extension program invited Mattoon to spend the summer of 1915 in Tennessee.
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While there, he advised county agents on extension forestry in the different sections of the state. In 1929, Mattoon contributed “Managing Farm Woodlands” to the Journal of Forestry, expanding on the multitude of articles and USDA Farmers’ Bulletins he had already produced in the service of extension forestry. Delanson Y. Lenhart, a District Forester in Florence, S.C. from 1930 to 1934, outlined a more general educational strategy in a 1932 circular “Forest Conservation Programs for Schools, Service Clubs, Women’s Clubs, and Other Civic Organizations.” These educational efforts further illustrate the broad-based support for the Clarke-McNary Act and its provisions. Foresters, working both within the SAF and within other organizations and agencies, favored encouraging forestry education through collaboration with existing educational institutions. This approach was followed at the federal, regional, and state levels, and was consistent with many foresters’ preference for promoting private forestry through cooperation and example rather than regulation. In both cases, emphasis on cooperation between foresters and the public reinforced the role of professional foresters as primary authorities in forest management. Most foresters were reluctant to cede responsibility for management of forests to politicians through legislative regulation of forest management. The majority chose instead to emphasize the professional responsibility of foresters in resolving forest management issues. Similarly, most foresters preferred to contribute lesson material directly to teachers and schools rather than influencing curricula indirectly through legislation. 35 The years 1926 and 1927 proved to be busy years for the young Section in other ways, as Section members approved a five-year program for the APSAF. In addition to continuing the study of forestry education in secondary schools by committee, the program called for (1) reports on “Valuation of Forest Lands and the Production of Tree Crops,” (2) continued examination of private forestry in the Southeast with a committee chaired by Vern Rhoades, and (3) a “stock-taking survey of (the) Appalachian region, through a new committee (to include A.C. Shaw).”36 On top of all these interests, section members voted unanimously in January 1927 to produce an index for the Proceedings of the Society of American Foresters, the Forestry Quarterly, and the Journal of Forestry. Clarence F. Korstian was appointed to oversee the indexing project and immediately wrote SAF president Major Robert Y. Stuart for approval. In Korstian’s words, the section was “desirous of doing a constructive piece of work that [would] be a benefit to the entire profession.” 37 The parent Society gave its approval to proceed. To accomplish the large amount of work involved in producing the index, each of the 60 APSAF members was assigned specific volumes to index. By the December, 1927 meeting, Korstian reported that the index was 95% complete. The index was in preparation for publication in the Journal of Forestry by February 1930.38 Simultaneous with the work on the Journal’s index, section members were at work on other projects. Correspondence between APSAF officers and the parent Society in 1926 show particularly strong support within the Appalachian Section for a survey of private forestry by the SAF Committee on Industrial Forestry. Although the correspondence includes complaints about the lack of resources available for the survey, the SAF’s report for this project included a segment on the Southern Appalachian region. Six companies reported on 215,700 acres under various degrees of management. Fire prevention effort in cooperation with state and federal agencies was the primary activity on private lands. Some brush clearing and thinning was also practiced. The six companies employed seven foresters, and one company used the services of a consulting firm. Reduction of waste in sawmilling was noted, as well as emphasis on better cutovers and planning for the future. One or two companies in the APSAF territory were making growth studies on their properties.39 The Committee’s report, released December 16, 1930, noted that the results of the survey were incomplete and sketchy. The information gathered was anecdotal rather than comprehensive, leading the SAF to publish it in mimeographed form rather than in the Journal of Forestry. The report concluded that the practice of private and industrial forestry was generally feasible although it needed to expand considerably. Industrial forestry practices in the late 1920s were judged insufficient to protect timber supplies, even when the resources of the National Forests were taken into account. In response, the SAF report called for increased efforts by state and federal government to encourage landowners to practice 23
forestry. Suggestions for encouraging forestry on private lands included suspending anti-trust laws, increasing government efforts in fire protection, the institution of insect and disease control measures, and further “public acquisition of those timbered areas which (sic) are now being slashed because of various and unavoidable overhead expenses.”40 Considering the many activities taken on by the APSAF during these years, it is not surprising that the need for a more structured organization became evident. The requirements for successful committee functioning were discussed at the section meeting in December 1927. Other signs of growing pains for both the section and the parent Society appear in the records, even at this early date. As membership in the SAF increased, the number and territories of SAF sections expanded. In 1923, the Allegheny Section was formed by the addition of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia to the Pennsylvania Section. The question arose whether Virginia should remain in the Southern Appalachian Section or move to the Allegheny Section. In 1925, the Southern Appalachian Section voted to retain Virginia within the section, although SAF members could choose which section to affiliate with, or affiliate with both. In 1927, the Gulf States Section formed, followed in 1928 by the Southeastern Section, which removed Alabama and the coastal plain of Georgia from the Southern Appalachian Section. The coastal plain of South Carolina was also included in the Southeastern Section for a few years. The territory of the Southeastern Section was established with the agreement of the Southern Appalachian Section. In response to these changes, the Southern Appalachian Section officially changed its name to the Appalachian Section. In 1935, the boundaries of the Appalachian Section were redefined as including “North Carolina, South Carolina, and that part of Tennessee east of the westernmost or northward crossing of the Tennessee River.” SAF Executive Secretary Franklin Reed noted that it had “taken over a year to work this thing out.”41 Another change, albeit short-lived, may have indicated attempts to fine tune the APSAF organization. Although an annual meeting was held in January 1927, the next annual meeting took place in December 1927 rather than January 1928. The subsequent annual meeting occurred in December 1928, shifting the yearly meeting time from January to December. However, the next annual meeting was scheduled at the original meeting time, January. As a result, no meeting was held in December 1929; Section members convened in January, 1930 instead. These shifts created a curiosity in the records of two meetings in 1927, one in 1928, and no meetings in 1929. Other explanations for the variations in meeting times include simple convenience for the members as work schedules changed or disruption of the December 1929 meeting plans due to the stock market crash in October. Also, in 1927, Appalachian Section members considered a pending revision of the SAF constitution. The revision would reclassify members as junior members, retaining voting rights. There is no record of APSAF member’s opinions on the revision of membership categories, but the SAF amended its constitution in 1928 with no apparent controversy. In 1923, the Appalachian Section did go on record as opposing two proposals made by the California Section: (1) to have individual’s membership in the SAF approved by the Sections rather than by the Executive Council, and (2) that members of the Executive Council be elected representatives of the Sections. The APSAF also passed resolutions in 1926 and 1927 favoring increased dues, but a smaller increase than that suggested by the SAF Executive Council. 42 Another amendment to the SAF constitution passed during 1928 redefined the objectives of the SAF: “to advance the science, practice, and standards of forestry in America.” One project by the SAF to advance the standards of forestry was an investigation of the professional education of foresters in the United States. The first SAF conference on forestry education in 1909 established a committee to study standardization in forestry education. The next SAF conference on forestry education was held at Yale in 1920. In 1928, Henry Graves published two articles in the Journal of Forestry on the relations between education and research as a result of his work with a NAS committee on forestry research. Within the APSAF, members recognized the importance of professional education for foresters. William K. Beichler, a former USFS forester who had just joined the North Carolina Forest Service, presented a paper on forestry education at the December, 1928 meeting in Raleigh, NC. A complete discussion of the subject followed.43 Although no details of this discussion are available, SAF publications from this period emphasized the development of professional training with requirements on par with those 24
of engineering, law, and medicine. Specific technical requirements included silvics, silviculture, mensuration, management, utilization and products, fire protection, insects, and disease, in descending order of emphasis. Concerns included the establishment of new forestry schools without adequate resources, the relatively small number of foresters pursuing graduate degrees, the balance between professional and technical skills, and balance between regional and comprehensive training. A study of forestry education for the SAF by Henry S. Graves and Cedric H. Guise began in 1929 and was published in 1932. The 1932 report repeated earlier concerns including the need for schools to have adequate resources for both instruction and research. Graves and Guise rejected the concept of accreditation for forestry schools by the SAF. However, accreditation had been widely suggested within the SAF and those in favor of it prevailed. Accreditation of forestry schools became an ongoing function of the SAF during the mid-1930s. 44 At the 1928 meeting in Raleigh. NC, APSAF members continued their consideration of industrial and private forestry. Karl A. Swenning, manager of the Mead Pulp and Paper Company’s Woods Department, reported on the APSAF Industrial Forestry Committee, and Frederick H. Claridge, then Assistant Forester for the North Carolina Forest Service, spoke on commercial standards for the measurement of forest products. Meeting attendees then passed a resolution expressing interest in the standardization of measurements for timber and forest products. Another speaker, Paul Ryland Camp of Camp Manufacturing Company in Franklin, VA, described the forestry practices on company holdings in Virginia and North Carolina. Camp Manufacturing Company was a respondent to the 1926 SAF survey of private forestry. The company’s survey response, prepared by William L. Hall of Hot Springs, Arkansas, preserved the outlines of Camp’s forestry practices during the 1920s. The company owned approximately 35,000 acres of timberlands outright, and 30,000 acres of timber rights. According to the 1926 survey, the general purpose of Camp’s forestry program was to “prolong or perpetuate the lumber plant at Franklin, Virginia.” The consulting forestry firm of Hall, Kellogg, and Co., based in Hot Springs, Arkansas, made several inspections of Camp’s holdings each year and worked out management plans with Camp’s operating officials. Additional technical assistance was occasionally obtained from state foresters and from the USDA Forest Service. Thus, P. Ryland Camp’s participation in the 1928 APSAF meeting was consistent with Camp Manufacturing Company’s forestry activities. The main emphasis of Camp’s forestry program was on the prevention and suppression of fires. The company had constructed fire towers and was cooperating with state fire control efforts in Virginia and North Carolina. These efforts were products of the Clarke-McNary Act of 1924. No insect or disease control was thought necessary during that era. Likewise, slash disposal was considered unnecessary. Camp did practice selective cutting with the goal of leaving “as good a stand as possible of young timber
25
The Union-Camp Mill in Franklin, Virginia. Photo from Franklin Chamber of Commerce
under about 12 inches in diameter.” Thick old field stands that had grown sufficiently to provide small sawlogs were thinned to improve growing conditions for the remaining trees. Wood utilization methods included cutting stumps low, milling small boards and pieces from large scraps, and using or selling mill waste as fuel. No planting was done in the 1920s because natural reproduction of pine was vigorous. Instead, Camp concentrated on purchasing additional timberlands to extend its timber procurement efforts. Large tracts in the Dismal Swamp and in Hertford County, North Carolina were acquired to supply the Franklin mill. In addition, Camp Manufacturing Company purchased or established a number of other lumber mills, including operations in Arringdale and Butterworth, VA. In North Carolina, Camp Manufacturing held large interests in the Cape Fear Lumber Company, the Angola Lumber Company, and the Carolina Timber Company, all near Wilmington. In South Carolina, the company held a large interest in the Marion Lumber Company. One of the company’s founders, Paul D. Camp, also established the Santee Lumber Company in Berkeley County, SC. In further efforts to improve efficiency, Camp later became one of the few southern lumber companies to establish kraft paper mills. By 1937, Chesapeake-Camp Corporation was operating alongside Camp Manufacturing Company in Franklin, Virginia. Chesapeake-Camp was formed in partnership with Chesapeake Paper Company and Albemarle Paper Company. 45 At first, expansion into pulp and paper was a way to improve wood utilization by providing a market for small trees from thinnings and providing a use for slabs, tops, and larger limbs of sawlog trees. This was an early example of the type of expansion that Charles Herty advocated to improve the economic base and forestry practices of the South. Chesapeake Corporation began a land acquisition program in the early 1920s after Sture Olsson became concerned about the supply of pulpwood in Chesapeake’s procurement area. The bad fire season of 1929 prompted Olsson to have four steel fire towers built in cooperation with the Virginia Division of Forestry. Winslow L. Gooch, an APSAF member before and after Virginia’s period with the Allegheny Section, served as the company’s chief forester from 1932 until 1943. Gooch cruised and mapped 26
Chesapeake’s properties, developed a management plan for the company’s woods operations, laid out experimental forest plots, and established a tree nursery. During the 1930s, Chesapeake-Camp also employed J.C. Shearin as forest engineer and James Campbell as forester for their North Carolina holdings. Their duties included protection, production, planting of idle lands, and formulating management policies. The three men also cooperated with farmers in solving their forestry problems, planted demonstration plots along roadsides, and conducted educational programs on forest use and fire protection. Ensuring stable supplies of wood through sound forest management continued to be the main objective. A rare photo of Gifford Pinchot (right) with President Teddy Roosevelt
Chapter 3 27
A New Phase: The Great Depression and the New Deal Events prior to and during the 1920s resulted in a firm foundation for the future growth of forestry in the country as a whole and within the APSAF’s territory in particular. At the national level, the region’s first national forests and the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station had been established. In February 1928, the Wanbaw Purchase Unit in South Carolina was established, beginning the formation of Francis Marion National Forest and increasing the number of national forests in the region. In 1926, authority to establish the Great Smoky Mountains National Park passed Congress and acquisition of land for the park commenced. At the state level, forestry had grown from one of many activities conducted by state geologists through the appointment of state foresters and finally into forestry agencies. Private and industrial forestry was still the exception rather than the rule. However, a number of prominent individuals and companies had been won over to the cause and served as examples for later expansion; the pulp and paper industry was particularly notable in this regard. The first public education programs were underway. Private efforts by the SAF, AFA, and the Charles Pack Lathrop Foundation complemented federal efforts to establish agricultural extension programs based on the Smith-Lever Extension Act of 1914 and the SmithHughes Vocational Education Act of 1917. These programs received further funding and a broader mandate with the passage of the Clarke-McNary Act in 1924. Furthermore, USDA Forest Service distribution of pamphlets and bulletins to farmers and woodland owners spread new information from forestry research. Finally, forestry was being promoted by various civic organizations and state forestry organizations.46 All of these accomplishments must have seemed precarious at best as the economic strains of the 1920s intensified into the Great Depression. As Harold K. Steen noted in his history of the USDA Forest Service, the stock market crash of 1929 changed priorities. Investments in conservation, with uncertain results in a distant future, no longer seemed feasible. Funding for conservation work was cut and the Hoover Economy Act prevented federal agencies from refilling vacancies. When Ralph M. Nelson transferred from the Division of Forest Pathology to a USDA Forest Service position with the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station, the Asheville Division of Forest Pathology office closed. The reaction among foresters to these difficulties was a refocusing and reinforcement of well-established themes, rather than a change in goals. The economic basis of forestry had long been a central topic within forestry and now came to the forefront. Public welfare, regulation and cooperation, forest land taxation, public education, federal and state land ownership, and the need for continued research all remained central issues as well. Although the future of forestry seemed uncertain at the beginning of the Depression, forestry had grown enormously by the end of the era.47 APSAF growth during the Depression. Ironically, the Depression itself spurred the growth of both forestry generally and the Appalachian Section in particular as the New Deal made forestry a means of survival for people and industries. Federal programs established to alleviate hardship led to the first broad application of forestry knowledge in the United States, knowledge gained through years of limited public and private inquiry. By 1934, when most Depression-era federal programs were established, foresters, ecologists, botanists, horticulturalists, chemists, and engineers had been collaborating for decades on forest-related research. Franklin B. Hough produced a series of wide-ranging compilations of forestrelated research and information from the late 1870s through 1882. After Bernhard E. Fernow was appointed chief of the Division of Forestry in 1886, he pursued a broad range of research interests, including forest biology, timber physics, forest pathology and soil science. Pinchot also sought input from a broad array of scientists, such as chemists, botanists, statisticians, ecologists, and engineers, among
28
others. During the mid-1920s, the USFS Branch of Research invited ecologists with doctorates to take the Civil Service examination. Two ecologists were selected from the applicants. One, Dr. Charles R. Hursh, came to work at the Appalachian Experiment Station in 1926 as director of the Division of Forest Influences. Hursh remained with the research station overseeing watershed research until he retired in 1954. In the same spirit of inquiry, the SAF invited the fledgling Ecological Society of America to a joint meeting at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) program in 1916 and frequently met with these and other related societies. The APSAF joined in the interaction between societies as well. Besides holding meetings in conjunction with the Appalachian Research Council, the Southern Forestry Council, and the Southeastern Section, among others, members attended and reported on the meetings of other associations. For example, R.D. Forbes, director of the Southern Forest Experiment Station, reported on the AAAS national meeting to the 1926 APSAF meeting and advocated a joint AAASSAF meeting for 1927. Because of their attention to related fields, foresters had a well-established body of knowledge to draw upon when funding became available for expanded forestry research and its practical application.48 The first APSAF meeting after the stock market crash was held February 26 and 27, 1930 in Bristol, TN-VA with 27 members and guests participating. This was the lowest attendance since 1925, when 26 members and guests registered for the meeting in Asheville, NC. Whether the light turnout at Bristol in 1930 was due to economic conditions or to other factors was not recorded. However, the Bristol meeting included several papers on economic topics, possibly in response to the worsening economic climate. Karl A. Swenning spoke on “economic aspects of timberland ownership” and supported the USDA Forest Service position that state and federal governments should be the primary owners of timberlands. Industry would then draw supplies from publicly-owned and managed forests. H.M. Sears (who became Forest Supervisor for the Croatan, Francis Marion, and Sumter National Forests a few years later) discussed the economic aspects of USDA Forest Service sanitation cuttings that removed less valuable tree species from previously logged sale areas. Sanitation cuttings were particularly promoted for sites where desirable species had established advanced growth. The cost of sanitation cuttings were to be covered by a tax of 25 cents per million board feet added to the price of timber sales. In a related presentation, Jesse H. Buell provided silvicultural details of the sanitation cuttings. 49 APSAF takes positions on policy issues. Charles H. Flory, William C. McCormick’s successor as Assistant State Forester in charge of fire control for North Carolina, continued the theme of economics with his talk on a proposal to revise timberland taxation in North Carolina. In 1930, North Carolina was one of 18 states that continued to tax land on an ad valorem basis rather than by use value. The resolutions passed by APSAF members in Bristol that year stressed economics and forestry as well. However, the APSAF resolutions also illustrated the widening range of subjects being considered by foresters. One supported “reasonable public ownership for the conservation of lands now sub-marginal for the practice of forestry,” echoing the proposals of John S. Holmes in 1926. A second resolution expressed the opinion that future profits would justify forestry practices on privately owned woodlands that also generated income from secondary uses, such as hunting and other forms of recreation. Finally, meeting attendees resolved that taxes on land should be adjusted to reflect the returns on investments in forests and forestry, a widespread opinion during this period and in the decades to come. A similar resolution would be passed at a 1936 APSAF meeting in response to a paper by Earl H. Frothingham on a proposed act to adjust forest land taxes, again in North Carolina. In all, the APSAF resolutions of 1930 gave passing attention to regulation, land use zoning, public landownership, forests as game lands, and forest recreation, all areas the APSAF would revisit. Foresters of the APSAF were turning their attention more and more to the “multiple use” of forests. Multiple Use. Mervin A. Mattoon raised the topic of multiple use directly at the February 1930 meeting in his paper on the influence of game and recreation on forestry in the southern Appalachians. Mattoon advocated the relatively novel concept of multiple use, and expressed the opinion that wildlife would become an increasingly important part of forestry in the region. Mattoon expressed similar ideas in a 1930 29
Journal of Forestry article “A Sketch of Pisgah National Game Preserve.” Although numerous goals and benefits had been ascribed to forestry for decades (Aldo Leopold’s article “Forestry and Game Conservation” appeared in the Journal of Forestry April, 1918), the term multiple use management originated within the USFS during the 1920s. Other early APSAF advocates of broad-based forestry included Verne Rhoades and John S. Holmes. Verne Rhoades authored a pamphlet in 1924 entitled “Federal Forest Purchases and Forest Recreation.” In it, Rhoades emphasized Pisgah National Forest’s status as a game preserve and the role of eastern National Forests as “pleasure grounds.” Closing the 1930 meeting, Earl H. Frothingham reported on the Forest Type Classification Committee and on the parent Society’s Forest Type Committee, headed by R.C. Hawley.50 Other evidence points to growing interest in multiple use within the SAF as a whole during the 1920s and 1930s. In December 1927, Clarence L. Forsling, who subsequently directed the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station from 1934 until 1937, addressed the SAF annual meeting in San Francisco concerning “A Range Management Division for the Society.” He suggested that “the Society might well contemplate a role wherein it would take the leadership in a large program of forest and watershed conservation.” Towards this end, Forsling proposed membership classes in the SAF for other professions working in forestry-related fields. Forsling specifically mentioned economics, entomology, wildlife, water, and recreation. Paul G. Redington, SAF president and Chief of the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey, heavily stressed the importance of wildlife in an address to the South Carolina Commercial Forestry Conference on January 22, 1931. He announced the assignment of Thomas D. Burleigh, a forest naturalist with the Biological Survey, to the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station to conduct wildlife research in the region. One resolution at this conference requested that Clemson Agricultural College institute a course on “Game Protection.” In the March 1931 Journal of Forestry, Inman F. Eldredge advocated “multiple utilization afforded by naval stores, saw-timber, and possibly also pulpwood from the same stands.” Also in 1931, Appalachian Forest Experiment Station hydrologist Charles R. Hursch and silviculturalist Leonard I. Barrett co-wrote a bulletin for the Georgia Forest Service on the role of forests in the northern Georgia mountains for watershed protection, recreation, and timber. Other forest uses examined by foresters included livestock range, wilderness, and natural areas for research. A “Tentative Program for the Annual Meeting,” by Emile P. Meinecke in the November 1932 Journal of Forestry set out a review of major conservation problems. Meinecke suggested evaluating conservation with regard to: (1) National Government, (2) wildlands, (3) recreation, (4) parks, (5) State government, (6) private timber production, (7) game, (8) timber in general, and (9) water. 51
Regulation Controversy: Old and New In spite of the economic climate, a second APSAF meeting was held during 1930, on October 18 in Athens, Georgia. This meeting was a special joint meeting with the Southeastern Section of the SAF that drew 40 members and guests to discuss Major George P. Ahern’s recent book, Deforested America. Ahern was a close associate of Gifford Pinchot, a charter member of the Washington Section of the SAF, and served as chairman of the Washington Section in 1928. He was also a well-traveled man who had studied the forests of the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Coast, and managed roughly 50 million acres of government woodland in the Philippines. The Journal of Forestry published his “Notes on Forestry in the Philippine Islands” in 1934. During a 1901 visit to Biltmore Forest, Ahern impressed Carl Schenck favorably as “a man with enthusiasm for a great task” who “had devotion” and “the holy spirit of forestry,” although he was not educated in forestry and had little background in botany. Later, Ahern joined Pinchot as a strong and consistent advocate for federal regulation of private timberlands. Deforested America was highly critical of the forest industries and promoted federal regulation. Accordingly, its publication renewed the on-going debate over the role of government in private forestry. 52 Although briefly subdued after the passage of the Clarke-McNary Act in 1924, the regulation issue reemerged fundamentally unchanged. Echoing concerns from the late 1910s and early 1920s, many foresters had become impatient with the progress of private forestry under the Clarke-McNary Act. When the Washington Section of the SAF debated Ahern’s views in December 1928, some members agreed with Ahern’s description of industrial forestry as “show window forestry.” Others restated the position that 30
industrial forestry would develop only as it became economically feasible. The Washington Section’s divided opinion reflected the divisions among foresters collectively. Some of Ahern’s prominent supporters included Tom Gill of the American Tree Association, Earle Clapp, Robert Marshall, Future USDA Forest Service Chief Ferdinand A. Silcox, Leon F. Kneipp, Assistant Chief for the Division of Lands, and E.N. Munns, all of whom doubted industry’s ability or willingness to adopt forestry independently. Opponents of Ahern’s position included Theodore M. Knappen and Wilson Compton, both of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, William Greeley, future SAF Executive Secretary and Journal of Forestry editor Franklin W. Reed, prominent consulting forester David T. Mason, and American Forestry Association president Ovid Butler, all of whom felt forestry had to be a profitable enterprise before it could be widely practiced. The more extreme supporters of Ahern’s position felt that society’s well-being depended on federal intervention. They accused those opposed to federal regulation of being self-serving profit seekers who were responsible for forest devastation. At the other extreme were those who considered any federal regulation a threat to free enterprise and who accused the pro-regulation foresters of being “reds,” “bolsheviks,” “Nazis,” and socialists. In this climate, the SAF took criticism from both sides for being either too pro-industry, or too open to the idea of regulation. At the APSAF-Southeastern joint meeting in 1930 participants seem to have avoided such extreme characterizations. Various viewpoints were presented, including statements by James L. Averell (an assistant silviculturalist at the USDA Forest Service Forest Experiment Station in Starke, Florida, later listed in 1939 as the Assistant Forest Supervisor for Nantahala National Forest), Thomas W. Alexander (an industrial forester and later a consulting forester and chief forester for Champion), Karl A. Swenning (manager of the woods department for Mead Corporation of North Carolina and Tennessee), and H.M. Sebring (a district forester for North Carolina and later Assistant Regional Forester for the Soil Conservation Service in the Carolinas). The resolution passed in Athens avoided direct acceptance or rejection of federal regulation, but suggested reservations regarding nationally set forestry rules. The resolution stated that forestry problems were local, “to be solved by local region in the light of local conditions as they present themselves.” It was also resolved that “the Regional Forest Survey now in progress will do much to throw light on this subject.” Mention of the newly begun Forest Survey suggests that the foresters who attended the Athens meeting felt that any regulation should be based on thorough research and accurate information. The meeting participants avoided any statement that would either endorse or condemn any specific proposals regarding regulation. 53 In their avoidance of taking a specific position on regulation, foresters at the APSAF-Southeastern joint meeting followed the tendency of the parent Society to avoid taking official positions on controversial issues. The SAF’s emphasis on widely agreed-upon principles within forestry and conservation successfully kept most foresters within the fold of the SAF. SAF’s moderate official position, however, did not prevent continuing controversy within the Society. Regulation and social aspects of forestry had been issues since the late 1800s when forestry emerged as a social and political matter. Throughout the twentieth century, many foresters have viewed forestry as a public endeavor to address public problems. In contrast, other foresters have preferred to focus on technical issues rather than on the social and political context of forestry. As a result of this divergence in viewpoints, the SAF set up a Policy Committee in 1928 in an effort to ensure that SAF policies reflected the views of the SAF membership, if not through consensus then at least by majority. In one attempt to gauge SAF members’ opinions, the SAF balloted members in 1931 on issues pertaining to the SAF Forestry Policy Committee. Some 839 out of roughly 1740 members voted and endorsed the SAF “Principles of Forest Policy for the United States” by an overwhelming majority. Public participation in forestry and strengthening public forestry policies received approximately 98% approval. Most other provisions received over 90% approval, except public assistance to private forestry for reforestation (709 for, 113 against, 17 abstaining on the issue), and public control of private forest exploitation (708 for, 108 against, and 23 abstaining). The only other provision to receive less than 90% approval was federal acquisition of additional lands for national forests (728 for, 96 against, 15 abstaining), although 806 favored federal forests in general. 54 Outside the SAF, the Deforested America controversy helped to spur important developments in forestry. Wilson Compton, a moderate spokesman for the NLMA, proposed a fact-finding board to 31
President Hoover as an instrument for mediating the controversy surrounding forestry issues. Hoover established the Timber Conservation Board on November 12, 1930 to develop recommendations for improving the forest industry’s situation. SAF Executive Secretary Franklin W. Reed, former SAF President William B. Greeley, and other SAF officers assisted the Timber Conservation Board with this assignment. The board’s report in 1932 emphasized the standard goals of use-value land taxation and increased fire protection to encourage private forestry. The board also proposed a program to expand public forests, revision of anti-trust laws with respect to the forest industry, and expanded forestry research efforts. In a new, economics-based definition of sustained yield forestry, coordination of public and private timber supplies was recommended to keep production and demand of forest products in balance. The objective was to prevent depressed prices due to overproduction and to increase income to a level that would make forestry profitable.55 The Copeland Report. Another important development during 1932 was the launch of a new USFS report on forests in the United States. Released in 1933, the National Plan for American Forestry was better known as the Copeland Report, after the senator who requested it. The Copeland Report continued previous commentary on cooperative forestry and government regulations. In addition to the cooperative fire control provided for by the Clarke-McNary Act, the Copeland Report suggested cooperative programs in insect and disease control, erosion control, and flood control. In return for public assistance in these areas, landowners would be required to accept federal regulation of forest use on their property. Massive public acquisition of forestlands was another key provision for expanding forestry onto previously unmanaged lands, an approach advocated throughout the 1920s. The Copeland Report also looked at game management, range, water, state aid, and fire. Earl Frothingham, director of the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station and founding member of the APSAF, contributed a section on a recommended research program. Frothingham’s proposals sought to bring all forest-related research together within the USFS, further bolstering the multiple-use concept. Heretofore, forest research had been scattered between the USFS, the Biological Survey, and the Bureaus of Plant Industry, Entomology, Chemistry, Fisheries, and Soils.56 The Copeland Report was not widely popular within the USFS, however it did reflect the positions of Earle Clapp and the new Chief Forester Ferdinand A. Silcox. Outside the USFS, the Copeland Report was praised by the AFA and by SAF President H.H. Chapman of Yale, in spite of the fact that he was opposed to federal regulation of the timber industry. The SAF as a whole once again avoided taking a formal position. Nonetheless, the Journal of Forestry published articles and comments both supporting and critiquing the report, and debates continued along familiar lines. Speakers at APSAF meetings during this period examined similar issues without directly commenting on the report itself. In January 1931, N.C. State Forester John S. Holmes suggested zoning land with regard to its suitability for agriculture or forestry. He predicted a gradual consolidation of state and federal forests and a hierarchy of publiclyowned land. Municipal land ownership would focus on ensuring a water supply and provide for recreation. State lands would include wildlife refuges and public hunting areas. National Forests, in J.S. Holmes’ view, would expand to 25 percent of the mountain lands, and form the basis a publicly-owned forest system. Financial returns from logging and other activities on the National Forests would replace land taxes for the support of local governments. Mervin A. Mattoon presented the federal foresters’ viewpoint, which agreed substantially with J.S. Holmes’ position. Mattoon also saw a role for the federal government in providing advice and financial assistance to state, county, and local governments for the acquisition of public land. Technical papers in 1931 hinted at Frothingham’s objective of bringing forestrelated topics together within the USFS research program. Charles R. Hursh spoke on “Forest Soils and Fire Damage,” a part of the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station’s research program on soils, water, and climate in the southern Appalachians.57 Hursh’s colleague, Assistant Silviculturalist Ivan H. Sims, returned APSAF’s attention to economics with a report on his efforts to quantify fire damage to forest trees in monetary terms. Economic themes continued to be prominent, and several APSAF members participated in a debate on the economics of forestry at the SAF annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, December 29-31, 1931. The New 32
Orleans meeting specifically focused on forestry in the South. The meeting was launched with a presentation on “Land Use Problems in the South,” by Carl Williams of the Federal Farm Board in Washington, D.C. Edwin A. Ziegler, on the staff of the Pennsylvania State Forestry School at Mont Alto in 1924, and Walter E. Bond of College Station, Texas, presented their report on “Financial Aspects of Growing Pine in the South,” followed by comments from Harry Lee Baker and Clarence F. Korstian. In addition, Fred W. Morrell of Missoula, Montana discussed “Some Financial Aspects of Cooperative Forest Protection.”58
Timber, Game and Fire APSAF’s 1932 meeting, held on January 30 in Raleigh, NC, centered less on national issues than on regional conditions. A “memorable fall fire season” during 1931 prompted an in-depth discussion of fire control in the Carolinas, Virginia, and Tennessee. Alfred B. Hastings, formerly Virginia Assistant State Forester, attended the 1932 meeting. By 1932, Hastings was stationed in the USDA Forest Service Washington office, assigned to state extension work. During the early 1930s, he wrote the state cooperation portion of the Copeland Report. Hastings presented a paper by his colleague, Assistant Regional Forester for cooperative forestry in the Southern Region Charles F. Evans, on cooperative fire protection in the South. The Clarke-McNary Act had divided fire protection costs 25 percent, 25 percent, and 50 percent between federal government, state government, and landowners. In the South, the actual division of costs was 37 percent federal, 37 percent state, and 4 percent landowners. According to Evans, the cooperation of counties with fire control efforts was relatively strong in Virginia and North Carolina, but almost absent in South Carolina and Tennessee. He noted that expansion of cooperative fire control programs was not likely while economic depression continued, but he “saw no reason why existing gains should not be held and expansion planned for” as economic conditions improved. 59 One paper given in 1932 continued the trend towards multiple use management. Homer A. Smith, who had succeeded Lewis E. Staley as South Carolina’s State Forester in 1931, spoke on fire control activities in his state. The South Carolina Forest Service could provide cooperative protection only to 4.5 out of 12 million acres of forest, and landowners were not willing to provide their half of the cost at 2 cents per acre. Smith proposed increasing public interest in fire control by linking it with game protection. For example, 3 million acres of quail breeding grounds periodically burned during the nesting season. Although multiple use was not mentioned, Smith’s presentation implied the importance of recognizing different uses of forest land in the effort to extend forestry over a wider area. Charles H. Flory, N.C. Assistant State Forester in charge of fire prevention work, reported on North Carolina’s situation. In spite of legislative actions in 1907 and 1915, forest fires were still a year-round occurrence in North Carolina. Flory cited a lack of landowner interest, farm tenancy, and the widespread belief in the effectiveness of woods burning for land management. Of North Carolina’s 30 million acres, 70 percent was forested, but only 35 percent was protected from fire; 4 million acres were described as “idle,” presumably abandoned or fallow farm lands. Flory also predicted, correctly as it turned out, that the extent of idle lands would increase. A five percent increase in wooded land on farms during the 1930s, as reported by the US Census, supports Flory’s forecast. As regarding fire protection programs in 1932, North Carolina had 34 counties cooperating with its fire control program and 14 private protective associations, 11 of which were located within cooperating counties. Assessments ranged from one to two and a half cents per acre, supplemented by a percentage of North Carolina’s game license receipts. The association of game license receipts with forest fire control reflected foresters’ long standing recognition of the connections between forestry and game management. The use of game license revenues for forest fire control was authorized by the NC Congress in 1931.60
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Logging crew, ready to go. North Carolina Forest Service photo
Although Richard Chapin Jones, the State Forester of Virginia, had applied for membership in the Allegheny Section in 1930, the APSAF still included Virginia within its territory in 1932. Therefore, Assistant State Forester Fred C. Pedersen reported on federal, state, and private fire control cooperation on Virginia’s 17.25 million acres of forestland. Of 100 counties, 58 were involved in fire control work, and 56 paid the costs of fire control. Fire prevention, detection, law enforcement, equipment, and education costs were provided by the State. Also, six private fire control associations were active within the participating counties. There was no report on the situation in Tennessee, possibly because the meeting took place in Raleigh, NC and was more difficult for foresters working in Tennessee to attend. The final paper was given by Ralph M. Nelson on forest fire damage research at the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station. Nelson acknowledged the need for standard criteria to assess fire damage. He then discussed different types of fire damage that resulted in the “reduction of the forest’s productive capacity.” In closing, Nelson summarized plans for further research on fire damage at the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station. Resolutions passed by the APSAF membership at the 1932 Raleigh meeting: (1) endorsed the US Weather Bureau’s plans to establish a fire weather forecasting service within the APSAF’s territory, (2) advocated reinstating appropriations for cooperative fire protection as authorized by the Clarke-McNary Act at levels equal to or greater than 1931, and (3) supported pending legislation that addressed the role of vegetative cover in flood control. 61 The APSAF meeting held on February 24 and 25, 1933 in Columbia, S.C. was the first in South Carolina. Like the Richmond, Virginia meeting in 1926, the choice of meeting place was partially in recognition of the growth of state forestry in the host state. After the bill creating the S.C. State
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Commission of Forestry passed the State Legislature in 1927 and Lewis E. Staley was appointed S.C. State Forester in 1928, growth of the S.C. Commission of Forestry was slow but steady. In 1929, provisions were made for hiring an Assistant State Forester and for the distribution of tree seedlings at cost from the first state nursery established near Camden. After rapid turnover in the Assistant State Forester’s job between 1929 and 1930, four districts were created and District Foresters were appointed to handle three of them. When Homer A. Smith succeeded L.E. Staley in 1931, a District Forester was appointed to the fourth district. District headquarters were at Spartanburg, Florence, Walterboro, and Aiken. In September 1931, Navarre Thomas Barron was promoted from District Forester to Assistant State Forester, rounding out the state forestry personnel. In addition to growth in state forestry, work commenced on South Carolina’s Francis Marion National Forest in 1933, although the first purchase unit had been authorized in 1928. One early outgrowth of the forestry community’s expansion in South Carolina was the APSAF meeting in Columbia.62 The program topic in 1933 was “Land use and management for timber and game crops.” Couched within the designated topic, the speakers also addressed many of the issues facing foresters of the time. Former Assistant Forester of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, L.J. Leffelman had recently become the estate forester for the Burrough Plantation, or White Estate, in Sumter, S.C. Leffleman gave the first paper at an APSAF meeting to mention possible benefits from light burning on forest land, “Forest and Game Management in South Carolina with Special Reference to Game Birds.” His knowledge of light burning may later have influenced his assignment as head of land conservation for the Resettlement Administration in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. In their strenuous efforts to prevent wildfires, most foresters had come to see all fire as harmful to forests. Although a few foresters recognized benefits derived from traditional light burning practices, most saw such traditional management techniques as dangerous and sought to replace them with management based on scientific research. Part of the conflict stemmed from foresters’ focus on timber production. “Folk” forestry had never sought to maximize tree growth. Instead, traditional burning was practiced to keep the forests open for easy access, to reduce insect populations, and to improve the range for livestock. Stephen Boyce remembered traveling in the coastal plain with his father during the 1930s: Whenever we traveled with my father, with the car, we carried a bucket of water and towels in the rear seat. If we drove through smoke, you had to put a wet towel over your face...They were ground fires, but the smoke would be quite dense and acrid. Most people burned their farm lands and once the pine plantations got up to the point where they could be burned, they burned those as well to thin them out and also to remove the little hardwood seedlings, so they could go in with pitchforks to scrape up the pine straw for the mule and cow stalls.
To foresters who feared an imminent timber famine, a system that they believed would reduce tree growth and increase tree mortality was unacceptable. Even those who acknowledged the benefits of burning the range for livestock promoted replacement of the range by enclosed and planted pastures. Most foresters preferred to eliminate both grazing and controlled burns from their silvicultural systems. 63 Nevertheless, there were a number of prominent proponents of controlled burning from the beginnings of American forestry. Franklin Hough recommended prescribed burning in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Henry S. Graves proselytized against woods-burning, but even he hedged that fire might be allowable in some cases, “provided the fire can be confined to small areas and fully controlled.” In the South, support for prescribed fire was relatively widespread, although circumspect and subordinated to the efforts to prevent fire. H.H. Chapman of Yale was an exception; he was never noncommittal. He initiated long term fire research on southern pines in 1907 and became an early champion of prescribed burning. B.W. Wells at North Carolina State College also recommended prescribed burning. Inman “Cap” Eldredge, while praising anti-burning campaigns, supported the use of fire as a silvicultural tool. During the 1910s, Eldredge proposed a system of controlled burning linked to forest growth rather than annual burns for grass. Other USDA Forest Service foresters in the South practiced prescribed burning for fire control under the name of “administrative research.” In wildlife research, the U.S. Biological Survey began investigations into the decline of bobwhite
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quail in the South at the request of hunting preserve owners. Herbert L. Stoddard took over the study in 1924 and published his findings in 1931. Stoddard determined that fire played a crucial role in maintaining quail habitat. From the perspective of timber production, American Forests published articles in 1931 and 1932 on the role of fire in longleaf pine forests, and no less a light than Austin Cary wrote a Journal of Forestry article in 1932: “Some Relations of Fire to Longleaf Pine,” appearing in conjunction with H.H. Chapman’s “Some Further Relations of Fire to Longleaf Pine.” In 1932, the USDA Forest Service itself responded to two years of drought and fire in the South to allow prescribed burning by recipients of Clarke-McNary funds. Yet the benefits of fire were so controversial that, in 1933, Leffelman still presented controlled burning as necessarily detrimental to forests. Instead of proposing a prescribed burning program, he focused on alternatives to burning in quail management, such as plowed fire lines planted with quail foods, forest thinning, and predator control. Appalachian Forest Experiment Station silviculturalist Arland L. MacKinney joined the fray in 1935 with Technical Note 9, Effects of a Light Fire on Loblolly Pine Reproduction. Clinton H. Coulter of the Florida Forest Service later recalled that southern foresters accepted the use of controlled burning by the late 1930s. The prospect of incendiary attacks during World War II slowed recognition of the benefits of fire. In spite of war-time concerns, increasing difficulties in preventing and suppressing wildfire reinforced foresters’ interest in controlled burns as a means to reduce fuel loads and fire hazards. By 1949, the use of fire to manage forests was approved enough to be discussed in a section of Trees: Yearbook of Agriculture 1949 that was subtitled “Fire, Friend and Enemy.” L.M. Hutchins noted in “Diseases and the Forest,” that fire “has a sanitary effect” against longleaf pine brownspot “when properly timed.” Arthur W. Hartman, Chief of the Division of Fire Control for the USDA Forest Service Southern Region, contributed a very guarded article, “Fire as a Tool in Southern Pine.” Hartman reported that 11,100 acres in North Carolina and 41,100 acres in South Carolina had been subject to controlled burns between 1943 and 1948. He did not report for Tennessee or Virginia. Two other authors contributed even more ambivalent articles: A.A. Brown, “Fire, Friend and Enemy: Progress, But Still a Problem,” and R.F. Hammatt, “Bad Business: Your Business.” However, Leon Edward Chaiken, an Appalachian Forest Experiment Station silviculturalist, prepared technical notes in 1949 and 1952 discussing benefits and problems of prescribed burns for hardwood control in loblolly pine stands. He also contributed articles to several journals during the late forties and early fifties, including “When to Burn for Seedbed Preparation,” to the Forest Farmer in 1949, and numerous reports on controlling unwanted hardwoods with fire. Paul C. Lemmon published an article on the effects of fire on herbs in longleaf-slash pine forests in 1949 as well. Chaiken’s reports were the first to describe research on fire study plots established in 1946. The plots were situated on the Santee Experimental Forest in Berkeley County, SC and on West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company (Westvaco) lands in Georgetown County, SC. Annual winter burning, annual summer burning, and periodic burning were instituted first. In 1951, researchers added biennial summer burning to the project. Descriptions of the effects of burning on the understory have been published at intervals since 1949 (later reports evaluated only the Santee plots because the Westvaco plots were cut in 1984). 64 The three speakers at the 1933 APSAF meeting who followed Leffelman also examined game management in the Carolinas. William P. Kramer described game management in western North Carolina with specific reference to deer on the Pisgah National Forest, where he was an Assistant Forest Supervisor. Kramer traced the development of game management at Pisgah from the era of George W. Vanderbilt to the 1930s. The influence of foresters’ experience with deer overpopulation in the West was apparent in research on carrying capacity and food requirements for deer in Pisgah National Forest. Researchers also studied the effects of logging, fire, clearing, and livestock grazing on deer food supply. J.W. Harrelson addressed game and fish management in eastern North Carolina, including their economic value and prospects. Citing good conditions in the east and west, Harrelson called for piedmont cities and towns to acquire watersheds, adding the proposal that such land be managed for “supplemental game crops.” J.T. Kollock, President and owner of J.T. Kollock, Inc. in Charleston, S.C., reviewed land use and game on the Coastal Plain, stressing their economic value for hunting. Cutover land was commanding higher prices for game preserves than for timber production at that time. Many landowners were essentially practicing 36
multiple use management by leasing hunting rights to land that was also logged. Kollock cited Carolina Wood Preserving Company’s practices as a good example of diversified management for timber and game. A field trip to the Walter C. White estate 12 miles west of Sumter, S.C., continued the theme of timber, game, and fire at the 1933 APSAF meeting. Also known as the Burrough Plantation, the White Estate had employed L.J. Leffelman since its inception in 1926, and he directed its development until he resigned in 1935. The objectives of the landowner, Mrs. Walter C. White of Ohio, were to limit farming on the estate to the best agricultural land, relocating tenants where necessary, then reforesting the remaining acreage for the production of forest products, wildlife, and grazing. The plantation was intended to serve as both a conservation demonstration and to provide financial returns. Of the estate’s 12,000 acres (6,000 in Sumter and 6,000 in Richland), approximately 76 percent was forested. The rest was in crop land except for the two acre Statesburgh Forest Nursery that produced over 8 million pine seedlings between 1927 and 1934, as well as some hardwoods, ornamentals for market, and experimental game foods and pasture grasses. More than three quarters of the pine seedlings were planted on the estate; the rest were sold to other landowners. After the nursery discontinued the production of pine seedlings in 1934, another half million were purchased from state nurseries. By 1938, only 250 acres of retired farm land remained to be planted. In addition to silvicultural work, salvage cuttings, and fire protection, the intensive management, protection, and propagation of game was a major enterprise. Approximately 400 quail were raised each year in 1930, 1931, and 1932, and Leffelman conducted innovative work on game food and forestry practices to increase the game population. Under the aegis of the Statesburgh Forest Nursery, Leffelman also worked as a consultant to several other estates in the area being managed for both forests and game.65
FDR and the APSAF In contrast to the other speakers at the 1933 meeting, Julius V. Hofmann did not discuss the place of game management in forestry. Instead, he gave his views on structuring a land use program. Hofmann, who had moved from the Pennsylvania State Forestry School at Mont Alto to North Carolina State College in 1929, maintained that the basis for classifying land for forest or agriculture should be the need for the commodities to be produced rather than their profitability. He supported the position that forestland of low productivity should be publicly owned and proposed government financing of privately-owned forests at rates of no more than 3% interest. In the business session, APSAF members voted to endorse combining the positions of Executive Secretary and Editor of the Journal of Forestry until the SAF became financially able to employ a full-time editor. The Section rejected a proposal to elect SAF Council members by sections, but endorsed President Roosevelt’s “Tennessee River Project.” This endorsement followed the precedent set in 1927 when the APSAF endorsed a precursor of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Southern Appalachian Power Conference, which had met in conjunction with the APSAF that year. The endorsement also marks the first appearance of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs in APSAF records. Roosevelt announced at his inauguration in 1932 his intention to create an extensive public works program. He made forest and land restoration work the centerpiece of his program with the Civilian Conservation Corps (1933-1942). Besides the TVA and CCC, Roosevelt’s programs included the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA, 1933-1935), the National Recovery Administration (NRA), the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA, 1933-1936), the Works Progress Administration (WPA, 1935-1939), and the Rural Electrification Administration. The New Deal also initiated numerous farm relief programs that later were united under the Resettlement Administration in 1935. The Resettlement Administration was reorganized as the Farm Security Administration (FSA) within the USDA in 1937, and finally renamed the Farmers’ Home Administration (FHA) in 1946. These programs, particularly the CCC and TVA, joined older forestry and agricultural programs in a massive expansion of forestry across the nation. Although New Deal programs did not introduce new ideas or practices, the enormous increase in funding under the New Deal brought about an equally enormous increase in activity. 66 Prior to Roosevelt’s election, the concept of combining unemployment relief with conservation 37
work enjoyed widespread support among foresters. At the SAF national meeting in December 1930, a resolution passed urging state legislatures to provide emergency funds for forestry work on state lands. National Forests were also touted as a means of unemployment relief, as in Jesse H. Buell’s article “Pisgah Aids the Unemployed,” in American Forests during 1931. Congress created one employment opportunity in Pisgah National Forest during 1931, when it authorized the pre-Roosevelt Community Works Administration to build offices for researchers at Bent Creek Experimental Forest. National Forests also hired local people for fire fighting and as forest rangers well before the New Deal. Given these precedents, it is not surprising that the APSAF endorsed the expansion of employment under the Emergency Conservation Work program and the CCC in 1934 just as they had the TVA. 67 The parent Society had awarded Roosevelt the first Schlich Memorial Medal in 1933 in recognition of his interest in conservation and his support of forestry. Furthermore, the New Deal programs were highly significant for foresters from an individual standpoint; in March 1934, less than a year after the new programs had begun, Appalachian Section members’ employment was profoundly affected: USDA Forest Service (including Emergency Conservation Works) State Education and Extension Private Tennessee Valley Authority National Park Not in forestry, or unknown Total:
67 14 10 7 13 1 3 115 68
The Guide to Forestry Activities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee compiled and published by the APSAF in 1939 further demonstrated the effects of the New Deal on foresters’ employment. APSAF membership had grown by more than fifty percent between 1928 and 1932, but more than doubled from 115 to 246 during the height of the New Deal between 1934 and 1938. Concentrations of membership were much higher in Asheville [34], Cleveland, TN/Cherokee National Forest [9], Raleigh/N.C. State College [15], Columbia [10] and in Durham [11], where Duke University had established its School of Forestry, than in other parts of the Section. However, more than half of the APSAF members were scattered singly or in twos and threes around the region. CCC camps and various conservation projects had distributed jobs across the countryside, and a growing minority were employed privately. Moreover, a new concentration of 25 members had emerged in Norris, Tennessee, where the TVA’s Norris Experimental Forest and Norris Dam are located, not far from TVA’s Clinton, Tennessee forest tree nursery. According to information in the Guide, employment of foresters had risen enormously by 1938. (The total does not equal membership figures; some foresters listed may not have been members, others may have been counted twice in different capacities): USDA Forest Service (including some CCC) Soil Conservation Service (including some CCC) State (including some CCC) Education and Extension University/College faculty Private Tennessee Valley Authority National Park Department of Indian Affairs, Cherokee, N.C.
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87 43 40 18 14 27 60 3 1
Resettlement Administration
25 - 30 Total: 317 - 322
The total personnel for the TVA, not including all local workers or CCC enrollees, was highest as of June 30, 1937 when 139 were employed.69 Other resolutions at the 1934 APSAF meeting in Statesville, N.C. backed several current proposals for government conservation programs. The APSAF petitioned the federal government to use existing nurseries to produce seedlings for reforestation projects by its agencies. State governments were urged to systematically classify and coordinate use of their lands according to its “best use.” APSAF members also urged southern states to adopt laws allowing government acquisition of tax delinquent lands for State Forests. The topics and issues considered in 1934 established a trend; New Deal programs dominated APSAF agendas from 1934 until the late 1930s, when the New Deal began to wind down. 70
Article X One particularly significant element of the New Deal was the short-lived National Recovery Administration. The USDA Forest Service and the National Lumber Manufacturers Association (NLMA) collaborated on the portion of the program related to conservation in the lumber industry. An earlier version of minimum logging standards produced by William B. Greeley and David T. Mason had been rejected by Roosevelt as too weak, whereas a version by the USDA Forest Service was described by Mason as “vicious.” A compromise version was accepted by the President in August 1933. The process of cooperation and compromise that inaugurated Article X of the Lumber Code began at a session in Washington D.C. on October 24-26, 1933. The APSAF was well represented; Joseph Hyde Pratt was a public conferee representing the American Forestry Association, Robert W. Graeber—the Agricultural Extension Forester for North Carolina—was a conferee for the Agricultural Extension Service, and Verne Rhoades represented the Public Works Administration. P. Ryland Camp of Virginia’s Chesapeake-Camp Corporation served as an industry conferee for lumber and timber, while Robert B. Robertson of Champion Fibre Company served for pulp and paper. Franklin W. Reed presented the finished product to the APSAF at the 1934 annual meeting at Statesville, N.C., just four and a half months before it became effective. As Reed described it, Article X was “Not a set of rules handed down by the Government, but rather a set of rules developed by the industry and approved by the government.” At the same meeting, Walter J. Damtoft presented his Journal of Forestry article on public cooperation and control with relation to large holdings of private forestland. Next, Robert W. Graeber spoke in favor of private ownership of forests as opposed to public ownership or prohibitory regulations. Graeber’s proposal was that woodland owners form county organizations. The Federal Government could then lease tracts of land from farmers belonging to such county organizations with rent equaling the land taxes for 25 years. The government would furnish seedlings and expertise while the farmer planted the seedlings. The government would also control the timing of thinings, while the farmer provided the labor for thinning the trees and received materials or income from them. Graeber, raised in Rowan and Cabarrus Counties, N.C., had been a county agricultural agent in North Carolina and South Carolina before earning a BSF at N.C. State College and becoming an extension forester. As early as 1920, he had conducted timber thinning demonstrations for farmers in Iredell County, North Carolina. His experience working with farmers had obviously given him an ardent interest in promoting farm forestry and in assisting farmers economically. P. Ryland Camp discussed New Deal forestry and Article X again at the May 10-11, 1935 APSAF meeting held at Asheville. Arnold C. Shaw, stationed in Knoxville with the USDA Forest Service, commented in response to Camp’s paper that small operators were having the most difficulty adhering to Article X. Of 12,000 mill operators belonging to the Southern Pine Association, only 6 were certified on sustained yield, 12 were uncertified, and 50 were “conservative operators.” The problems of small operators were particularly troublesome because of a widely-noted trend towards small sawmills in the South. The uncertain future of the Lumber Code as well as the National Recovery Administration (NRA) as a whole was also discussed and proved pertinent; the NRA, along with the entire National Industrial 39
Recovery Act, was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on May 27, 1935. 71 Shaped by both the Copeland Report and the Timber Conservation Board, Article X was successful in raising the awareness of conservation within industry. Officially, however, it was a failure due to the Supreme Court ruling on May 27, 1935. Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, the forestry concepts contained in Article X continued to be observed on a voluntary basis by 75% of the NLMA membership. Neither the Copeland report, the Timber Conservation Board recommendations, nor Article X of the Lumber code could satisfy the requirements and expectations of all interested parties. Nevertheless, these efforts produced real change. According to Elwood L. Demmon, director of the Southern Forest Experiment Station from 1927 until 1944 and of the Southeastern Station from 1951 until 1956, industry men wanted to avoid the Copeland report “going through.” Instead, they decided “they’d better do something themselves to promote a forestry program.” The NRA and Article X gave industry the opportunity to become involved in the development of both federal forestry law, and the practice of forestry in their regions. The NLMA and the Southern Pine Association both employed foresters to help them comply with Article X. The NLMA already had a forestry committee, established in 1920; the Southern Pine Association established its conservation department in 1934. After Article X was struck down, industry continued to employ foresters and to develop forestry programs. E.L. Demmon recalled, “[Article X] got many people to do things they might not otherwise have done. They also found that it was good business, so it may have speeded up forestry in the South by several years.” Other notable organizations founded during the thirties include the American Pulpwood Association and the Southern Pulpwood Conservation Association, and in 1941, the American Forest Products Industries, Inc. and the Forest Farmer’s Association. The Southern Pulpwood Conservation Association’s members utilized 90% of pulpwood cut in the South between 1939 and 1949.72
The New Deal Adapts Shortly after the NRA was declared unconstitutional, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) was also struck down. Stephen Boyce recalled seeing large numbers of pigs slaughtered and about 100 acres of cotton plowed up on his family’s farm as his father worked to comply with AAA quotas. Scenes such as these disturbed many people and reduced popular support for the program. One of the few wellaccepted provisions was the quotas restricting tobacco production and supporting tobacco prices. Tobacco farmers rallied in protest when the AAA was struck down, demanding that crop reduction and price support measures be retained for tobacco. While the AAA did help to raise farm prices, the waste and government restrictions involved were unpopular generally. Ensuing government programs avoided constitutional issues by stressing voluntary compliance, paired with subsidies rather than compulsory guidelines and quotas. Boyce recalled that during his years in the USDA Forest Service Washington D.C. office, all public programs had to be designed as noncompulsory projects. The Soil Conservation Service, from its beginnings as the Soil Erosion Service in the Department of the Interior, was expanded and transferred to the Department of Agriculture after the end of the AAA. This voluntary program was the brainchild of Hugh Hammond Bennett from Anson County, N.C. Bennett’s family had a farm on the Pee Dee River and Bennett grew up with a concern for the problems of farming that he addressed when he became a chemist and a soil scientist. In particular, he established the first Soil Conservation District in the United States on Brown’s Creek in Anson County, N.C. during 1935. Soon, Soil Conservation Districts were proliferating across the country. Moreover, where the AAA had expanded the acreage available for woodlands passively by limiting crop lands, the SCS actively encouraged reforestation efforts in addition to terracing crop lands and planting leguminous cover crops. 73 Although New Deal programs such as the Soil Conservation Service, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and others, were less controversial and longer lived than the NRA or AAA, they still excited comment amongst foresters. Chief Forester for the TVA Forest Resources Planning Division, E.C.M. Richards, gave the final paper at the 1934 APSAF meeting entitled “The Tennessee Valley: A Challenge to Foresters,” published in the March issue of the Journal of Forestry. The Tennessee Valley Authority was primarily a program for the industrial development of the Tennessee River valley. For decades, many plans to improve navigation on the Tennessee river had been proposed, and 40
some attempted, with limited success. Nevertheless, the potential of the valley for industrial development was not dismissed. In 1917, the Federal Government built nitrate plants on the Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals to produce nitrates for munitions during World War I. A small hydroelectric dam was also constructed to provide power. Senator George Norris quickly emerged as a strong supporter of increased federal involvement in the region. Norris proposed retaining the nitrate plants as federal property after World War I and converting them to fertilizer research and production. Norris’ proposals also included additional dam construction for hydroelectric power, improved navigation, and flood control. Various plans were advanced but never implemented. In 1933, Roosevelt’s New Deal gave the proposals new momentum, and the Tennessee Valley Authority was finally launched. 74 Reforestation for flood and erosion control was a prominent part of the TVA program. The TVA’s Division of Forestry and Soil Erosion began erosion control work in 1933 with 25 CCC camps (later reduced to 20 when 5 were transferred to park and highway landscaping projects). APSAF member Willis M. Baker, with the TVA in Norris, TN, spoke on “The Place of Forestry in Soil and Water Conservation” at the SAF’s 1938 annual meeting in Columbus, OH. In 1938, there were still 19 TVA-U.S. Forest ServiceCCC camps working on reforestation and erosion control. The TVA also employed local residents for erosion control work, first through the Civil Works Administration, then directly after the CWA ended in 1934. Besides planting trees, TVA activities included investigation of forest conditions and soils, public education projects, tree crop experiments, encouragement of terracing and use of cover crops on farmland, and cooperative wildlife development. In 1934, the Section of Forest Development was created to handle these duties. In 1936, forest education work was transferred to the Watershed Protection Division, as was the Forest Tree Crops Unit in 1937. Further reorganization in 1937 reassigned wildlife management to a new Division of Biological Readjustment and Land Administration in the Reservoir Property Management Department. A new Department of Forestry Relations was responsible for (1) surveys of forest and water resources, (2) recommending legislation relating to forest conservation and public forest land acquisition, (3) promoting the use of electric power for developing the forest industries, (4) preparing forest management plans for the TVA, (6) cooperation with other government agencies, landowners, and landowner associations, (7) cooperation and planning for CCC camps assigned to the TVA, (8) operation of forest tree nurseries, (9) forestry recommendations for other departments in the TVA, and (10) developing new varieties of native tree species, and promoting the propagation and use of promising new strains. TVA policies required forest management to conform to principles of technical forestry, and selective cutting was mandated where feasible. Special value was placed on aesthetics, recreation, and encouragement of wildlife.75 Although the TVA did not specifically manage any lands for the production of timber or other wood products, TVA lands produced more than 7.5 million board feet of timber, 1,300 cords of wood, and 26,000 lineal feet of poles and posts in 1947. Cumulative sales from TVA land holdings up to 1949 included over 36 million board feet of timber, 21,600 cords of wood, and 1,050,000 lineal feet of poles and posts. By 1949, the TVA owned approximately 485,000 acres of land above the normal water levels of its reservoirs. Following the Tennessee River and its tributaries, TVA lands stretched, then and now, from southwestern Virginia, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, and northern Alabama to western Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky. Of these, 340,000 were forested, including 40,000 acres of plantations. Many were badly eroded farmlands when they were first acquired. Some areas were designated forestry demonstration or research areas, but none was solely for production of forest products. Forestry was practiced as it was compatible with the TVA’s main objectives of flood control, protection of navigation, and the production of hydroelectric power. As a result, the most important forestry activity was reforestation, but in wider context, the TVA’s development of fertilizer manufacturing was even more significant. Sixty-four percent of fertilizers used today are manufactured using technology developed by the TVA. Before the TVA’s fertilizer program, chemical fertilizer was expensive and not widely used. Development of economical manufacturing processes reduced the cost of fertilizer and allowed American farmers to greatly increase crop production on a smaller land base. Fertilization of tree plantations also became a viable option.76 41
More debate on the New Deal. In the APSAF, consideration of New Deal forestry’s strengths and weaknesses continued. W.R. Hine, director of the USDA Forest Service Division of Information and Education in the Southern Region, scrutinized the CCC program in his presentation to the 1935 APSAF meeting in Asheville. Hine posed the question, Is the CCC basically sound, and if so, what contribution could it make to forestry in the APSAF territory? In discussion, consulting forester Thomas W. Alexander of Asheville calculated that 40 CCC camps in North Carolina equaled one CCC enrollee for every 2500 acres of forestland, costing 56 cents per acre per year. Compared to previous fire protection costs of 5 and a half cents per acre per year, Alexander did not consider the program to be economically practical, strictly for forestry purposes, on a permanent basis. On the other side of the issue, South Carolina State Forester Charles H. Flory observed that the high cost of erosion control work performed by the CCC reflected poor planning. Improved management had reduced the expense from $60 dollars an acre to $20 dollars an acre. Flory also contended that the benefits of CCC activities for forestland and for society were difficult to measure. Flory’s conclusions were widely shared; the CCC was immensely popular and helped innumerable people weather the Depression. In addition, Flory’s predictions for the improvement of CCC efficiency planting trees proved correct. One source estimated that CCC teams could plant between 160 and 300 trees per man, per hour. For Richard H. Kilbourne, Chief of the TVA’s Watershed Protection Division, the CCC’s role as an agent for “forest propaganda” alone would have justified its existence and expense.77 The injection of politics. Other discussants at the 1935 meeting emphasized the need for technically trained foresters and foremen to oversee CCC projects. These concerns were repeated in the pages of the Journal of Forestry many times and widely shared by many foresters. The sudden expansion of forestry under the New Deal created more positions than there were trained foresters to fill them. As a result, it became necessary to employ non-foresters. Many of these men were chosen according to their political affiliations rather than by their qualifications, and this trend deeply disturbed members of the SAF. H.H. Chapman of Yale, SAF President from 1934 to 1937, served on a New England Section Committee on political activities in the CCC. The committee’s report, published in the Journal of Forestry, December, 1933, detailed incidents of political patronage and political opposition to the employment of Republicans around the country. The U.S. Forest Service’s concessions to political pressure were particularly troubling to the committee, given the Forest Service’s tradition of professional rather than political employment. The committee also found that the positions of at least two state foresters had been threatened because of their insistence on making appointments by merit rather than political affiliation. A SAF press release by H.H. Chapman in 1934 detailed the political dismissal of W.E. Jackson, State Forester of Kentucky, and the ensuing resignation of his entire technical staff. Jackson was assured by the Governor and Commissioner of Agriculture of Kentucky that he was not dismissed on the basis of his performance. The appointment of the new State Forester was entirely for the fulfillment of a political promise. As a result of Jackson’s dismissal and his staff’s resignation, cooperators in the Clarke-McNary fires protection program withdrew from the program. Furthermore, the state forestry organization in Kentucky violated an agreement with the USDA Forest Service that merit should be the basis for appointments in the Kentucky Forest Service. This incident supported the New England committee’s warnings that if politics could dictate the employment of non-foresters in governmental conservation programs, then politics could affect the employment of foresters as well. The APSAF echoed these concerns with members’ comments in 1935 and in their 1934 resolution commending the CCC wherein they urged continuation of the merit system for supervisory appointments. The SAF as a whole, registered similar objections in a referendum held in November, 1936 on Professional Employment in Public Service that singled out the CCC. 78 At the fifteenth annual meeting held May 1 and 2, 1936 in Durham, N.C., J.V. Hofmann presented the report of the Committee on the Maintenance of Standards in Professional Employment, evidence of a continuing concern regarding employment practices within forestry and for the professional status of foresters. At the same meeting, Karl A. Swenning of the Mead Corporation in Tennessee renewed discussion of the CCC. 42
Swenning delivered the report for a committee on Emergency Conservation Work (ECW), as carried out by the CCC. The extension of the CCC’s work onto farms and other private lands was a particular focus. The committee recommended that the CCC engage in fire prevention and suppression work on private lands where cooperative programs existed. They also supported cooperative work on controlling forest insects and diseases. However, the committee concluded that the CCC program should not become permanent without reorganization to “overcome grave [unstated] objections to the present plan.” In spite of the misgivings of some foresters, the CCC became an integral part of forestry and conservation in the United States from its beginnings in 1933 through its final days during World War II. Funding from the CCC and other New Deal agencies financed a major expansion of southern National Forests and other public lands in spite of opposition from foresters like Robert W. Graeber and discomfort within the forest industries over the scale of public land acquisition. Examples of expansion included (1)
CCC workers in Virginia at lunch.
Jefferson National Forest in Virginia, Francis Marion and Sumter National Forests in South Carolina, (2) the expansion of Bent Creek Experimental Forest from 1000 acres to 5200 acres, the establishment of Coweeta Experimental Forest in the (western North Carolina) Nantahala National Forest for watershed research and the Santee Experimental Forest in the Francis Marion National Forest, (3) State lands like Bladen Lakes State Forest, Singletary Lake and Jones Lake State Parks, Sand Hills State Game Lands, and Umstead State Park in North Carolina, and the Sand Hills State Forest and Manchester State Forest in South Carolina. Farm Security Administration projects in Tennessee produced Natchez Trace State Park, Chickasaw State Park, Standing Stone State Park, and Cedars of Lebanon State Park. In Virginia, FSA programs created the Buckingham-Appomattox State Forest and Holliday Lake State Park, among others. All told, the FSA acquired approximately 50,000 acres in the piedmont of southern Virginia that became State lands.79 Civilian Conservation Corps work began first in Virginia, part of the federal government’s Eastern Region. The first CCC camp in the country opened on George Washington National Forest on April 17, 1933, and operated until May 25, 1942. Camp Roosevelt, F-1, averaged 200 enrollees per work period, most of whom were from Virginia and the Washington D.C. area. Like enrollees at many other camps, the 43
men of Camp F-1 worked on a wide variety of jobs. Projects included road building and maintenance, fish and wildlife management, forest culture and improvement, telephone line construction, fire hazard reduction and fire fighting, boundary survey and renewals, and recreational improvements. In Virginia, the greatest effort was applied to transportation improvements. Other important activities, in descending order by amount of time spent on them, were forest culture, construction of recreation facilities, and other structural improvements to the National Forest. CCC workers also battled forest diseases and insects under the technical direction of the USDA Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine. They examined white pine stands for blister rust, then cut and burned infected trees. They also inspected forests for gypsy moth infestations, although none were found as far south as Virginia at that time. 80 The need for research data and information to facilitate the CCC’s work against forest diseases and insects led the USDA Forest Service to provide new funds for forest pathology research in the South. George H. Hepting was appointed in May, 1933 as an advisor to the CCC camps on state and national forests in the Southern Appalachian Region and to conduct research on problems arising from CCC projects. Hepting spent the rest of his professional career in this region as a researcher and an APSAF member, retiring in 1971. In September CCC and ECW funds allowed F.G. Liming to join Hepting, and the Asheville laboratory was reactivated with a research staff of two. M.L. Lohman joined the staff around the same time to work on pine twig canker in cooperation with J.D. Diller of the Washington D.C. office. When Liming left for a position at Ohio State University in 1934, his assistant Elmer R. Roth replaced him and continued work on hardwood cankers. Together, Hepting and Roth inspected timber stand improvements at over 100 CCC camps in the Southern Appalachians. The field data they gathered, combined with the results of several research projects, was integrated in CCC Bulletin 2, Eastern Forest Tree Diseases in Relation to Stand Improvement. By 1940, forest pathology research in the Southeast included investigations of littleleaf disease of shortleaf and loblolly pines, mimosa wilt, persimmon wilt, hemlock twig rust, fire injury, and nursery problems in addition to chestnut blight, hardwood cankers, decay in hardwoods, and pine twig canker. The year 1940 also marked the launch of satellite centers to place researchers in the vicinity of their research subjects. 81
Wildlife and the New Deal In the Jefferson National Forest, the CCC contributed to another important development outside of timber production. The federal government and the Virginia Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries began a cooperative project for wildlife protection. APSAF member Allan R. Cochran, Forest Supervisor for the Jefferson National Forest, and Justus H. Cline, later Director of the American Wildlife Federation, were prominent promoters of the plan for cooperative wildlife management. The program hired local men who were “thoroughly familiar with the mountains and forests of (the) locality and interested in wildlife,” and “who had the respect and confidence of... neighbors.” This project was an early example of adding special stamps to state-issued licenses for hunting and fishing on National Forests. In 1938, the Virginia General Assembly designated revenue from the stamps for support of wildlife operations in the National Forests. This system of funding was borrowed from the Federal Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act of 1934 that funded the management of Federal refuges. Other funding for the Virginia cooperative wildlife program, and for wildlife programs in other states, was generated by the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937. Wildlife research at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, VA, provided guidance to the program as did the Virginia Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service joined the cooperative effort after the Pittman-Robertson Act provided direct federal financing for habitat improvement projects. Other wildlife management efforts were initiated around the same time in the Carolinas and Tennessee. In 1927 North Carolina law was amended to stipulate that hunting and fishing license fees be used for wildlife conservation. In 1933, North Carolina designated 170,400 acres of National Forest land in its western region as game refuges. In contrast to Virginia’s cooperative agreement, North Carolina supervised game protection and hunting entirely, while the USDA Forest Service managed the forests (with the exception of the Pisgah National Game Preserve and a trout-rearing station on the Davidson River). Under the Pittman-Robertson Act, North Carolina began wildlife research and development 44
programs and acquired land refuges. Additional lands for wildlife were developed from state-owned lands, from the Resettlement Administration, and from donated or leased private lands. In South Carolina, wildlife management areas were established in the Francis Marion National Forest and the Sumter National Forest, where quail management areas provided birds for release in other locations. In both Virginia and the Carolinas, separate agencies handled wildlife management; it was not a responsibility of the state forestry divisions. On Bladen Lakes State Forest, for example, the North Carolina Game and Inland Fisheries Division, later the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, received jurisdiction over wildlife. Cooperation between the agencies enhanced management efforts and facilitated research. Conversely, the Tennessee Division of Forestry oversaw wildlife management in state forests, including wildlife restoration work by the CCC. Tennessee also had the benefit of the USDA Forest Service managed Tellico-Citico Game Management Area of 90,000 acres and the Federal Cherokee Game Refuge No.1 of 11,000 acres, both in the Cherokee National Forest. Furthermore, Cherokee Game Refuge No. 1 was surrounded by 40,000 acres of state-managed game land. Throughout the APSAF region, the CCC helped by clearing brush and keeping old fields mown to enhance feeding habitats and to attract wildlife. Leftover brush was piled into shelters for game birds and wild turkeys were brought in and released. In addition, CCC enrollees trapped deer in both the Jefferson and George Washington National Forests and released them into depopulated areas. Clearings were seeded with food crops for wildlife and workers constructed feeding stations to encourage released animals to stay in their new territories. The CCC provided labor for deer raising and redistribution efforts in Pisgah, Nantahala, Sumter, and Cherokee National Forests. Other wildlife-related CCC projects included turkey and quail management, stream improvements to supplement trout stocking efforts and the improvement or restoration of habitat for migratory waterfowl on the North Carolina coast. The coastal work was conducted under the direction of the Bureau of Biological Survey and included the development of Pea Island as a refuge. 82 Some wildlife development projects created new problems while trying to solve old ones. Fish restocking efforts that released rainbow trout into brown trout habitat further threatened brown trout populations. Likewise, European wild boar (Sus scrofa), introduced in 1912 by a hunting club at Hooper Bald, North Carolina, have affected forests in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. Concerns raised by the boars’ spread include predation of smaller native animals, competition with native animals for food, and rooting damage to soils and vegetation. Game managers were unaware of potential problems with wild boars during the thirties. Because the boars were popular game for hunters, they were bred for “restocking” at the Tellico-Citico Game Management Area on Cherokee National Forest, then released at Tellico, and in 1962, at the Catoosa Wildlife Management Area on the Cumberland Plateau. During the 1940s, wild boar entered the Great Smoky Mountains National Park from the west. Without predators or regular hunting seasons to control their increase, the boar population expanded rapidly. Wild boar occupied the western two-thirds of the park by the early 1970s. Outside the mountains, feral hogs and razorbacks have caused damage to crops and forests, particularly in the southern pine belt where “piney woods rooters” could root up and consume as many as 80 longleaf pine seedlings in an hour. In hardwood forests of the mountains, piedmont, and coastal plain, wild and feral hogs ate mast such as acorns, hickory nuts, and beechnuts, reducing the food available for deer, bear, and wild turkey. However, feral hogs were not equally destructive in all settings; research on barrier islands have shown little difference between islands with hog populations compared to islands without the animals. Evidently, the barrier islands’ harsh environment with frequent disturbances from storms, shifting sands, drought, and fire favored vegetation adapted to disturbance. The added disturbance caused by hogs had little additional effect. 83
The CCC’s Multiple Uses National Forests received more attention in Virginia as compared to other areas in the region because of their proximity to large population centers such as Washington D.C. However, CCC camps were even more prominent and numerous in the Carolinas and Tennessee. Some 74 camps opened on Southern Region National Forests during the summer of 1933. Over fifty percent of these camps were located in the mountains of Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The same year, 11 camps were approved for work on state and private lands in North Carolina, 16 in South Carolina, and 10 in Tennessee. The first was 45
established on May 29, 1933 at Lake Waccamaw in Columbus County, N.C. to augment the Waccamaw Private Forest Protective Association. The total number of CCC camps of all types in North Carolina between April and September 1933 was 31. Tennessee also had 31 and South Carolina had a total of 18. The largest number of camps in North Carolina was 81, between April 1 and September 30, 1935. Tennessee’s highest count was 77 and South Carolina’s was 51, also during 1935. In addition to National Forests, state lands, and private lands, CCC camps worked with the Soil Conservation Service, the Biological Survey, National Parks, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the U.S. Army. 84 Recreational development, a non-timber project like wildlife management, increased steadily in importance over the life of the CCC. CCC work was responsible for providing roads and recreational facilities for large numbers of people, and also for protecting the forests from the effects of recreational use. Creating small lakes for fishing and swimming was a particularly popular result of CCC work on both national and state lands. Under the direction of the National Park Service, the CCC constructed lakes at Umstead, and Hanging Rock State Parks in North Carolina, at Aiken, Cheraw, Kings Mountain, Oconee, and Table Rock State Parks in South Carolina, and at Montgomery Bell and Pickett State Forest, in Tennessee. Swimming pools were built at Morrow Mountain State Park, near Albemarle, North Carolina and in Pisgah National Forest. Bathhouses at lakes, campsites, picnic grounds, roadside parks, hiking trails and shelters were all a part of the CCC building boom. Moreover, CCC men built much of the Appalachian Trail, helped to build the Blue Ridge Parkway, and developed facilities on Shenandoah National Park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, National Forests, TVA parks, and various state parks throughout the region.85 The CCC was also prominent in cooperative fire control work on private lands. Fire protection efforts on both public and private lands consisted of the construction of fire towers, clearing fire breaks, and fire suppression. In Tennessee, CCC crews built 64 lookout towers, 297 miles of fire trails, and 2,500 miles of telephone lines with 604 telephones on state and private lands. In North Carolina, 52 towers were constructed, connected by telephone lines and served by fire trails, and similar work was conducted in South Carolina. Additionally, CCC Regional Forester J.G. Kircher initiated a program in South Carolina to combine subsistence farming with firefighting. The purpose was to provide a higher standard of living for fire lookout personnel in order to retain reliable people as lookouts. Qualified farmers received small farms adjacent to lookout towers and a small salary. The CCC built houses, outbuildings, fences, and lookout towers, prepared fields for farming, and improved available water sources. This system also allowed farmers’ wives and other family members to serve as lookouts while adult men in the family worked as firefighters. By the 1960s, women did most of the lookout work, and adult children frequently succeeded their parents as fire tower operators. The CCC provided a similar service in Virginia. Cooperative projects in Virginia included telephone lines, lookout towers, roads, bridges, firebreaks, houses, and various other buildings related to fire control work. After the CCC was dissolved in 1942, foresters increasingly turned to mechanization to maintain the levels of fire suppression made possible by CCC labor. Tractors with plows, disks, and cultivators were used to build and maintain fire breaks, and trucks were needed to transport the tractors and equipment. The USDA Forest Service began to use radios for isolated locations in the Pacific Northwest during the early 1930s, and they were widely used in the South by the late 1940s. Steve Boyce recalls meeting Clarence F. Korstian for the first time during the 1930s at a science fair for high school students in North Carolina. Boyce had learned how to construct and use radios from his father, who was involved in early telegraphic communications in the Navy. Korstian showed intense interest in Boyce’s project, a telegraph outfit made from tin can cut up with tin snips. A telegraphic communications device that could be constructed easily and inexpensively from materials at hand most certainly would have interested foresters at that time. In addition, foresters continued to use older anti-fire strategies throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Public relations, community education, and hiring locals to work as wardens all helped to reduce the incidence of fire. In Pisgah National Forest, suspected woods-burners were commonly employed as lookouts and wardens to win them over to the cause of fire prevention. Firefighting crews, however, were provided by the CCC or were hired outside the area, to reduce the temptation of starting fires to create firefighting jobs. Over the lifetime of the CCC, allowable applications of CCC labor on 46
private lands expanded. Reuben B. Robertson of Champion Paper and Fiber Company in Canton, N.C., recalled using WPA and CCC workers in silvicultural work and timber stand improvement in company forests as well as for fire prevention work. Robertson agreed with Thomas W. Alexander that the WPA and CCC programs were inefficient, but he also agreed with Charles H. Flory and Richard Kilbourne that the programs were worthwhile. Robertson remarked that work performed “was in the right direction,” and that “it gave a lot of people familiarity with the long-range view of forest operations.” 86
The Soil Conservation Service APSAF foresters examined another beneficiary of CCC labor, the Soil Conservation Service, almost as thoroughly as they examined the CCC itself. At the Sixteenth annual meeting, held December 11 and 12, 1936 in Asheville, the first session began with comments by acting chairman C.L. Forsling on the “long unheeded voice of W.W. Ashe,” who had first written on the need for soil erosion control in 1880. Forsling also noted the work of Dr. Hugh Hammond Bennett in public education regarding erosion control. Next, Robert M. Ross, Senior Forester for the Soil Conservation Service for the Southeastern Region, submitted his paper “The Place of Forestry in the Soil Conservation Service Program.” Ross outlined the three major phases of the SCS: research and investigations, conservation operations, and technical services. He emphasized the need for interdisciplinary efforts to deal with erosion problems and the need for varying methods of erosion control according to region, soil type, topography, annual precipitation, land use, ownership, and vegetative cover. One prominent role for foresters, in the SCS and generally, was reforestation of badly eroded crop land. Another was advising farmers on the management of farm woodlands with an emphasis on reducing erosion. Soil Conservation Service efforts to fulfill these roles entailed (1) hiring more foresters who could expand on foresters’ previous efforts to encourage conservation of farm woodlands, (2) establishing woodland-improvement demonstration areas, (3) treeplanting programs in cooperation with State Foresters, (4) fire protection for farm woodlands in cooperation with existing forestry agencies, and (5) land management plans designating certain areas as permanent woodland. According to A Guide to Forestry Activities in North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee (1939), the SCS attacked soil erosion through agronomy, engineering, and research. The SCS also ran tree nurseries and promoted revegetation that encouraged wildlife. Voluntary Soil Conservation Associations organized by state extension services provided public education services and technical assistance to farmers. Soil conservation districts were organized to allow public-private cooperation and the adoption of local land-use regulations. By 1938, there were eight demonstration areas in North Carolina involving 5,116 farms covering 584,877 acres. In addition, farmers had organized five Soil Conservation Districts covering 706,500 acres. At the CCC’s height in the mid-thirties, there were 28 camps in the North Carolina Piedmont working on SCS projects in nearly every part of the region. Three SCS nurseries, at Statesville, Polkton, and Chapel Hill, were supplemented by state and private nurseries to provide 14,868,374 trees planted on over 12,000 acres between 1934 and 1938. E.B. Garrett of North Carolina State College served as State Coordinator in North Carolina, while Charles H. Flory was Extension Soil Conservation Specialist and Ralph B. Heberling was Associate Forester (first stationed in High Point and after 1938 in Spartanburg, S.C. as Soil Conservationist). On the local level, there were seven Project Foresters, six Camp Foresters, three District Foresters, and ten Forestry Aides. In South Carolina, the first SCS demonstration project started in Spartanburg and Greenville Counties in November 1933. By the summer of 1937, six projects had been established, as well as ten Soil Conservation Associations, and four Conservation Districts. As many as 15 CCC camps assisted the SCS work, planting nearly 39 million trees on 23,208 acres in South Carolina between 1933 and 1938. Most of the trees planted came from the SCS nursery at Rock Hill, which also supplemented tree seedling supplies in other states. A complete list of SCS forestry personnel for South Carolina during this period is not available, but the State Coordinator was Ernest Carnes and the Associate Forester was R.W. Adams, both stationed in Spartanburg. There were also five foresters in charge of Districts: J.S. Cole of the Edisto Soil Conservation District and N.E. Sands in Aiken, H.A. Compton in Anderson, William E. Cooper in Newberry, and Clifton W. Hall in Rock Hill. 47
In Tennessee, SCS activities were restricted to the western part of the state, and were therefore outside of the APSAF territory. Reforestation and erosion control activities in eastern Tennessee and parts of western North Carolina were supervised by the USDA Forest Service and the TVA. In addition, a beach erosion control project using Emergency Relief Administration and CCC labor began in North Carolina during 1934. Initially, the N.C. Division of Forestry supervised the work, which continued after April, 1936 under the U.S. Biological Survey and the National Park Service. Workers constructed fences from Hatteras to the Virginia State Line, then planted native grasses, shrubs, and trees in efforts to control shifting sand dunes. National Park Service maintenance of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse also commenced as a part of this project. Virginia, outside of the APSAF at the time, had programs comparable to those in the Carolinas. TVA Forestry Relations Department activities in Virginia involved 2,001,800 acres of land. Before the end of the CCC program in 1942, 228 TVA-CCC camp-months were spent on 1,453 erosion control and reforestation projects in Virginia whereby over 8 million tree seedlings were planted. For example, a cooperative farm forestry project of the SCS and the Virginia State Forest Service in Albemarle, Virginia involved 49 farms covering 21,000 acres by 1942. The farmers working these lands signed agreements to have forestry work conducted on their woodlands, totaling 11,000 acres. The project included forest planting, thinnings and other improvement cuttings, and advice to farmers on forestry and marketing forest products. According to figures cited by C.F. Korstian in Forestry on Private Lands in the United States (1944), the SCS in Virginia had implemented 1376 farm forestry plans covering 287,894 acres of farmland that contained 24,788 acres of woodland. 87 In the discussion that followed Ross’ paper on the SCS, APSAF members’ voiced concerns regarding SCS activities, but were generally supportive of the agency. Herbert A. Smith a and Robert W. Graeber commented on the work of county agricultural extension agents combating soil erosion and helping the SCS foster local interest and cooperation. N.C. State Forester J.S. Holmes then pointed out that many agencies were planting trees in North Carolina without coordination with the State’s forestry activities. He reasoned that state governments should be the coordinators of long-term reforestation efforts within their boundaries. Holmes’ statement was adopted as an APSAF resolution that “any forestry activities on private lands be cleared through the State Forester.” Forsling remarked that given the rapid expansion of conservation programs at the time, it was not surprising that coordination was a problem. He felt that a period of readjustment was inevitable. Graeber mentioned that cooperation between the Agricultural Extension Service and the State Forester had been excellent in North Carolina. In addition, the Department of Agriculture and Land Grant Colleges both had coordinating committees where state foresters either were or should have been represented. William N. Darwin, Associate Forester in the TVA Watershed Protection Division, observed that there was a large gap between what was known about timber planting and what needed to be known. In addition to information on planting, more research was needed to explain why some plantations failed. E.G. Wiesehuegel, Chief of the TVA’s Forest Resources Planning Division, seconded this assessment and noted that the lack of needed information led the SCS to initiate studies that might duplicate work by the USDA Forest Service Forest Experiment Stations. C.H. Flory and C.L. Forsling both commented on the inevitable overlap of disciplines in agricultural programs, while agreeing on the need for coordination and cooperation. 88 The need to coordinate multifaceted programs continued to concern foresters in the region. Walter C. Lowdermilk, the Chief of Research for the SCS in Washington, DC, and Clarence F. Korstian corresponded on the matter in 1938. Lowdermilk discussed the “great opportunity and need” for the SAF to participate in developing national policy regarding land use. He continued: We find ourselves in the midst of a great urge to make adjustments of land use to fit a number of objectives, without sufficient study and understanding of the problems involved and their interrelations. We are seeking to adjust the use of land in the interests of soil conservation, of farmer parity income, in the interests of farm tenancy, in the interests of flood control as well as in the interests problem to expose the foundations on which the adjustments of a population to its land and its resources may be builded (sic). This search should go deeper than the immediate claims of profits, of landownership, or of sectional interests. The search must get down to bedrock on which we may build, designing the social mechanisms to account for various interests concerned of “general welfare.” Confusion characterizes the situation.
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Korstian agreed that the SAF should contribute to the formulation of national policies concerning land use. He had been considering the problem, particularly with reference to North Carolina, and planned to introduce the topic at meeting he was to attend in Raleigh, NC. He proposed that “all of the interested agencies in the State should get together and try to bring order out of the confusion” that existed, particularly in communities affected by the growth of the pulp and paper industry. Concern among APSAF members that New Deal forestry be conducted efficiently and effectively was reflected further in the publications that members generated, just as members’ involvement in other issues had been. The SCS and ECW staffs prepared a forestry manual specifically for the North Carolina projects and a handbook on soil erosion control and land use programs in Forsyth, Guilford, and Randolph Counties. The Appalachian Forest Experiment Staff produced two bulletins in the mid-1930s on timber stand improvement measures, both intended to provide practical guidance for workers in New Deal programs. Appalachian Forest Experiment Station Technical Notes were also often aimed at practical problems raised by New Deal reforestation and silvicultural operations. Division Chief for Silvics Leonard I. Barrett authored notes on hardwood growth in the Southern Appalachians, site indices for white pine and yellow poplar, National Forest timber survey data, volume tables for Southern Appalachian tree species, and a note on the growth of pruned white pine, as well as a Journal of Forestry article on the growth of northern white pine in the Southern Appalachians. Assistant Silviculturalist Arland L. MacKinney wrote on the cleaning and storage of loblolly pine seed and site index curves for secondgrowth loblolly pine. MacKinney and L.E. Chaiken co-authored notes on loblolly pine concerning forest stand density, volume tables for second growth, heartwood in second growth, and pulpwood. In addition, MacKinney published numerous journal articles on management of loblolly stands, both alone and with co-authors such as Chaiken, Korstian, Francis Xavier Schumacher, and W.E. McQuilkin. 89 Other technical forestry publications addressed the various New Deal programs’ need for information on forest fires, mensuration, and watersheds. George M. Jemison, C.A. Abell, and R.M. Beeman all wrote on problems pertaining to fire lookouts. Jemison also wrote on factors affecting forest fire danger and forest fire behavior. In addition to coauthoring the note on pruning white pine with L.I. Barrett, Jesse H. Buell published on methods for simplified crown mapping with an Abney level and mirror, and for estimating future growth on partially cut stands (coauthored with Margaret S. Abell). In addition, Margaret S. Abell contributed a journal article on determining diameter for trees under 1.6 inches in diameter. At Coweeta, research under the direction of Charles R. Hursch produced publications on the effect of forests on local climates and on specifics of the relationship between forestry and watersheds in the eastern United States. In the 1930s and 1940s, Hursch himself focused on road-bank stabilization, slope stabilization, erosion, and the water capacity of soils. He produced a number of technical notes during this period on road stabilization and co-authored a technical note with W.M. Crafton in 1935 on plant indicators of soil conditions on abandoned fields with advice on selecting tree species and planting methods for various conditions. Other publications by scientists at Coweeta described technical details of hydrological research including the development of weirs allowing the precise calculation of water flow. In 1934, CCC and Public Works Administration workers began a major construction program of weirs, ground-water wells, meteorological stations, and a network of rain gauges. This construction allowed researchers to calibrate water flow from undisturbed watersheds. One useful result of calibration work, published during the late 1930s by E.F. Brater, was a practical method for predicting flood flow from small watersheds. After baseline information was established for watersheds in the Coweeta Experimental Forest, investigations of differing types of land use began. In 1941 and 1942, H.H. Biswell and Marvin D. Hoover began research on problems caused by cattle grazing in a 145-acre Appalachian watershed under hardwood forest (Biswell did similar research in North Carolina’s coastal plain around the same time). In 1952, Edward A. Johnson contributed an article to the Journal of Forestry presenting the results of the Coweeta forest grazing research after the study had continued for eleven years. Earl R. Sluder published on this woodland grazing study again in a 1958 Research Note, “Mountain Farm Woodland Grazing Doesn’t Pay.” Other studies documented the consequences of mountain farm crop production and of unrestricted logging. 49
Research published by M.D. Hoover in 1944 and by E.G. Dunford and Peter W. Fletcher in 1947 reported the changes in stream flow caused by removing vegetation from the banks of streams. M.D. Hoover and Joseph K. Lieberman researched relationships between water, soil, topography, and land use at Coweeta from the 1940s into the 1950s. E.A. Johnson, joined by erosion-control expert H.G. Meginnis, and Thomas C. Nelson during the 1950s, continued his work at Coweeta into the 1960s. The Coweeta Experimental Forest took on a role in the advanced education of foresters soon after World War II, helping to connect the forestry of the New Deal to the forestry of the post-war period. Robert E. Dils and Jacob L. Kovner both wrote PhD dissertations on Coweeta research projects during the fifties. Dils studied on the impact of forest removal and mountain farming on vegetation, soil, and runoff. He submitted his dissertation to Michigan State University in 1952 and published his work as a station paper in 1953. Kovner related changes in streamflow, vegetation, and transpiration to forest cutting followed by natural regeneration for his 1955 degree from the State University of New York, College of Forestry. Kovner presented his work to the 1956 SAF national meeting in Memphis, Tennessee. Also in 1955, Kenneth A. Pitcher wrote his Master of Forestry thesis at North Carolina State University on a related topic, the influence of cove vegetation on stream flow and soils. Fish-stocking programs begun during the New Deal also influenced research at Coweeta. In 1950, G.E. Greene contributed an early report on stream organisms after examining the effect of stream-bank clearing on water temperatures and trout populations. L.B. Tebo, Jr. carried on investigation of trout streams at Coweeta, which he reported in articles published between 1955 and 1961. Foresters outside the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station also contributed to the growing body of research on forestry. Bernard Frank of the TVA had four articles on TVA forestry in the Journal of Forestry between 1934 and 1936, joined by four articles that his boss, E.C.M. Richards, published between 1934 and 1938. Likewise, APSAF members employed in state forestry departments continued to contribute to the expanding literature. S.C. Assistant State Forester Navarre T. Barron prepared Forest Planting in South Carolina and D.Y. Lenhart prepared The South Carolina Civilian Conservation Corps Forester, both for the S.C. State Commission of Forestry. Tennessee State Forester R.S. Maddox promoted reforestation in publications as did his successor J.O. Hazard. Likewise, APSAF meetings continued to consider practical silvicultural and management issues. Besides the discussion prompted by Robert M. Ross’ paper on the SCS at the December, 1936 meeting, David E. Hervey of Pisgah National Forest contributed a study of a timber stand in the Southern Appalachians and the study’s application to silviculture and management. In addition, L.I. Barrett presented a report of the Appalachian Committee on Timber Stand Improvement, “Current Stand Improvement Practices and Policies in the Southern Appalachian Region,” at the May 1936 APSAF meeting. The report was published in the Journal of Forestry the same year. Moreover, the 112 members who attended the May 1936 meeting in Durham, N.C. voted their approval of establishing a central forest seed laboratory. In December 1936, 110 members resolved that the parent Society should promote expansion of forest research, and a resolution passed at the seventeenth annual meeting in Spartanburg, S.C. on January 13 and 14, 1938 recommending that federal forest survey work be continued with increased funding. 90 The CCC played an important role in helping to solve some of the problems that arose during the large-scale reforestation efforts in the 1930s. National Forest CCC camps gathered pine cones and hardwood seeds to supply both federal and state tree nurseries. In the APSAF region, shortleaf pine, Virginia pine, pitch pine, black locust, and yellow poplar were among the most commonly used species. CCC enrollees also worked in forest tree nurseries operated by federal and state agencies. In North Carolina, the State Nursery at Clayton distributed 31,000 seedlings during the 1926-1927 season, and the number of seedlings produced per year before 1934 was always less than 500,000. In 1936, however, the Clayton Nursery produced over 3 million seedlings with the help of a CCC camp assigned to the nursery. The Clayton CCC camp enabled expansion of the nursery from 10 acres to 114 acres with 30 acres available for growing seedlings. As a result, the Clayton Nursery had a capacity of 10 million plants by 1949. In 1938, the N.C. Department of Conservation and Development established a new nursery near Brevard in western North Carolina. Ninety-eight seedbeds measuring four feet by one hundred feet were planted in the first year using CCC labor. This nursery concentrated on production of white pine and 50
smaller numbers of yellow poplar, black locust, red spruce, hemlock, and southern balsam seedlings. In the 1940s, the Crab Creek Nursery near Penrose was developed, adding a capacity of 500,000 seedlings. 91
Similar developments occurred in South Carolina; the State Nursery at Camden increased distribution of seedlings from 431,365 during the 1933-1934 season to 1,548,561 in 1935-1936. The State Nursery at Georgetown began distribution in 1934-1935 with over 5 million seedlings and production rose to approximately 17 million the next year. A third South Carolina state nursery was established at Sumter in 1937 and produced approximately 7,600,000 seedlings for the 1937-1938 season. In the 1940s, the Horace L. Tilghman State Forest Nursery near Wedgefield, S.C. had a capacity of 25 million seedlings. The State of Tennessee operated nurseries at Jackson in Madison State Forest, in Bledsoe State Forest near Pikeville, and in Chickasaw State Forest (at that time a Resettlement Administration Project) in western Tennessee. In 1928, the Jackson Nursery produced almost 145,000 black locust seedlings; by 1939 1,000,000 seedlings were produced per year. Bledsoe Nursery, established in 1937 with CCC labor, produced an average of 2 million seedlings per year. Located within TVA territory, Jackson and Bledsoe State Nurseries’ distribution of seedlings to private landowners supplemented the TVA-CCC farm woodland demonstration areas, where 12,000,000 trees were planted in the 1930s. Chickasaw, also established in 1937, likewise averaged 2 million seedlings per year. As in Tennessee and the Carolinas, the SCS operated a tree nursery in Virginia, the Sandy Level Nursery at Gretna. By the late 1940s, the Virginia State Forest Tree Nursery at Charlottesville had a capacity of 2.5 million, while the Peary Nursery in York County had a capacity of 1,250,000. In addition to the TVA, SCS, and State nurseries, the USDA Forest Service had been operating a nursery near Parsons, West Virginia, for decades. However, prior to the New Deal, planting efforts had been much smaller; planting began on Monongahela National Forest in 1929 with a goal of 1000 acres per year, while efforts by the North Carolina Department of Forestry and Development to reforest Mount Mitchell planted 6,850 seedlings on about 1000 acres during the 1920s as a whole.92 The effect of the New Deal on reforestation efforts was unquestionable. Accordingly, APSAF members continued their specific interest in TVA and SCS programs as well as their general interest in
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improving silvicultural practices. The Section held a field meeting at Norris, Tennessee on May 21 and 22, 1937 with 126 members and guests attending. TVA officers made short statements regarding forestry in the TVA and its achievements. Afterwards, the meeting attendees toured TVA operations at the Clinton Nursery, a fish hatchery, Norris Forest, Norris Dam and power plant, soil erosion control projects, and projects for selective logging, chestnut salvage, and recreation. A letter from Henry Clepper to the TVA Board of Directors mentioned the field trip, and the good impression APSAF members had of TVA forestry and wildlife management. The seventeenth annual meeting in Spartanburg, S.C., January 13 and 14, 1938, focused largely on the Soil Conservation Service. SCS Regional Conservator for the Southeastern Region T.S. Buie spoke on “A Soil Conservationist Looks at Forestry.” A. Carnes of the SCS Engineering Section explained engineering phases of SCS programs. B.J. Huckenpahler, Superintendent of the SCS-CCC camp in Salisbury, N.C. described forestry in the SCS, while Charles R. Hursch, Chief of Watershed Management Research at the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station, related the costs of planned watershed management. The 1938 APSAF field meeting, held May 20 and 21 at Sumter, S.C., indicated continuing interest in other New Deal programs and private forestry practices. Some 40 foresters toured longleaf and white pine plantations on the White Estate’s Burrough Plantation, along with the 30,000 acre Farm Security Administration Poinsett Project in the Sand Hills southwest of Sumter. The Poinsett Project included a work center with a ranger’s house, a repair shop, an equipment depot, and a garage, 6 fish rearing ponds, and game farms raising quail and wild turkey. A warden’s residence and subsistence farm included a house, garage, fenced farm acreage, and outbuildings. Some 570 acres were planted in game food and cover crops. Plans called for the construction of 5 lakes covering a total of 935 acres for fish, waterfowl, and recreational use. Forestry activities included construction of 24 miles of telephone lines, 95 miles of fire breaks, and 50 miles of truck trails, plus improvements to 20 miles of highways. Over 5 million trees had been planted, mostly longleaf pine, slash pine, and black walnut, and approximately 10,000 acres of forest had been treated with timber stand improvement measures. Unspecified “fire hazard reduction work,” possibly brush clearing or controlled burning, had been completed on 300 acres and 80 miles of roadsides. Timber harvests totaled 255,000 board feet of lumber, 200 poles, and 70,000 shingles. After leaving the Poinsett Project, the field trip continued to the Williams Furniture Corporation, the South Carolina Forest Nursery, and finally to the CCC regional repair shop and oil refining plant. By the late 1930s, the APSAF was undeniably in the thick of the New Deal and multiple use forestry. 93
Society Developments: The APSAF within the SAF Just as the APSAF waded into the mix of New Deal forestry, it also continued to move forward as a section and as a participant in the affairs of the parent Society. Between 1929 and World War II, APSAF members participated in national meetings, served on SAF committees, and sat on the SAF Executive Council. J.S. Holmes was a SAF Council Member from 1929 to 1930, the chairman of the SAF Committee for Nominations in 1929 and 1930, and served on the Committee on Forest Policy while a council member. In 1939, Holmes became the first APSAF member to be named a SAF Fellow. As such, he represented the SAF at Duke University’s Centennial Celebration, coinciding with the SAF accreditation of Duke’s School of Forestry. Verne Rhoades sat on the SAF Council and on the Committee on Sections from 1935 until 1937. Other APSAF members who served on national committees included Walter J. Damtoft and E.F. McCarthy on the Committee on Industrial Forestry and Reuben B. Robertson, Sr. on the Committee on Forest Education. Within the APSAF, Clarence Korstian was secretary from 1921 to 1925 and chairman in 1928 and 1935. At the national level, he sat on the SAF Committee on Sections from 1929 to 1934. He also served on the SAF Executive Council from 1931 to 1934, and as Council Member in Charge of Admissions from 1932 to 1934. Korstian’s combined talents as an administrator, researcher, educator, and forester soon led to further recognition and responsibility— leadership of the parent Society. Clarence Korstian was elected President of the SAF for two terms, 1938-1939 and 1940-1941. 94 Korstian had the good fortune to begin his presidency just after Henry Clepper’s appointment as Executive Secretary for the parent Society; Korstian and Clepper proved an effective team in mediating the contentious issues that faced them. One major source of conflict was the Roosevelt administration’s plans 52
for reorganizing federal agencies. These plans included the transfer of the Forest Service from the USDA to the Department of the Interior, a move favored by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. Gifford Pinchot, Henry S. Graves, William B. Greeley, and H.H. Chapman united in opposition to the proposal, supported by the SAF Executive Council, the American Forestry Association, the Izaak Walton League, and many forest industry associations. APSAF members also weighed in against the transfer at their 1936 meeting with a resolution urging that government agencies “dealing with production of plant crops,” soil, and water conservation be retained in the Department of Agriculture. However, H.H. Chapman’s feud with Ickes over the matter became so bitter that some foresters decided a transfer of the Forest Service was preferable to continued conflict. Emanuel Fritz, although against relocating the Forest Service, protested that the SAF’s increasing focus on personal attacks and agendas distracted attention from promoting forestry. Alfred Ackerman, director of the University of Virginia’s Seward Forest, wrote to both Chapman and Korstian against the use of the SAF as a pressure group in politics. He argued that the SAF should be neutral concerning the placement of the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture or Interior and advocated a scientific rather than a political role for the SAF. SAF members in the Department of the Interior were particularly distressed by Chapman’s description of their department as corrupt and inept. Eighty-six foresters threatened to resign from the SAF if such attacks continued. When Clarence Korstian became president, he and Henry Clepper worked to smooth over the situation and averted a rupture in the Society. By 1940, APSAF chairman N.D. Canterbury reported to Korstian that the Section had sent only mild telegrams opposing a transfer because some APSAF members were in favor of it and others had no strong feelings. 95 A similar controversy, concerning the proper role of the Journal of Forestry, simmered during the 1920s, then boiled over in the mid-thirties. In one incident, Bob Marshall, Wilderness Society founder and Washington, DC Section member, criticized the Journal and Editor Emmanuel Fritz as standing “brazenly for forest depletion.” H.H. Chapman retaliated that Marshall was “in favor of a totalitarian program of socialized forestry.” Once again, the majority of foresters took a more moderate view. When the issue reemerged in 1934, Franklin W. Reed was editor of the Journal of Forestry. APSAF members’ statements supported the right of Journal critics to have their objections published and discussed. However, most did not agree with a 1935 petition demanding the removal of Reed as editor. Reed’s critics charged that he had inadequately covered the issue of federal regulation of private forests and other social issues related to forestry. At the same time, a second dissatisfied group of foresters protested the Journal’s editorial policy because it dealt with social issues too much. This contingent called for an end to editorials and for limiting journal content to scientific and technical discussions. Needless to say, Franklin Reed chose to resign rather than to remain in the middle of this battlefield. APSAF members sent several supportive letters to Reed during the summer of 1934. They acknowledged the sincerity of the protests but disagreed with the antagonism towards Reed. Ivan H. Sims pointed out that financial constraints made hiring an editor in addition to the Executive Secretary difficult. Sims also disagreed with suggestions that the editor of the Journal of Forestry be independent of the SAF Executive Council. In Sim’s view, the Executive Council was elected to direct and govern the policies of the SAF and its publications. Walter Damtoft felt that the petition should be published for discussion, but also that it consisted mainly of unsubstantiated allegations. G.H. Lentz of the TVA, and vice-chairman of the APSAF for the second half of 1935, told Reed that he had done a good job as editor. Lentz opposed the proposal by socially-minded foresters that they establish an independent journal. Lentz did feel, however, that the jobs of editor and Executive Secretary were excessive for one individual, concluding “if [the petitioners] with the agreement of the Council could select a man of the caliber of Professor Fritz and Dr. Dana or Dr. Zon, and could have that man accept the editorship without involving a heavy drain on the Society’s funds,” he would favor it. The SAF Executive Council responded to the conflict by rejecting the idea that the Journal of Forestry should exclude social issues and editorials. The Council also rejected the concept of the Journal as a messenger for the USDA Forest Service. When appointing an editor to replace Franklin Reed, the Council directed him to “serve the best interests of the Society,” and to establish editorial standards independent of USDA Forest Service policies. A few years later, the APSAF demonstrated its continued appreciation of the Journal of Forestry when members voted to update its 53
index. The index, initially compiled by APSAF members for SAF periodicals from 1900 until 1929, would continue to be a Section project until 1960.96 As SAF president, Korstian’s first letter to members stressed broad support of the profession rather than specific positions on issues. Korstian’s objectives were “(1) The encouragement of individual achievement in the forestry profession, (2) The formulation and upholding of professional standards, and (3) Vigorous support to foresters who through no fault of their own, have suffered or are threatened with loss of position or occupation.” Korstian pledged that the Executive Secretary’s office was “endeavoring to put prospective employers in touch with [unemployed] members of the Society.” 97 A USDA Forest Service forester in Jackson, MS, Lowell F. Baker, wrote he had “waited a long time to hear something of this. It is only right that a professional society should help its own members.” Walter C. Lowdermilk, SCS Chief of the Division of Research, congratulated Korstian on his election and on his “long and distinguished service to the practice of forestry in the United States.” Lowdermilk pledged support for Korstian’s objectives, as well as voicing concern over the lack of coordination between the many goals of land use improvement and forestry in the United States during the 1930s. 98 Korstian’s emphasis on professional standards in forestry continued several priorities of H.H. Chapman’s presidency. During Chapman’s administration, 1934 to 1937, the SAF examined membership qualifications and grades, the most equitable system of representation of SAF members at the national level, and appropriate standards for SAF accreditation of forestry schools. In 1934, a SAF referendum adopted graduation from an approved school as the requirement for admission to the SAF; professional achievement was retained as the basis for advancement to senior membership. Another referendum in 1935 approved proportional representation by districts on the SAF Executive Council. Voting by secret ballots was another proposal designed to ensure fair representation by preventing pressure on members from employers or colleagues during elections and referenda. In 1936, the APSAF went on record supporting unsigned ballots in signed envelopes to ensure confidentiality while preventing unauthorized or multiple votes. As the chairman of the SAF Committee on Accrediting, H.H. Chapman conducted a study from 1933 to 1935 of professional forestry schools and standards. The goal was to determine the acceptable educational standards for professional foresters. Schools were rated on seven factors: departmental status, faculty and provisions for instruction, professional qualifications of the faculty, financial support, equipment, field instruction, history of the school, and professional success of the alumni. When he reported his findings in 1935, Chapman argued that forestry should attain professional status by focusing primarily on timber production. Therefore, professional forestry schools should also focus on timber production rather than on overall forest management. Foresters who adhered to the multiple-use approach disagreed vehemently and debate continued into the late 1940s. Nevertheless, accreditation of forestry schools by the SAF began in 1935. Like Chapman, Korstian chaired the SAF Committee on Accrediting, beginning in 1938. Unlike Chapman, Korstian took the broader view of forestry and forestry education and undoubtedly influenced accreditation standards accordingly. Ultimately, a broader view of forestry and forestry education prevailed. Roy B. Thompson, professor of Forest Economics at Duke University, served on the Executive Committee of the SAF Educational Division in 1940, extending APSAF’s representation in this area further.99 Two additional SAF referenda were proposed under Chapman’s administration, but were held after Korstian’s election. These referenda adopted standards for National Parks, National Forests, and Wilderness Areas, a policy for public acquisition of forest lands, a preliminary code of ethics, and a constitutional amendment clarifying the election of SAF Fellows. In the APSAF, there were also several bylaw changes and procedural adjustments that sought to keep APSAF policies and positions consistent with the views of the Section’s members. In 1937, the APSAF adopted a bylaw by letter ballot which stated: All resolutions pertaining to technical and/or policy matters shall be presented to the Executive Committee for consideration not less than two hours prior to the business meeting. The Executive Committee may delete, rephrase, withhold from presentation to the meeting for further consideration or submission to the Section as a
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whole by letter ballot, or take such other action as they may deem advisable with respect to any such resolution so presented.
F.H. Claridge explained the bylaw as an “effort to curb hasty consideration and passage of resolutions at Section meetings” which might run counter to SAF policies, bylaws, or might contradict the views of the majority. A key concern was the tendency of the press to present meeting resolutions as representing the Society as a whole. E.G. Wieselhuegel of the TVA in Norris, TN argued that the bylaw prevented members from bringing matters of importance before the organization. He and another APSAF member wrote letters of protest to H.H. Chapman that the new bylaw was in conflict with the SAF constitution. Article V, Section 2 of the constitution stated that resolutions of meetings did not represent the Society as a whole unless a majority of the membership was present at the meeting and approved the resolution. Policies were to be referred to the membership as a whole for ballot. To conform with the intent of the SAF constitution, H.H. Chapman recommended the APSAF bylaw provide for referring resolutions to the members systematically, rather than at the discretion of the Section’s Executive Committee.100 The continuing growth of the SAF required continuing efforts to coordinate policy and activities between Sections and the parent Society. Some efforts by the APSAF to harmonize its structure and procedures with the SAF’s were as simple as adjusting APSAF policy concerning unpaid dues. Likewise, the Appalachian Section created its own executive committee in 1936, comprised of the Chairman, ViceChairman, Secretary-Treasurer, and a fourth elected committee member. Other efforts involved consultation. Like the SAF as a whole, the APSAF and its members remained involved with related organizations. In 1937, APSAF chairman F.H. Claridge wrote SAF President H.H. Chapman requesting clarification regarding Section affiliation with other groups. The APSAF was invited to join the Association of Southern Agricultural Workers (ASAW). At least one member of the APSAF Executive Committee felt that joining the ASAW would be beneficial. In the invitation, ASAW secretary-treasurer Paul D. Long congratulated “the forestry groups of the various southern states” on their success in making forestry a major agricultural consideration. At their 1937 meeting, fourteen forestry papers were presented in a specific forestry session, the general session, an economics session, and a symposium on pastures. On this basis, Long felt that the APSAF was an appropriate group member for the ASAW. Chapman replied to Claridge that there was nothing to prevent the APSAF from joining and that he favored the Section doing so. Although there is no record of the APSAF Executive Committee’s decision regarding ASAW membership, Clemson’s Marlin H. Bruner (APSAF Secretary-Treasurer in 1940, Vice-Chairman in 1942, and Chairman in 1947) served as ASAW secretary-treasurer from 1942 to 1946 and was chairman of the ASAW Forestry Division in 1947. Like Marlin Bruner, APSAF members tended to be active in other organizations. Many were active in the North Carolina Forestry Association; charter members and early officers of the Association included Joseph H. Pratt, Dr. D.H. Hill, and J.S. Holmes (Secretary-Treasurer for eleven years). During the 1920s and 1930s, Walter J. Damtoft, Robert W. Graeber (Secretary for ten years), Vern Rhoades, Reuben B. Robertson Sr. and Jr., Charles H. Flory, K.C. Council, and P. Ryland Camp were active in both the APSAF and the N.C. Forestry Association. State Foresters Harry Lee Baker, Homer A. Smith, and Fred C. Pedersen were presidents of the National Association of State Foresters during the 1930s, and Charles H. Flory followed them in the position in 1948. In the Section’s first membership directory (1948), APSAF members listed affiliations with many similar organizations, particularly the newly-formed Virginia Forests, Inc. (renamed in the 1970s as the Virginia Forestry Association), the South Carolina Forestry Committee, and the American Forestry Association, besides numerous other scientific and technical groups. Organizations related to conservation, the forest industries, and the forestry profession were also well represented within the Section. In addition, APSAF members were extremely active in civic and social clubs of all kinds.b Moreover, the 1940s and early 1950s was a period of growth for local forestry clubs which were the forerunners of the APSAF Chapters. 101 Clarence Korstian approached his duties as SAF President with the emphasis on collaboration and participation typical of APSAF members. In his historical summary of the SAF published in 1940, Ralph
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S. Hosmer credited Korstian’s administration for “closer contacts with the recognized scientific associations and the appointment of a number of new committees to study and report on topics of professional interest.” The new committees examined forest terminology, forest type classification, civil service, private forestry, labor relations, and cooperation with scientific organizations. Specific instances of cooperation with scientific organizations included several joint meetings with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Ecological Society of America between 1937 and 1940, and a joint meeting with the Ecological Society of America and the Canadian Society of Forest Engineers in 1938. Collaboration between the SAF and the National Research Council was reemphasized, as was participation in the Union of American Biological Societies. This renewed emphasis on exploring issues and on scientific investigation obviously reflected Korstian’s personal inclinations as a researcher and an academic. Furthermore, Korstian’s priorities exemplified his response to the SAF controversies which preceded his election, and explain his success in mediating different points of view. Rather than editorializing on his own positions, Korstian expanded opportunities for SAF members to communicate, to discuss, and to dissent. As a result, the SAF became a forum for debate rather than an arena for protracted feuds. The SAF Statement of Purpose adopted in 1937 expressed the same ideal: The objectives of this Society shall be to represent, advance, and protect the interests and standards of the profession of forestry, to provide a medium for the exchange of professional thought, and to promote the science, practice, and standards of forestry in America.
Clarence Korstian took an analogous approach to sectional and regional matters. His proposal in 1939 for a joint meeting of the APSAF and the Southeastern Section, in conjunction with a paper festival, in Savannah, GA exemplified his approach. In 1938, Korstian also supported the Appalachian Section’s first bid to host the SAF annual meeting. Verne Rhoades and Korstian corresponded concerning the invitation, but the SAF Executive Committee’s choice for that year was Columbus, Ohio. 102
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Chapter 4 The Expansion of Forestry in Universities and Colleges Duke University's School of Forestry was not alone in the education of foresters within the APSAF. By the time Duke began its program of graduate education in forestry, forestry education in the region had been evolving for many years. The growth of forestry instruction and research at institutions of higher learning within the Appalachian Section paralleled the development of forestry in general; a pattern of tentative development in the late nineteenth century and first decades of the twentieth century was followed by accelerated growth in the late 1920s and 1930s. Forestry instruction expanded most significantly during the 1930s due to the increased opportunities for foresters in government programs. Although the education of foresters in the United States began within APSAF territory, few foresters were produced by the colleges and universities of the region until after 1930. This was due, apparently, to a lack of funding for forestry curricula rather than to a lack of interest. Institutions in Virginia, the Carolinas, and eastern Tennessee participated considerably in the development of forestry in the region and frequently offered courses on forestry and related topics. Professors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and from the University of the South in Suwanee, Tennessee assisted Carl Schenck with instruction at the Biltmore Forest School from 1898 until its closing in 1913. Moreover, the University of North Carolina's department of botany produced noted forester W.W. Ashe and awarded future North Carolina State Forester John Simcox Holmes a "Certificate of Agriculture" in 1888, well before he earned his Master of Forestry degree from Yale in 1915. The University of North Carolina continued to provide forestry instruction from the late 1880s until the early 1900s. At UNC and elsewhere, early forestry courses were usually general overviews of the economic and social importance of forests, the botany of forest trees, tree identification, and methods of reforestation. Between 1900 and 1920, nearly thirty schools of forestry were established in the United States. Appalachian Section members educated between 1900 and 1930 attended most of the major forestry schools that operated during those years (and a few of the minor ones).i The majority of the schools founded before 1920, if still operating by the 1930s, were accredited during the first years of the SAF program. Among APSAF members, alumni from Pennsylvania State, Yale, Minnesota, New York at Syracuse, Mont Alto, and Georgia were the most numerous during the Section's early decades. Only one of the pre-1920 schools, established at the University of Georgia in 1906, was in the South, and it was particularly prominent in the Appalachian Section. APSAF member Alfred Ackerman was a professor of forestry at the University of Georgia from 1906 until 1914. Moreover, Ackerman had himself received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia's predecessor, Franklin College, in 1898. Ackerman then pursued graduate forestry training in Germany before earning his Master of Forestry degree from Yale in 1902. Of the members listed in the APSAF 1948 directory, at least 26 (roughly 8%) had attended the University of Georgia. Thomas W. Alexander attended UGA (University of Georgia, Athens) from 1920 to 1922. Although he did not complete a degree, Alexander became a successful forester with experience in government agencies, industry, and consulting. Charles W. Nuite earned a BSF from the University of Georgia in 1927 before beginning his career in state forestry. James B. Lattay graduated from Georgia in 1929 followed by many others in the years to come.103 i
Schools (founding of forestry program): Biltmore Forest School (1898-1913), Yale (1900), University of Michigan (1902), Michigan State College (1902), University of Minnesota (1903), Pennsylvania State Forest School at Mont Alto (1903-1929), University of Maine (1903), Harvard (1904), Iowa State College (1904), University of Nebraska (1904-1915), Oregon State College (1904), Colorado College (1909-1917), University of Georgia (1906), Pennsylvania State College (1907), North Dakota School of Forestry (1907), University of Washington (1907), Washington State College (1907), Colorado Agricultural College (1909), University of Idaho (1909), Ohio State University (1909-1917), Wyman's School of the Woods (1909-ca.1920), Cornell (1898-1903, 1910), University of New Hampshire (1911), New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse (1911), University of Missouri (1912), New York State Ranger School (1912), Montana State College (1913), University of California
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(1914), and Bates College (1918-1922).
Clemson The number of new forestry schools organized in the 1920s and 1930s was considerably fewer than the number created in the preceding decades. New programs were established at a rate of six per decade, a rate, which held steady into the 1940s and 1950s. Unlike the earlier period of growth, however, southern schools housed a substantial proportion of the forestry degree programs launched after 1920. Frequently, institutions which began offering forestry degrees had been offering courses in forestry for many years as a part of agricultural programs. Clemson University, for example, was the first of the present-day forestry schools within APSAF territory to offer a course on forestry. Clemson University was founded in 1889 as Clemson Agricultural College, a male-only military college, and offered its first forestry class in 1904. The one-term course covered "the general principles underlying the practice of forestry� with particular attention to fieldwork. This course was taught continuously until 1935 by a number of professors in the Department of Botany and Bacteriology. In 1912, forestry work began at the Clemson Coastal Experiment Farm in Summerville, SC. The 160 acres of the 6,700 acre farm were turned over to forestry research, and during the 1920s, the farm began a cooperative research program with the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station. The research program encompassed slash, longleaf, and loblolly pine, the comparison of burned and unburned areas, and plots tracking tree growth over the long term. In 1935 and 1936, a forestry major was offered under Dr. R.A. Cockerell. Clemson produced eight forestry majors in these two years, but the program ended when Dr. Cockerell left Clemson in July, 1936. APSAF members Basil E. Allen, Ralph L. Chastain, and Eugene B. Price all began their forestry studies at Clemson with Dr.Cockerell. B.E. Allen attended Clemson from 1935 to 1937, then completed his degree at the University of Michigan in 1939. Eugene Price attended Clemson from 1934 to 1936 and earned a BSF from the University of Georgia in 1939. Chastain attended Clemson from 1931-1932, earning his degree from Georgia in 1941.104 Although Clemson ceased to offer degrees in forestry after 1936, forestry activity did not cease. The Cooperative Extension Service Division of Forestry stationed Extension Forester Donald R. Brewster at the college in 1938. Brewster was the first extension forester in South Carolina since Henry Tryon resigned in 1927. Brewster resigned that same year and was replaced by Clifton W. Hall, who served from 1938 until 1941, and Marlin H. Bruner, 1938 to 1942. William E. Cooper was an Extension Forester at Clemson in 1941 and 1942, before becoming South Carolina Assistant State Forester, and later, Executive Director for Virginia Forests, Inc. (later renamed the Virginia Forestry Association). After World War II, James R. Orr worked for the Extension Service at Clemson in 1945 and 1946; he was replaced in 1946 by Samuel A. Marbut. Likewise, forestry was not forgotten in Clemson's academic circles. In 1937, a committee of the Clemson Board of Trustees began investigating reinstatement of the bachelor degree in forestry. World War II interrupted progress, but a pre-forestry program was finally inaugurated in 1946. Hard work and persistence built the program into a full-fledged forestry department by 1956. A good deal of the impetus for the continuing effort to establish forestry at Clemson was due to the efforts of Professor George H. Aull. Aull graduated from Clemson Agricultural College in 1918, then 58
served as Assistant Director of Research at Clemson for a number of years before taking a leave to earn a doctorate in land economics at the University of Wisconsin. Aull returned to Clemson in 1933, just as the New Deal was beginning. Eager to bring New Deal benefits to the area, Aull wrote a letter to Lewis C. Gray, principle economist in the USDA Division of Land Economics. Aull inquired about the possibility of applying Roosevelt's new programs in the vicinity of Clemson, and Gray encouraged him to submit a proposal. Aull's first effort was turned down as too limited in scope. Consequently, he expanded the proposal, entitled it the Clemson College Community Conservation Project, and resubmitted it. The second draft was accepted, and George Aull took another leave of absence to become project manager. The project created a 29,655 acre Land Use Area comprised of 300 tracts of badly eroded farmland adjacent to Clemson. Over the course of the project, 1,500 workers cleared low grade timber, cleared stream beds, and planted seedlings of white pine, loblolly pine, yellow poplar, black walnut, and various oaks. They also built fire lanes and two 100 foot steel fire towers complete with subsistence homesteads for tower attendants. Forest stand improvements were made on nearly 9,000 acres and insect control treatments were made on 532 acres. In addition, Clemson College engineers designed and built bridges over various waterways, and a dam to create Lake Issaqueena. Recreational facilities included a swimming beach, bathhouse, boat house, dock, trails, picnic shelters, campsites, and fishing ponds. A fish hatchery provided stock for the ponds and lake, which were enhanced with plantings of aquatic vegetation. Similarly, quail were released into areas where food crops had been planted for game. After two busy years, Aull returned to his position as head of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology. APSAF member Charles W. Nuite became the project director and continued development, reforestation and fire control work. The Clemson Project was much like many other New Deal Land Use Areas in the region, only differing from the standard because the managing agency was a college rather than a government agency. Although difficulties arose over the relationship between the Land Use Area and the college, the problems were resolved and the Land Use Area became the Clemson Experimental Forest. Although support for the project wavered at about the same time that R.A. Cockerell left the college, George Aull continued to promote the forest, both at Clemson and in the state legislature. After Charles Nuite left in 1938 to become director of the Aiken Forest, the forest needed an advocate. A succession of inexperienced managers allowed recreational facilities to fall into disrepair and the forest resources were left unused and untended. During World War II, wartime priorities led Clemson to turn over 135 acres to the U.S. Air Corp for use as a bombing range; the bombing range was cleared and periodically burned. An additional 6 acres were affected by mica mining for military use. Consistent forest management was delayed until after the war, when the Department of Biology and Bacteriology hired Norbert B. Goebel to oversee the forest.105 Norbert Goebel came to Clemson just after completing his Master’s degree at Duke University, and Goebel's experience as a forest assistant on the Duke Forest was soon put to use. Clemson President R.F. Poole instructed him to "develop the same kind of program that...Duke Forest School has on its forest." Fortunately, Goebel gained a colleague in 1947, Koloman Lehotsky, who had begun his forestry training at Prague's Bohemian Technical University in his native Czechoslovakia. He earned his doctorate at the University of Michigan in 1934, then worked with the SCS until World War II except for one year spent in Brazil as a professor of forestry. After Lehotsky joined Goebel at Clemson, they began work on the Clemson Experimental Forest and on the new pre-forestry curriculum at the college. First, they inventoried the forest and used aerial photographs to define boundaries, establish land use divisions, and map the forest. Once basic information had been compiled, Goebel drew up management plans and established cutting guidelines based on projected annual growth. He also began overseeing stand thinning work, repairs to recreational facilities, and reestablishing fire control measures. Lehotsky joined fellow forestry professor Henry L. Hansen, hired in 1946, in teaching the college's forestry courses, which included Introduction to Forestry, Dendrology, and Farm Forestry, an elective for students of agriculture. Lehotsky established an arboretum in 1951, and the forestry program became a Department of Forestry in 1956, offering a Bachelor’s degree for the first time in 1957. Lehotsky was the first chairman of the department. Marlin H. Bruner, who had returned to Clemson as manager of the Clemson Experimental 59
Forest after Norbert Goebel returned to research, became a full member of the department in 1956 as well.106
North Carolina State College North Carolina State College, established during the 1890s, offered its first forestry course in 1905. The course was taught by F.C. Reimer in the department of horticulture until 1911, when J.P. Pillsbury began teaching the class, focusing on farm forestry, forest mensuration, and woodlot studies. Frederick H. Claridge, Assistant Forester in the North Carolina Division of Forestry, was appointed in 1925 and devoted half of his time to teaching forestry at N.C. State College. This cooperative arrangement between the College and the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development ended in 1927 due to a lack of funding. Nevertheless, forestry at North Carolina State College experienced dramatic growth shortly thereafter. In the spring semester of 1929, Dr. Julius V. Hofmann began teaching general forestry at N.C. State College, and was elected Chairman of the Appalachian Section at the annual meeting in Raleigh in 1932. Hofmann came to N.C. State College from the Pennsylvania State Forest School at Mont Alto after that school was consolidated with the School of Forestry at Pennsylvania State University. In the fall semester of 1929, 46 students transferred from Mont Alto to N.C. State, which began a full curriculum of forestry courses immediately. Consequently, J.V. Hofmann was appointed head of the new Department of Forestry, which was renamed the Division of Forestry in 1931. Because the transferred students included seniors, juniors, and sophomores, the first forestry degrees from N.C. State College were awarded in the spring of 1930. Delanson Y. Lenhart, who had graduated from the Pennsylvania State Forest School at Mont Alto in 1929, completed a year of graduate study at North Carolina State College prior to joining the South Carolina Forest Service from 1930 to 1934. Based on his work in the Carolinas, Lenhart published “Initial Root Development of Longleaf Pine” in the Journal of Forestry in 1934.107 The first forestry graduates from N.C. State College, who had transferred to the school from Mont Alto, included a number of future APSAF members. Among them were Thomas C. Evans (1930), Harvey C. Rettberg (1930), James B. Cartwright (1931), George K. Slocum (1931), William B. Ward (1931), William E. Cooper (1932), Albert H. Maxwell (1932), Frank J. Miller (1932), and George K. Schaeffer (1932). Thomas C. Evans attended the Pennsylvania State Forest School at Mont Alto from 1926 through 1929 and graduated from North Carolina State College in 1930. He succeeded D.Y. Lenhart as Teaching Fellow at North Carolina State for the 1930-1931 academic year. Next, Evans worked in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Louisiana before joining forest survey work at the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station from 1938 to 1942. He prepared The Distribution of Commercial Forest Trees in Virginia for the Station in 1942. After service in World War II, Evans returned to the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station as a silviculturalist. Harvey C. Rettberg attended school in Mont Alto from 1928 to 1929 and in Raleigh from 1929 to 1930. After graduating, Rettberg was self-employed until 1940, then became an industrial forester. James B. Cartwright came from Mont Alto to North Carolina State College, graduating in 1931. He worked for the USDA Forest Service in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas until his military service from 1944 to 1946. After his discharge, he returned to the USDA Forest Service and was stationed in the Francis Marion National Forest. After attending school in Mont Alto from 1927 to 1929, George K. Slocum also received his BSF from North Carolina State College in 1931. Slocum earned his master’s degree from North Carolina State in 1932, and wrote his thesis on "A Seed Study of Loblolly Pine," after which he became an instructor and then a professor of forestry there. Another 1931 BSF recipient, William B. Ward, worked for the USDA Forest Service in Idaho, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky after earning his degree at North Carolina State. He returned to the area after joining the staff of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia. William E. Cooper and Albert H. Maxwell both transferred from Mont Alto to North Carolina State College where they graduated in 1932. Cooper then worked for the CCC, the TVA, the USDA Forest Service, the SCS, and the Clemson College Extension Service between 1933 and 1942. While at 60
Clemson, Cooper prepared "Forest Site Determination by Soil and Erosion Classification" for the Journal of Forestry. He was Assistant State Forester in South Carolina from 1942 until 1946 then becoming Executive Director of the not-for-profit Virginia Forests, Inc. in 1947 in Richmond, Virginia. Albert H. Maxwell worked for the USDA Forest Service and the CCC in Asheville for two years and with the USDA Forest Service in North Carolina and Texas until 1942, when he joined the Alabama Extension Service. He returned to North Carolina in 1945 as a farm forester for the USDA Forest Service and the North Carolina Extension Service. By 1969, he was Pest Control Officer for the North Carolina Forest Service. Frank J. Miller began his career with the USDA Forest Service in Georgia and Wisconsin. He became an Area Forester for the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development in 1942, and Superintendent of the Department's nursery in Clayton, NC in 1945. After receiving his degree in 1932, George Schaeffer began work for the USDA Forest Service in Pisgah National Forest, where he remained until 1937. Next, Schaeffer served as a ranger at Mount Mitchell in North Carolina, Chattahoochee in Georgia, and Enoree Ranger District in South Carolina. After wartime service in the Navy, he returned to the Appalachian Section as a District Forester for the Francis Marion National Forest. Another transferred student, James F. Renshaw, studied in Mont Alto during the 1928-1929 academic year, North Carolina State during the 1929-1930 academic year, and graduated from the University of Montana in 1932. Renshaw was a forester for the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station between 1932 and 1939, then returned to the station in 1943 to work on the wartime forest surveys. In 1945, he became forest manager for the Bent Creek Experimental Forest. Long-time North Carolina County Agricultural Agent Rob W. Graeber earned a bachelor degree in agriculture from North Carolina State College in 1911. In 1930, he received a BSF from the college, completing his shift from agricultural extension agent to extension service forester.108 Over forty other APSAF members in the 1948 directory had also attended North Carolina State College before World War II. This is hardly surprising; North Carolina State College's Division of Forestry was the first SAF accredited forestry school in the Appalachian Section, receiving approval during the first round of accreditation in 1935; from 1935 to 1938, the College's Division of Forestry enrolled over 200 students per year. NCSC School of Forestry's physical expansion was equally impressive. The College quickly acquired extensive tracts for use as school forests through a land acquisition program. The school forests provided areas for experimental and practical work in various forest types, particularly in the piedmont and coastal plain. Hofmann Forest, 84,000 acres in Jones and Onslow Counties on the Coastal Plain, was established in 1935. In the late thirties, logging operations were begun on some sections of the forest while others were set aside for "permanent preservation." The preserved portions included old growth cypress and mature loblolly pine. By 1938, 500 acres of Hofmann Forest had been planted with slash pine, loblolly, cypress, and yellow poplar. Study plots in replanted areas were examined for differences in tree growth in stands of different densities. Another early research project investigated the impact of cattle grazing on forest fuel loads and, by extension, on forest fire frequency and severity. CCC workers from a camp in Hofmann Forest constructed roads, fire trails, and two fire towers, surveyed boundaries, and cruised timber in the Forest. At least four weeks of the forestry students' summer camp were held in the Hofmann Forest each year. Also in eastern North Carolina, McLean Forest in Hyde County reserved 1,500 acres of coastal loblolly pine and hardwoods along the Inland Waterway for the NCSC Division of Forestry, but no development occurred there during the 1930s. The Hill Forest, located on 1,500 acres north of Durham, NC, also dates to the thirties, but at the 61
outset contained as much open farmland as woodland. All of the fields not immediately needed for farming were planted with trees, and records were kept of planting methods and densities. Regeneration studies commenced on woodland tracts using unburned plots where logging slash had been cleared away. Other experimental plots tested root competition and monitored changes in forest composition due to fire. Hill Forest hosted the first weeks of the Division of Forestry summer camp with CCC-built facilities including a log lodge and a swimming area. At another North Carolina State College property, Poole Woods, operations also included studies of regeneration in cutover forest as well as practical instruction for classes in forest mensuration. The Appalachian Section's Guide to Forestry Activities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee (1939) described Poole Woods as "75 acres, located 5 miles east of Raleigh, consisting of a trat [sic] of virgin loblolly pine, shortleaf pine, and white oak," partly cut over. Besides these North Carolina State College properties, the Division of Forestry managed approximately 1,000 acres on the State Prison Farm, close to the State Fairgrounds, just west of Raleigh. Several study plots were located on the Farm in 1930 to evaluate the impact of different logging methods on forest development. In 1939, plans were made to plant tree seedlings over most of the 1,000 acres for study plots to analyze tree planting, erosion, and the effects of grazing. The College's tree seedling nursery began producing 20,000 seedlings per year for instructional use. By the time plans were made for planting 1,000 acres on the State Prison Farm, the nursery's production had grown to 500,000 per year and provided stock for the school forests. The nursery produced mostly slash pine, loblolly pine, shortleaf pine, and black locust, together with exotic species for the school's 70 acre arboretum. The North Carolina State College Division of Forestry's library holdings were not as extensive during the 1930s as their school forests. Just the same, they were respectable for the era: 600 books, 4,000 pamphlets, and 20 periodicals received on forestry, another 300 books, 4,000 pamphlets and 53 periodicals received on subjects related to forestry. These resources were supplemented further by access to the State Library of North Carolina and the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development Library, both nearby on campus. The library facilities and school forests paralleled a good faculty, who were in turn augmented by a strong group of associated faculty. In addition to Julius V. Hofmann, D.Y. Lenhart, and T.C. Evans, Ralph W. Haynes taught forestry courses from 1929 until 1934. Lenthall Wyman came to North Carolina State in 1934 from the Southern Forest Experiment Station facilities in Florida. Wyman taught forest products, utilization, logging and lumbering, lumber seasoning, forest finance, forest appraisal and valuation, and conducted the senior field trip. William Dykstra Miller came to the College in 1935 after earning a doctorate from Yale and teaching at the University of Idaho. Miller was responsible for silvics, silviculture, research methods, mensuration, and taught dendrology at the summer camp. After a short stint at Pisgah National Forest, George K. Slocum returned to teach wood technology, timber physics, principles of forestry, mensuration, seeding and planting, silviculture, and also dendrology at summer camp. Gorham Eddie Jackson held the position of Supervisor of School Forests and assistant professor, although he was based at the Hofmann Forest in Jacksonville, NC. Like Clemson Agricultural College in South Carolina, North Carolina State College housed the State's Agricultural Extension Service. For this reason, North Carolina State also was the headquarters for Robert W. Graeber after 1925 and for many other extension foresters over the years. The presence of extension foresters at the College and the proximity of the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development presumably contributed to the forestry school's progress. In another important contribution to forestry education at the school, the forestry students appear to have organized the first North Carolina State College Forestry Club during the 1930s. Two APSAF members in the 1948 membership directory listed leadership of the club among their achievements. Still further growth occurred as additional faculty joined the School of Forestry during the 1940s. The most prominent, Clemens M. Kaufman, joined the School of Forestry's faculty as associate research professor after completing his doctorate at the University of Minnesota in 1943. Kaufman represented the school in 1949 while presenting results of grazing studies at North Carolina State to the Society of American Foresters, "Forest Grazing in the North Carolina Piedmont." 62
Associate Professor Jesse W. Chalfant arrived in 1941 with a Yale MF and wide-ranging experience with the USDA Forest Service and the CCC, including four years with the Sumter, Francis Marion and Croatan National Forests. Chalfant left the College for the military in 1944 and taught at the U.S. Air Force Institute at the University of Rome before returning in 1945. Richard J. Campana arrived as an assistant professor of dendrology in 1948 with practical experience from work as a fire lookout, as a laborer in blister rust control, and a forest guard in the National Forests. Campana was a student assistant at Harvard in 1946, earned a MF from Yale, and was an instructor for Pennsylvania State College in Mont Alto, both during 1947. APSAF member Frank A. Santopolo graduated from the School of Forestry in 1942. After service in World War II, he earned a masters degree from the North Carolina State College Department of Rural Sociology where he was a teaching fellow. Another APSAF member, Weldon O. Shepard, held a position in the Department of Animal Industry during the late 1940s. 1938 graduate and APSAF member J. Atwood Whitman was Assistant Supervisor of the Hofmann Forest in 1940 and 1941, and subsequently worked as a consulting forester. 109
Duke University Unlike Clemson and North Carolina State, Duke University began its forestry program without a history of endeavors in the field. Duke's roots stretched back to an academy founded by Methodists and Quakers in 1838 in Randolph County, NC. By 1859, the academy had grown into Trinity College; in 1892, the college relocated to Durham, NC in response to substantial donations by the prosperous Methodist community there, most notably Washington Duke and Julian S. Carr. In 1896 Washington Duke gave the college $100,000 on the condition that women be admitted on the same terms as men. Further support from the Duke family enabled Trinity College's growth to continue, and Duke University was founded under the leadership of President William Preston Few in 1924. In the late 1920s, President Few began making inquiries regarding the management of 4,600 acres of school property. President Few and Duke Professor of Zoology Dr. A.S. Pearse contacted USDA Forest Service Chief Col. William B. Greeley and Dr. Eloise Gerry of the USDA Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory for advice. Appalachian Forest Experiment Station Director E.H. Frothingham and Silviculturalist Clarence F. Korstian also became advisors to the University. President Few and VicePresident R.L. Flowers asked Korstian about using Harvard Forest as a model for developing Duke's property. Korstian suggested borrowing from the management programs of both Harvard and Yale, and then making the Duke Forest an adjunct to a graduate school of forestry. He envisioned Duke Forest's relationship to a school of forestry analogous to the relationship between a hospital and a school of medicine. After a few meetings, President Few asked Korstian to become Director of the Duke Forest and to organize the Duke University School of Forestry. Korstian accepted and assumed his new responsibilities on September 1, 1930, just before the election of Duke Forest to the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations (founded 1893). Korstian's plan for the Duke School of Forestry
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Early tree planting on Duke Forest in 1932. Photo by North Carolina Forest Service
included a teaching staff of eight trained foresters complemented by two professors in the Department of Botany. Botany professor Dr. Paul J. Kramer took responsibility for forest tree physiology while his colleague Dr. Frederick A. Wolf shouldered forest pathology. Korstian recruited foresters from all over the country, from Connecticut to the State of Washington, to complete the faculty. To encourage professors to stay at Duke, Korstian stressed giving them “the freedom to teach their courses unhampered by meddling from above.� 110 William Maughan, the first Associate Director of Duke Forest, was the first to join Korstian at Duke. Maughan had served as instructor of forest engineering at New York State College of Forestry from 1925 to 1928 and received his Masters from Yale in 1929. During the 1929-1930 academic year, he taught applied forestry at Yale, and he worked as an assistant at the Eli Whitney Forest in 1929 and 1930. Maughan arrived at Duke in January 1931 and immediately began Duke's first forest inventory; he and Clarence Korstian produced the first Duke University Forestry Bulletin in 1935, The Duke Forest - A Demonstration and Research Laboratory. In 1929 the 1,183 acre Duke Forest was mostly open farm land. Some of the tracts were restocking naturally, but more than half were planted with tree seedlings. Twenty different tree species were used for reforestation and by 1939, over fifty permanent experimental plots had been set up with more planned. William Maughan determined the forest subdivisions and drew up forest management plans for each subdivision with Korstian's approval. Cutting also began in 1939 on the basis of annual growth, or for stand thinning. The School of Forestry and various government agencies began a cooperative fire protection program. Additionally, part of the Forest was designated an Auxiliary State Game Refuge, and recreational areas were provided for hiking, picnicking, and horse-back riding. Although the Duke University School of Forestry did not provide courses on multiple use management, the Forest itself gave students a practical example of the approach. Initial objectives for Duke Forest were field work for students, demonstration of timber growing, demonstration of silviculture, practical forest management for income, and research. Duke Forest hosted its first APSAF field trip in 1936 during an annual meeting held in Durham, NC. The field trip examined sample plots, plantations, and experimental cutting. A second field trip at the APSAF summer meeting June 14, 1946 encompassed four different areas of Duke Forest and presentations by Duke professors on shelterwood cutting, strip 64
cutting, and clear cutting in patches, insect hazards, forest soils, and forest operations. The field trip concluded with an inspection of the oldest plantings in Duke Forest. Nine non-faculty foresters assisted Maughan with the management of Duke Forest during its first decade. In order of succession, these Forest Assistants were: V.E. Hicks, H.J. Pawek, Theodore S. Coile (1931-1933), Lowell Besley, D.T. Dinsmore, C.A. Coover, C.H. Willison, Jr., C.M. Henninger, and Carlton J. Blades. When Blades left in 1939 to become Chief Forester for Duke Power in Charlotte, NC, Harry C. Haines took the position. In 1940, Haines also joined Duke Power, in Great Falls, SC. Duke graduate student Victor J. Rudolph worked part time as a research assistant in 1941 and 1942, then finished his degree in 1943. Rudolph returned as a research assistant after the war and was working at Duke again in 1948. Virgil Gray Watkins was a research assistant in 1946, the same year he was awarded his Masters degree at Duke; soon after, Watkins joined the North Carolina Extension Service in Durham. Robert C. Heller, MF Duke 1941, was forest assistant after the war in 1945 and 1946, then joined Duke Power in Great Falls, SC. Leo F. Labyak received a MF from Duke in 1947, then was a forest assistant in 1947 and 1948. When forestry instruction began at Duke, William Maughan was responsible for teaching forest surveying, forest measurement, valuation, and forest improvements. He also began research on forest mensuration in Duke Forest, quickly publishing two articles on volume tables for eastern red cedar, as well as editing the APSAF's A Guide to Forestry Activities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee (1939). Theodore S. Coile, an even more prolific writer, was promoted from forest assistant to instructor and research associate in 1935 after a year's leave to work at the USDA Forest Service Southern Forest Experiment Station in New Orleans. Coile published his first article on forest soils while still Forest Assistant in Duke Forest. Clarence Korstian had noted the scarcity of opportunities for study and research on forest soils. Consequently, he was particularly interested in fostering research and instruction on forest soils at Duke. To accomplish this, Korstian encouraged Theodore Coile to pursue a PhD at Yale, while simultaneously building a forest soils program at Duke. According to Korstian, “By hard work, and by getting what he could from the few men who understood the basic differences between forest and agricultural soils, he was able to develop a good program of instruction and research in forest soils.” During the process, Coile spent time at the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station and the USDA Forest Service Division of Forest Management Research in Washington, DC. Korstian sought out or cultivated specialists in other fields in a similar fashion. For wood technology, he stipulated a forester trained by Harry Brown of New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University. Harry Brown recommended several former students, and Korstian recruited the first forester on Brown's list, Elwood S. Harrar. Harrar came to Duke in 1936 as Associate Professor of Wood Technology and took charge of the arboretum: the next year, he and W.M. Harlow published a textbook on dendrology of important forest trees in North America. In 1938, Harrar's courses were Dendrology, Wood Anatomy and Properties, and Timber Mechanics. In later years, Korstian recalled that “every forestry professor that came here, came with the understanding that he would become involved, in and carry on a program of research of every man. And if he didn't want to, we didn't want him to come with us.” Korstian persevered in this criterion as he engaged the remaining charter members of the Duke School of Forestry, Francis X. Schumacher, Roy B. Thomson, and Albert E. Wackerman, all appointed during the late 1930s. Schumacher was recruited from the Division of Forest Measurements in the USDA Forest Service, Washington, DC to teac. h forest mensuration, sampling methods, experimental design, data analysis, and advanced statistical methods. He had come to the USDA Forest Service from Berkeley to train government personnel to apply statistical methods in forestry research, including future Assistant Chief of Research Verne L. Harper. Schumacher assisted Harper in the statistical analyses of naval stores data from Starke, Florida, analysis which literally became textbook examples for teaching statistical methods in forestry research. Verne Harper and his former coworker, North Carolina State College Professor Lenthall Wyman, co-wrote a USDA Forest Service Technical Bulletin in 1937, Variations in Naval Stores Associated with Specific Days Between Chippings, derived from Harper and Schumacher's work. The data 65
and bulletin helped entomologists correlate southern pine beetle depredations with the timing of gum yields. Schumacher also contributed to data compilation in the field, in one case helping to evaluate the new line-plot measurement system with the Forest Survey. After joining Duke's School of Forestry, Schumacher contributed "New Concepts in Forest Mensuration," to the Journal of Forestry. In addition, he and Donald Bruce authored the textbook Forest Mensuration, and Schumacher continued to write on volume, growth, and yield of southern pines into the 1960s. Roy B. Thomson, who had worked on the USDA Forest Service Forest Taxation Inquiry from 1930 to 1934, became Duke's first forest economist (the Inquiry ran from 1926 until 1935 and was directed by Fred R. Fairchild). One of Thomson's reports for the Forest Taxation Inquiry, written with Paul W. Wager, was The Taxation of Forest Property in North Carolina (1931). The report investigated the effects of taxation on woodland management in three North Carolina counties, and contributed to the composition of the weighty Forest Taxation in the United States (1935) by Fairchild. Thomson's teaching at Duke covered forest economics, forest policy, forest finance, and forest production.
Duke Forestry class of 1966 in front of the Biological Sciences Building. See anyone you know?
Albert E. Wackerman came to Duke from his position as Industrial Forester for Seaboard Air Line Railway in Norfolk, VA (1937-1938). Previously, Wackerman had worked at the Lake States Forest Experiment Station, for the pioneering Crossett Lumber Company in Arkansas, and at the Southern Forest Experiment Station in New Orleans. As a result, he had considerable experience both in research and practical work with southern forest products. At Duke, Wackerman initiated courses in forest utilization, including logging and lumber manufacture, forest products, and the seasoning and preserving of wood. His articles on these topics appeared in the Journal of Forestry and Southern Lumberman during the 1930s, along with his commentary on the regulation issue. In 1945, Wackerman authored Duke University School of Forestry Bulletin number 12, Forest Products Marketing Problems in the Piedmont Region of North Carolina.111 Professor of Entomology, James Allen Beal, came to Duke in 1939 from the USDA Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine in Fort Collins, Colorado. He also had research experience in Oregon and at Asheville, where he had worked on southern pine beetle research in Bent Creek Experimental Forest. He contributed two articles to the Journal of Forestry (1927, 1933) on weather and temperature 66
extremes as factors in southern pine beetle ecology and control, and in 1945, he and C.L. Massey wrote a Duke bulletin on beetles with particular emphasis on species occurring in North Carolina. In 1952, he produced an overview of forest insects in the southeast, emphasizing those of North Carolina's piedmont.112 Like many other schools, the Duke University School of Forestry first offered a pre-forestry program conferring a Bachelor of Science degree to prepare undergraduates for a Master of Forestry program. The pre-forestry program was inaugurated in 1932. Unlike most other schools, Duke did not shift to a Bachelor of Forestry program, but rather concentrated on its graduate program which offered its first courses in 1934. Graduate students could earn either a Master of Forestry degree, or complete a more scientifically-oriented curriculum for Master of Science and PhDs through the Duke University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. These advanced programs received SAF accreditation in 1939. The School of Forestry also put a great deal of effort into developing its forestry library. In 1938, the forestry library contained over 7300 items and over 150 periodicals on forestry and related fields. Other resources consisted of university laboratories, greenhouses, and a small nursery that produced stock for the arboretum and for research purposes.113
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia, began as the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1872. Like Clemson, VPI was also a military school and male-only because all federal land grant colleges were required to provide military training. Like Clemson and North Carolina State Colleges, Virginia Polytechnic stressed research, teaching, and extension work in agriculture. VPI obtained a farm for use in this work the year of its founding; the Virginia General Assembly provided funding for the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station in 1886, and the Hatch Act provided federal funding in 1887. As an agricultural school, farm forestry was the primary forestry topic considered. Joseph W. O'Byrne joined the Virginia Extension Service in Blacksburg during 1925, after six years with the Virginia Forest Service in Charlottesville. As no SAF members were listed in the 1924 membership directory with Blacksburg, Virginia addresses, he was possibly the first forester at VPI, and very likely the only forester there at the time. From the late 1920s through the 1930s, O’Byrne published frequent articles and bulletins on farm forestry in Virginia, two with co-authors. In 1931, O'Byrne wrote a practical bulletin with John Elton Lodewick (elected to Senior SAF membership in the APSAF during the same year), "Farm Forestry for Virginians," issued as a Virginia Polytechnic Institute Bulletin. In 1938 he co-authored an update to the first bulletin with J.B. Grantham. Lodewick and Grantham may have been colleagues of O'Byrne in the VPI Agricultural Extension Service. In the APSAF membership directory of 1948, Forrest W. Patton was listed as Assistant Extension Forester with VPI. Along with his extension work, O'Byrne participated Burruss Hall, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg in the beginnings of the Department of Forestry and Wildlife during the 1930s. Wildlife research became prominent at VPI in 1935, when the first Cooperative Wildlife Unit (then of the Bureau of Biological Survey) was established at the school. The Unit was a part of the Biology Department and directed by C.O. Handley, a biologist trained by the Virginia Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries. J.W. O'Byrne was one of the six members of its staff and the only forester. The Unit immediately launched research projects and began contributing to the education of students at VPI. After graduating five students with Masters of Science degrees in the late 1930s, instruction wildlife management and forestry shut down. A scarcity of students due to the military 67
demands of World War II left the program with no students. After the war veterans returned, the program recommenced and began awarding PhDs in 1950. Staff at the Cooperative Wildlife Unit remained the same until the Unit's second director was appointed in 1947; Dr. H.S. Mosby trained in forestry and wildlife at the University of Michigan and remained with the Unit until 1955 when he became Professor of Wildlife Management in the Department of Biology at VPI. Seth Gordon Jr., a graduate of the University of Michigan for both his Bachelors and Masters of Forestry, became Assistant Professor of Forestry in the Biology Department after his discharge from the army in 1946. As regards the graduates of VPI who became foresters, most early students were wildlife specialists, as might be expected. In 1957, however, the Department of Forestry and Wildlife had an enrollment of 73, 23 of whom were juniors and seniors. All of the upper classmen were concentrating in general forestry, and presumably most of the Bachelor degrees awarded were also in general forestry. According to the SAF study of forestry education published in 1963, VPI's undergraduate curriculum in forest management led to a Bachelor of Science in Forestry with options in General Forest Management, Wildlife Management, and Forest Recreation. The graduate program offered the Master of Science for wildlife management and for silviculture and soils (in cooperation with the Soils Department). A doctorate in wildlife management was offered jointly with the Biology Department. The structure of the Department's graduate program made specialization in wildlife management more likely for graduate students than it was for undergraduates. An illustration of the strengths of VPI graduates, APSAF member William P. Baldwin, Jr. received his Master’s from VPI in 1938 and joined the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as Refuge Management Biologist at the Santee Wildlife Management Area near the small coastal town of McClellanville, SC.114
Further Examples of Early Forestry Education in the APSAF Several other schools in the Appalachian Section ventured into the field of forestry during the Section's early years. The College of Charleston in South Carolina introduced pre-forestry into its offerings during 1937. Simply put, the school faced many obstacles. As of 1939, only ten students had enrolled in the curriculum under the tutelage of Kenneth W. Hunt, Associate Professor of Botany and Geology (Hunt taught courses in botany, geology, dendrology, and forest survey). Competition with Clemson Agricultural College for funding and students probably weakened both programs. Unlike Clemson, however, the College of Charleston was not a land grant agricultural institution and therefore lacked the advantages that Clemson had in establishing forestry instruction. In particular, the College did not have an agricultural emphasis to provide foundations for a forestry program. Furthermore, the College of Charleston had very few forestry materials in its library and to had use borrowed land for practical work and demonstrations. There was no counterpart to George Aull in Charleston to orchestrate the establishment of a school forest. Apparently these factors worked against the growth of a full-scale program at the school; no forestry professor was listed for the College of Charleston in the 1948 APSAF membership directory and there is no mention of the program in the SAF's 1963 report Forestry Education in America. The declining demand for training in forestry as the New Deal scaled down and the appropriation of potential students by the military as World War II approached curtailed the College of Charleston's plans, as they did those of many other schools. Regardless of the status of forestry at the institution, the College of Charleston will always have a place in the history of forestry due to a famous graduate. Ferdinand A. Silcox, fifth chief of the US Forest Service (1933-1939), graduated from the College of Charleston in 1903 with honors in chemistry and sociology. Two years later, he received a Master of Forestry from Yale University. The University of Tennessee in Knoxville also developed a pre-forestry curriculum during the late 1930s. The first forestry class was offered during the spring quarter of 1936 in the Department of Horticulture of the College of Agriculture. Tennessee Extension Forester G.B. Shivery taught the introductory course in 1936. In 1937, Professor Henry Dorr, Jr. was engaged by the University and
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assumed responsibility for forestry instruction. Dorr graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry from Michigan State University in 1918 and received his Master of Forestry degree from the University of Michigan in 1931. Between 1937 and 1938, Dorr broadened the forestry curriculum to include courses on farm forestry, dendrology, wood uses, forest mensuration, reforestation and erosion control, and "The Place of Forestry in a Conservation Program," as well as general forestry. There were no plans to expand the program beyond pre-forestry to prepare students for transfer to an undergraduate forestry program after two years or for entrance into a Master of Forestry program after four years. A major goal was to provide forestry instruction for agricultural students who were training as vocational agriculture teachers or county agricultural agents. Although only 75 volumes on forestry and related subjects were available in the library, there was a small tree nursery available for use and 100 acres of forest set aside for forestry instruction on the University Farm. Other University properties were possibly available for the forestry program as well, and the proximity of TVA operations, Cherokee National Forest, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park provided abundant opportunities for field trips. At least two other schools within APSAF territory offered forestry courses before World War II. The University of Virginia began offering an introductory course in 1921. Virginia State Forester Richard Chapin Jones gave his address as the University of Virginia in the 1924 SAF membership directory, and Charlottesville was the headquarters for the Virginia Forest Service. The University of Virginia used the same strategy as North Carolina State College and the University of Tennessee in enlisting state forestry personnel as instructors during the 1920s and 1930s. Naturally, R. Chapin Jones was enlisted to teach forestry at the University. In 1928, former University of Georgia professor Alfred Ackerman took on the responsibility, although R. Chapin Jones was listed in the 1948 APSAF membership directory as a Professor of Forestry at the University of Virginia. Ackerman, a graduate of the first graduating class of the Yale Forestry School in 1902, alternated courses offered from year to year, offering a wide range of subjects. No forestry degrees were ever offered and forestry instruction ended at the University in 1957, not long after Ackerman's retirement. Even as early as 1935, Alfred Ackerman's major role was as Director of Seward Forest, which originated as a bequest of 3,600 acres to the University from Walter Seward in 1932. The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee established its Department of Forestry in the College of Arts and Sciences in 1949. By 1963, Sewanee had yet to secure SAF accreditation, although the school had on-going plans to bring the school into compliance with SAF standards. In spite of the protracted difficulty in developing its professional program, the University of the South had a long tradition of forestry instruction. Professors from the University had assisted Carl Schenck with instruction at the Biltmore Forest School, and in 1898, Schenck was invited to inspect forest lands owned by the University. As Schenck described the situation: Some universities, notably Yale and Cornell, were planning at the time to offer forestry courses, and Sewanee, small though it was, was ambitious to outrival them, believing that it was particularly qualified for forestry by its control of some ten thousand acres of surrounding forests. They were indeed glorious virgin forests, on a nonagricultural formation of limestone rock, well watered by noisy subterranean brooks. I made an address on forestry in the university auditorium and promised to submit to the authorities in the next six months, free of charge, a working plan for the Sewanee University forests. The working plan was made, duly submitted and discussed, but it was never executed, since the university was short of money. Forestry is a no go with an owner short of money.
Carl Schenck's interest in the University's forest lands led the school's administrators to place the property under U.S. Bureau of Forestry Management in 1900. Subsequently, John Foley described the forest, its management plan, and the methods of lumbering employed on the property in "Conservative Lumbering at Sewanee, Tennessee," USDA Bureau of Forestry Bulletin No. 39 published in 1903. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the financial limitations of area universities, Schenck was supported by guest lecturers from federal agencies, the University of North Carolina, and from the University of the South in Sewanee. In his memoirs, Schenck specifically referred to Professor St. George L. Sioussat of Sewanee who lectured on political economy at the Biltmore Forest School.The first 69
chair of forestry at the University of the South was established in 1923 with an endowment by a Memphis, Tennessee lumberman and alumnus, John Baynard Snowden. Snowden particularly wanted to help the school utilize its 9,000 acre hardwood forest for educational purposes. Forestry was combined with the Engineering Department to form the Department of Forestry and Engineering in the College of Arts and Sciences. George A. Garratt headed the new department from 1923 to 1925 and was a member of the APSAF during that period. While at Sewanee, Garratt taught three one-year courses: Forest Botany (dendrology, silvics, wood technology, forest protection, silviculture), Forest Management and Utilization (mensuration, management, utilization, and forest surveying), and Civil Engineering (plane surveying and drafting). Garratt was quickly succeeded by George J, Madlinger (1925-1927) and George F. Rupp (19271935). In 1935, J.F. Moyer was appointed professor of forestry. Moyer had graduated from Colorado State University with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry, then had earned a Master of Science in botany at the University of Wyoming. Consequently, he was made responsible for the botany courses which had formerly been in the Department of Biology. Courses offered under Professor Moyer included General Botany, Dendrology and Woods, Plant Physiology and Ecology, Silviculture, Forest Conservation, Plane Surveying, and Drafting. Four full year courses in botany and forestry, and the course plane surveying and drafting, were required for the forestry major. During the 1930s, the average number of students enrolled in advanced forestry courses, indicating an interest in completing the major, was four. In 1939, there were no plans to expand the curriculum but rather to continue teaching elementary forestry. The Forestry Library had only 75 volumes on forestry, 2,500 pamphlets, and 3 periodicals. Supplementary material was available in the Botany, Chemistry, Economics, Engineering, Physics, and Zoology libraries. In addition to teaching, the Professor of Forestry was responsible for managing the school forest, although the forest was mainly used for recreation, aesthetic value, and watershed protection. During the Depression, the forest was too inaccessible to make cutting profitable, except for small amounts of fuelwood. However, early in the century, when the forest was managed by the U.S. Bureau of Forestry, timber cut from the school forest netted the University about $7,000. Accordingly, the University framed future use of the property in terms of the original Bureau of Forestry management plans. Forestry work during the 1930s was mainly done by a nearby CCC camp. A state fire tower and the nearby camp provided fire protection with the cooperation of the State Fire Warden and the University Forester. CCC workers also constructed 3.5 miles of foot trails, 6 miles of improved roads, 4 miles of fire lines, and one picnic area. Tree planting had been limited to 4,000 loblolly and shortleaf pine by the University, and a CCC planting of 6,000 loblolly pine on 6 acres.115
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must be something important. Might be on the quiz. Photo from Forest History Society
Chapter 5 Extension and Vocational Forestry During the New Deal Another aspect of forestry education that gained ground during the New Deal was public education. Discussion of the Soil Conservation Service at the December 1936 APSAF meeting revealed members' concerns regarding effective public education. Two comments in particular recommended that New Deal agencies develop conservation methods farmers could understand and afford to implement. Linton A. Carter, District Forester for the N.C. Department of Conservation and Development at Windsor, N.C., commended the SCS for "shifting from expensive mechanical structures to vegetative control.� On a different tack, Assistant Chief Forester Bernard Frank of the TVA Forest Resources Planning Division brought up mountain farmers' pressing need for more crop land. According to Frank, land use planners had to find economic options for farmers other than expanding their crop lands before conservation efforts could be successful. Developing the forest industries to provide I part time employment for farmers It woodland products were two ways and their families and conducting marketing studies to help farmers sell that foresters could help accomplish this goal. As the minutes summarized Frank's comments, "If all implications of soil conservation are taken in, it includes social planning, since soil erosion cannot be controlled where the social system i s such that a farmer has to clear his land." A subsequently-passed resolution urged that rural zoning legislation take into account universal and unrestricted land clearing and
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cultivation in some locales. The resolution further recommended that State Planning Boards consult foresters in their attempts to address the problem. 116 Outside the efforts of the Resettlement Administration, the most direct ways that foresters influenced farmers' land use practices were through extension forestry and through forestry instruction in vocational agriculture programs. Both routes for public education had been areas of APSAF discussion and action since the 1920s. As with other forestry sub-fields, however, the New Deal enormously enlarged the scope of both extension forestry and forestry in vocational education. Also, like other sub-fields, these closely-related efforts in public education were well represented in the forestry publications of the time. Federal agencies such as the TVA and SCS obviously contributed greatly to the extension forestry in the region, as did the publications they produced. Foresters with the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station also contributed to extension efforts. For example, Station Director C.L. Forsling presented his ideas on the subject with "Problems in Marketing the Farm Forest Crop," in the Farmers' Federation News of October 1936. These state and federal publications built upon those composed in connection with extension work and public education during the 1920s. In addition, many of the articles and pamphlets on forest planting and reforestation produced in the 1920s and 1930s applied to farm forestry as well as to the efforts of government agencies and industry. Between 1929 and 1938, North Carolina Extension Forester R.W. Graeber wrote four publications on farm forestry: "Marketing the Products of the Farm Woodland" (1929), "Pulpwood as a Cash Crop" (1930), "Forestry Manual and Record Book for 4-H Club Members" (1936), and "Management, Harvest, and Sale of Pine Timber for Pulpwood" (1937). North Carolina's Chief of Fire Control, W.C. McCormick, contributed "Where Are We in Forest Education?" to American Forests in 1937. George B. Shivery, Extension Forester for Tennessee, produced six pamphlets for the Tennessee Agricultural Service between 1931 and 1937 on general farm forestry, 4-H forestry, fuelwood, and uses for wood and nuts from black walnut trees. Likewise, Assistant State Forester C.I. Peterson wrote a Tennessee Division of Forestry circular entitled "Forestry for Farmers." The South Carolina Extension Service had not successfully developed a forestry program, so the S.C. Commission of Forestry handled woodland management and farm forestry. The S.C. Commission of Forestry published pamphlets on tree planting, pulpwood, and vocational agriculture. Similar writings on farm forestry were published in Virginia, including Extension Forester Wilbur O'Byrne's bulletins for VPI and his article "Farm Forestry Profits in Virginia," Journal of Forestry (1930). O'Byrne outlined the needs of farm forestry in Virginia, but they applied equally well to the entire region: (1) increase profits of farm woodlands, (2) create stable markets for farm woodland products, and (3) revise land tax laws to separate the value of growing forests from that of the land for tax purposes. All three components were long-term goals of forestry, both for the welfare of farmers and to encourage conservation. Attention to the subject of farm woodlands extended even to the Virginia General Assembly. Julian Ashby Burruss submitted a report on the condition of farmers in Virginia to the General Assembly in 1931, including data on woodlands.117 Attention to the problems of farm woodlands within the SAF nationally was also evident in the pages of the Journal of Forestry. Articles such as "The New Approach in Extension Forestry" (1932) by William Kinsey Williams, Jr. (USDA Forest Service Extension Service), by Charles Edward Behre (Director, Northeastern Forest Experiment Station) "The Place of Forestry in the New Agricultural Extension Programs" (1936), and Parker O. Anderson's "Farm Forestry in the Agricultural Conservation Program" (1938) along with numerous small items and notes recorded foresters' concern. In "The New Approach in Extension Forestry," W.K. Williams addressed the need for extension foresters to adjust their recommendations to changing economic conditions. One example given by Williams credited an extension forester in North Carolina with surveying the condition of North Carolina's farm woodlands to determine the most viable source of revenue for farmers. At the time, markets were depressed for pulpwood and sawlogs, but this forester found that North Carolina farm woodlands had more than 50 million cords of wood suitable for fuel. Moreover, removing this wood would provide a beneficial thinning for 12 million acres of previously unmanaged woodlands. Circulars were sent out to industries, county agents, school superintendents, and other agencies stating "North Carolina citizens can increase the circulating wealth of the state by creating a market for this great amount of fuel." 72
In an example from Virginia, Williams commended the state extension forester's wisdom in advising against the custom of extensive cutting during periods of depressed crop prices. According to Williams, Virginia's extension forester stated, "The important point has been to discourage cutting for an already glutted market. My position has been, cut it if you can sell it without too much sacrifice, but sell it before you cut it." Foresters connected with agricultural extension work gave market conditions for farm woodland products close scrutiny. As a result, they were able to advise farmers regarding markets and prices for different products, and recommend whether farmers would be better off cutting for crossties, cutting for pulpwood, or leaving trees until they could be sold as sawlogs. R.W. Graeber's bulletin for North Carolina farmers "Pulpwood as a Cash Crop" included information on how to market pulpwood, the customary arrangements for sales of pulpwood, and the costs of cutting and marketing pulpwood, along with technical information on growing and harvesting. William K. Williams, Jr. (USDA Extension Service Forester, Washington, DC) reviewed Graeber's circular on pulpwood for the Journal of Forestry, saying it had "an appeal which should cause the owner of woodlands to make further inquiry.�118 Although publications were an effective way of disseminating information, extension foresters made their biggest impact with face-to-face communication. In North Carolina, the number of farmers assisted in planting trees by county extension agents rose from 3 in 1926 to 1,263 in 1937. Farmers assisted with forest management rose from 139 to 2,860 during the same period. In addition, extension agents (l) helped 4-H club members with forestry projects, (2) gave demonstrations of forest management and planting, (3) gave radio talks on forestry, and (4) encouraged articles in newspapers on forestry. Although South Carolina did not have foresters working with the agricultural extension agents, the South Carolina State Commission of Forestry's Forest Management Branch also examined privately-owned woodlands and gave advice to landowners, including farmers on the management of their woodlots. Foresters with the Public Relations Branch gave lectures and radio talks, wrote news releases, developed fair exhibits, and distributed forestry literature. In Tennessee, the Agricultural Extension Service began formal forestry work in 1926. Previously, county agricultural agents, in cooperation with State Forester R.S. Maddox, had promoted planting black locust and other vegetation to reclaim gullied lands, especially in western Tennessee. After George B. Shivery was appointed Extension Forester in 1926, Tennessee also began a program of demonstrations, 4-H Club activities, as well as advice and assistance to individual farmers. Furthermore, Shivery maintained close contact with the TVA and the SCS. Just as in North Carolina, Tennessee's county agents increased their farm forestry activities during the Depression. Between 1926 and 1937, Tennessee county extension agents increased the number of tree planting demonstrations from 21 on 42 acres to 962 on 3154 acres in 1936. In 1937, tree planting demonstrations rose to 6558 on 3324 acres due to the initiation of erosion control work by the CCC. Woodland management assistance rose from 44 farms to a high of 371 farms in 1933, and 99 in 1937. Woodland improvements were made on 75 farms in 1926, 202 in 1929, but on only 23 in 1930 when the stock market crash caused government cutbacks. The beginning of the New Deal resulted in the expansion of state-assisted woodland improvements from 46 in 1932 and 1933 to a high of 914 in 1936. Utilization and marketing assistance began in Tennessee during 1933 with 20 cases in three counties. By 1937, extension agents were assisting 1291 farmers in 52 counties. Extension work in fire control began in 1934 on 635 farms in 17 counties. By 1937, county agents were assisting 4705 farms in 41 counties. The passage of the Norris-Doxey Cooperative Farm Forestry Act, also in 1937, began further expansion of federal-state cooperation in farm forestry. The act authorized $2.5 million annually, administered by the SCS and the USDA Forest Service, until 1942 when all Norris-Doxey Act programs were transferred to the SCS. Resolutions at APSAF meetings in 1939 and 1940 supported the NorrisDoxey Act. In 1939, the APSAF "strongly urged" full appropriation of funds authorized by the act. In 1940, Section members attending the annual meeting pledged the support and cooperation of the APSAF with the NorrisDoxey Farm Forestry Program, and pressed the states within APSAF's territory to start the program "without delay." Additionally, the 1940 annual meeting in Asheville included a presentation by Soil Conservation Service forester H.M. Sebring on "Developments in the Farm Forestry Program of the USDA" under the Norris-Doxey Act.119 73
Forestry instruction within high school vocational agriculture programs complemented forestry extension work in the region. The SAF and other forestry associations showed consistent concern that teachers at vocational agricultural high schools be able to teach farm forestry. However, the SAF committee on farm forestry education reported in 1939 that only one fourth of the county agents and vocational agriculture teachers surveyed had taken a forestry course. Only half of these considered the course they had taken to be satisfactory. South Carolina addressed this problem with a Vocational Agricultural Forestry Project, begun in 1931 after the disbanding of the Southern Forestry Educational Project's Dixie Crusaders. South Carolina's vocational forestry program was carried on cooperatively by the State Commission of Forestry and the State Department of Public Instruction under the Smith-Hughes Act. Each cooperating school maintained a school forest for demonstration and practical training. Students were required to conduct at least one of the following home projects: (l) collecting forest tree seeds and raising seedlings, (2) establishing a forest tree plantation, (3) constructing fire breaks around the woodlands on their own farms, or (4) making a thinning and improvement cutting in a forest stand. The State Commission of Forestry published the manual Forestry for Vocational Agricultural Schools for use as a text and worked with vocational teachers in lesson planning, selecting demonstration plots, devising forestry work plans, and on evaluating students' work. [Ten Lessons booklet by J. Walter Myers, Jr.] Participating schools varied from 35 to 53 between 1932 and 1937, with between 277 and 1103 students taking forestry courses. Over 2000 home forestry projects resulted from the program during these years, as well as nearly 300 adult forestry projects, and almost 9000 people visited South Carolina's school projects and demonstration forests. By the 1940s, South Carolina had also developed forestry lessons for grade schools. Virginia's foresters, who rejoined the Appalachian Section in 1946, had been working along similar lines and had developed a state-wide vocational forestry program by the 1940s. The Virginia program was the result of cooperative efforts by the Virginia State Board of Education, the Virginia State Forester, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Virginia's forest industries.120 South Carolina's program probably inspired N.C. Assistant State Forester Frederick H. Claridge to write Forestry Lessons for Vocational Agriculture in High Schools in 1932, but no state-wide program was established in North Carolina. In 1945, the North Carolina General Assembly finally authorized the establishment of school forests, limited to twenty acres. Such forests could be acquired by gift, purchase, or through a lease of at least twenty years. J.S. Holmes responded to the General Assembly's action with Practical Forest Management in Vocational Agriculture Schools," published in 1946. In this circular, Holmes set out a short course in farm forestry. The general principles and objectives were (l) forests of North Carolina and local woodlands, (2) identification and uses of tree species, (3) land and timber measurement, (4) marketing and manufacturing, (5) reforestation, (6) tree marking and thinning, (7) forest fire control and fire control tools, and (8) forest insects and diseases. Although no forestry course was mandated by North Carolina law during the 1930s, some local school boards and teachers fostered forestry instruction within vocational high school curricula. Stephen Boyce was first introduced to forestry around 1937 through a high school program in Anson County, North Carolina, which was particularly well funded. Local residents, mostly businessmen and professionals, donated money to the county school system to establish training courses for high school students. As a result, Anson County schools had courses in home economics, mechanical repairs, blacksmithing, woodworking, and agriculture.121 Anson County's vocational agriculture instructors taught a comprehensive list of topics. The increasing availability of chemical fertilizers made their proper use an important subject. Maintaining soil 74
productivity by reducing erosion was addressed, and students were taught to construct contoured terraces in fields using two mules and a turn plow. Students also learned to lay out and construct ponds to provide water for livestock, further reduce runoff and erosion, and to provide water for firefighting. Forestry was taught as well, and for similar reasons. Not many farmers could afford to use chemical fertilizers and lime to keep crop land productive. Without chemicals, farmers needed to leave land fallow for long periods, thereby allowing the soil to recover nitrogen and organic material. Land in Anson County was usually cleared and planted in cotton for ten to fifteen years, then retired to grow loblolly pine. Farmers collected pine straw for livestock bedding, then spread it on fields to improve soil fertility. Anson County's vocational agriculture teachers sought to improve this system by teaching students to plant pine seedlings rather than waiting for retired crop land to reforest naturally. Accelerating reforestation through tree planting hastened the recovery of soil fertility, reduced erosion on fallow land, and increased the availability of forest resources for farm use and for sale. Stephen Boyce remembered his vocational agriculture teachers as well-educated and with a strong interest in forestry (one later became an extension forester at N.C. State College). Their high school forestry lessons included how to gather seeds from pine cones, and how to grow pine seedlings in a garden. Students were trained to replant seedlings in retired fields using a plowed furrow as a planting trench and a side harrow to close the trenches. This method was successful, but farmers accustomed to planting row crops often spaced pine seedlings one to two feet apart. During his graduate school work in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Boyce revisited sites planted this way and found them still growing well, although very tightly spaced. Boyce's experience on his family's farm is a good example of farming conditions in the 1930s. Farm prices were so 1ow during the middle to late 1930s that Boyce experimented with planting trees on cropland that was not exhausted as well as on fallow fields. With the help of his vocational agriculture teacher, this endeavor was a success. While the highest price available for ginned and baled cotton at the railroad siding was 9 cents a pound, and the average was 7 to 8 cents, pulpwood on the stump brought $1.24 to $1.28 a cord. Moreover, this was an increase from $1.00 a cord in 1931, while crop prices had been declining. Because of the difficulty of surviving on low crop prices, Boyce's father sold his mules and farming equipment in 1939 and reduced the number of tenant families on his property from six to two. The main product of the farm then shifted from cotton to pulpwood. The movement of farmers, especially tenant farmers, off the land was a common response to economic difficulties around the South during the 1930s and 1940s. Ultimately, the economic difficulties of farming led to the movement of people from farms and rural areas into cities and industrial employment. The economic conditions of the Depression were particularly hard on tenant farmers, who paid rent or shares out of their harvest. Some landowners tried to help their tenants survive by sharing New Deal subsidy payments with them, keeping honest accounts, and even forgiving debts when times were particularly bad. Stephen Boyce's father plowed and planted a large vegetable garden every year for the use of anyone who needed food. Other landowners, however, responded to economic difficulties by trying to increase their share of tenants' output. Fraud and usury were common. Other landlords were just as bad off as their tenants and hired help, and all worked, lived, and sometimes starved alongside one another as neighbors. Regardless of the particular situation, most farmers could not survive on farming alone. During the 1930s, the population of the Carolinas and Virginia joined in the post-World War I "Great Migration" of people from the rural South to cities in the South, Mid-West, and Northeast. Those who remained on the farm were also transformed, both as old farmland returned to forest and as industry expanded across the South. In southern counties surrounding small industrial cities, over 13 percent of farmers spent at least one third of their time working off the farm by 1940. The forest industry was one of the industries that provided employment for farm families. Areas affected by industrial employment expanded together with paved state highway systems, paralleled by the expansion of automobile ownership. Farmers who remained in business generally owned their own land, farmed on higher quality farmland, and were not solely dependent on cotton. As the cotton boll weevil destroyed the South's cotton economy, farm survival depended on alternative crops, livestock raising, dairy farming, and forestry. Peach
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orchards replaced cotton fields in many areas of South Carolina and Georgia, expanding another type of silviculture in the region. In spite of new crops and supplemental employment, however, the rural population began a sharp decline in the 1930s. In 1920, the population of the Carolinas was over 80 percent rural. By 1940, North Carolina's population was less than 73 percent rural and South Carolina's was 75.5 percent rural. Some former tenant farmers became migrant farm workers rather than industrial workers. The migrant farm labor system, stretching from Florida to Maine, was well-established by 1928 and initially involved mostly southern African Americans who traveled and worked as families. These workers also took advantage of work available in the forests, particularly in the South during the winter. 122
Chapter 6 Industrial Development and the Coming of World War II Prospects, Proposals, and Promotions An important response to long-term agricultural depression in the South was the effort to develop new industries and expand old ones. One of the best examples of this effort and its results is the southern pulp and paper industry. Charles Holmes Herty, former associate member of the APSAF, was the best-known booster of the southern pulp and paper industry. He was joined and supported by many others, and their combined efforts successfully promoted the industry’s expansion in the South. Herty worked as a lobbyist during the 1920s for various industries connected to the field of chemistry. Starting in 1928, Herty also worked as an industrial consultant. Moreover, the Herty Foundation in Savannah, Georgia publicized the production of non-kraft papers from southern pine throughout the 1930s. From 1932 until 1938, Herty’s Savannah Pulp and Paper Laboratory conducted systematic research on the manufacture of white paper from southern pine, augmenting earlier work by the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin
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and research in private industry. The Savannah Laboratory identified blue sapstain as a major problem for production of pulp from southern pines, as infected wood produced a low quality gray pulp. Research chemists in Savannah also determined that previously turpentined trees produced good pulp and paper, and that newsprint made from southern pine pulp was much stronger than newsprint made with spruce. Rayon manufactured from pine wood pulp joined paper on the laboratory’s agenda in 1934, along with book and bond paper pulps.123 Like Herty, APSAF members had long been a part of efforts to expand industry in their region. The South Carolina Commission of Forestry cooperated with the USDA Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory in 1931 to produce the report Possibilities of Pulp and Paper Making in South Carolina. To demonstrate the suitability of southern pines, the report was printed on white paper made from slash pine grown in South Carolina. The text promoted expansion of the southern pulp and paper industry from kraft into newsprint, stressing the state’s many advantages: a long growing season, inexpensive raw materials and power, cheap labor, good transportation facilities, and forestry assistance provided by state agencies. Furthermore, the report recommended that South Carolina’s government make appropriate surveys of resources and publish them to encourage the development of industry. The report also advocated further development of the southern kraft industry. Addressing concerns that expansion of the kraft industry would lead to over-production, the report’s author argued that better marketing and future economic growth would increase demand enough to allow expansion of kraft production in the South. Benefits to South Carolina were listed as increased revenue for farmers and for the state, and relief of unemployment. The author’s conviction may have reflected hope more than evidence, but there were also signs that paper industry expansion was feasible in the region. According to the report, three companies owned land in the state in 1931, proving the industrial value of South Carolina woodlands. In support of a southern newsprint industry, the report quoted Charles Herty briefly and C.E. Curran, head of the USDA Forest Service Forest Product Laboratory’s Pulp and Paper Section, at great length. Both men were authorities on the suitability of slash pine and other southern pine species for pulp and paper manufacturing; Curran and M.W. Bray had just published an article in the Paper Trade Journal entitled “White Paper from Southern Pine.” APSAF members repeated the call for development throughout the 1930s. C. Edward Behre contributed an article, “The Part the South May Play in Meeting National Newsprint Requirements,” to the Journal of Forestry in 1936. N.D. Canterbury, Assistant South Carolina State Forester in charge of forest management and a future Appalachian Section chairman, presented “Development in the Pulpwood Situation in the South” to the 1938 APSAF meeting in Spartanburg. His paper was published in the Journal of Forestry later that year.124
Preparation, Apprehension, Expansion, and Response Forestry activities besides promotional publications helped lay the foundations for industrial expansion in the APSAF territory. Forestry research played an equal or greater role in attracting pulp and paper companies’ interest. Both the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station and the Southern Forest Experiment Station conducted research on nursery practices and operations that made tree-planting practical. In addition, the availability of nitrogen fertilizers and new understanding of the need to control soil pH values and the need to raise phosphorus levels improved the outlook for rapid reforestation in the South. Moreover, the U.S. Forest Service’s forest survey began to provide good information on forest area, stocking, and growth rates in the 1930s. By 1944, all of the results of the first survey had been published with statistics geared to the needs of sawmills and pulp mills alike. Around the same time, long term study plots were established to provide data on forest management and growth over a period of many years. In the late 1930s, Appalachian Forest Experiment Station forester Leon S. Minckler established eight plantations on abandoned and eroded farm land on the Norris Lake watershed in eastern Tennessee. The plantations included 700 study plots and 167 acres. In 1941, Minckler made his first report on the relationship between soil-site characteristics and forest plantation success. He presented this information at the January 31-February 1, 1941 APSAF meeting in Asheville and published articles in the Journal of Forestry and the Soil Science Society of America Proceedings. A third article appeared in the Journal of Forestry in 1943, followed by a USDA Farmer’s 77
Bulletin co-written with A.G. Chapman in 1948, “Tree Planting in the Central, Piedmont, and Southern Appalachian Regions.” Together with forest survey results, Minckler’s research established the potential for a continuous supply of pulpwood from southern forest lands. 125 In addition to helping to lay the groundwork for industry’s growth, members of the Appalachian Section took note and responded to the effect industrial growth had on forestry and foresters in their region. A Guide to Forestry Activities in North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee was first proposed by the Committee on Section Activities in 1935 as a loose-leaf, stenciled overview of forestry in the Southern Appalachians. It was published in 1939 under the guidance of editor-in-chief William Maugham, with particular help from Fred H. Claridge, Earl H. Frothingham, Robert W. Graeber, N.E. Hawes (silviculturalist with the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station), Ralph M. Nelson, and E.V. Roberts (division chief of the Forest Survey for the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station). In its final form, the Guide was published as a hardbound book of 287 pages, including a 23-page section on private forestry. This section included information about forestry on three private estates (Biltmore, the Burrough Plantation or White Estate, and the Goodwin Plantation in Carthage, N.C.), and forestry activities on an estate held by the charitable Log Cabin Association, Inc. in Sylva, N.C. The private forestry section of the Guide also reported on the Farmers Federation, a farmers’ cooperative in western North Carolina that encouraged its members to practice farm forestry. None of these operations employed foresters at the time. In addition, the section on private forestry reported on the state of industrial forestry in the Carolinas and Tennessee.126 Two railroads were featured in the Guide for their forestry activities within the APSAF territory. A third, Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, employed APSAF member Paul W. Wright after 1946. Railroads had been closely related to the lumber industry since the first railroads were constructed in the 1800s.
The good ol’ days when everything was simpler!
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Fifteen percent of the total freight tonnage on southern railroads during 1926 and 1928 had been forest products. The two railroads featured in the APSAF Guide had even higher proportions of forest products. Seaboard Air Line Railroad’s freight tonnage was 18 percent forest products and the Southern Railway System’s was 21 percent. The freight of smaller railroads in lumber producing areas was as much as 80 percent forest products by weight. During the same period, however, southern railroads began to lose money due to a loss of business. Promoting forestry, and thus the security of the forest industries, was one way railroads could safeguard freight traffic on their lines. The program of the SAF’s annual meeting in New Orleans during December 1931 included a presentation on the role of forest products in generating revenue for railroads given by a railroad business executive. Within the APSAF territory, the Seaboard Air Line Railway established a forestry department in the 1930s in cooperation with state agencies and the USDA Forest Service. Subsequently, the railway hired Albert E. Wackerman in 1937 “as industrial forester to initiate and develop constructive activities” in forestry. John E. Mausteller also began work for Seaboard Railway in 1937, as a tie and timber agent in the Norfolk, Virginia area. Robert N. Hoskins started his long career with Seaboard in 1945, likewise in Norfolk. In 1949, he contributed the chapter “Railroads and Trees” to the Yearbook of Agriculture: Trees. By 1968, Hoskins was assistant vice president for forestry and special projects for Seaboard Railway and the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company. Seaboard’s forestry activities included distributing forestry information to landowners, protecting railroad right of ways from fires, establishing demonstration forests, cooperating with public and private agencies, and encouraging “wood-using plants to assume the responsibility of forest ownership and management instead of following a hand-to-mouth timber buying policy.” In addition SCL/L&N (now CSX) held a Forestry Field Day in a different state each year for tree farmers, politicians and business executives that featured the latest developments in forestry and forest products. The railroad also sponsored the FFA Individual Forestry Awards program in high schools across seven southern states that recognized outstanding achievements in hands-on forestry by FFA members, capped off by an all expense paid trip for each state winner to the National FFA Convention. The Southern Railway System had its own forestry program, begun in 1925, which employed Roland Turner as a “general forestry agent” in Dorchester, South Carolina. Woodrow Wilson Greene began working for the railway in 1947 as a tie and timber inspector. From 1949 until 1964, Greene served as Southern Railway’s Chief Ranger in Dorchester, and after 1964 became the company’s General Forestry Agent. Turner, followed by Greene, was responsible for 11,043 acres in Dorchester County, S.C. Southern Railway operated the property as a demonstration forest to encourage landowners in the region to grow pine trees for profit. The demonstration forest was established on a tract that the railroad had purchased during the nineteenth century to provide fuel for wood-burning locomotives, and included 667 acres of farmland. Fires lines were plowed around and through the tract, and pine seedlings were planted at a spacing of eight by eight feet, both on the formerly leased farmlands and in sparsely wooded areas. Most of the plantings were of slash pine, although Dorchester County had formerly been considered north of slash pine’s natural range. However, a survey of this tract during the late 1920s had discovered several stands of slash pine up to 25 inches in diameter. These trees were excluded from sales of timber and turpentine rights and reserved as natural specimens and as seed trees. Southern Railway’s subsequent management plan emphasized replacement of longleaf and loblolly pine with slash pine, reflecting the influence of the “daddy of slash pine” W.R. Mattoon. Southern Railway’s executives felt that slash pine was more valuable because of its high growth rate and utility for lumber and naval stores production. In addition, the low-intensity fires needed to keep longleaf pine healthy were not endorsed by most foresters at the time. The management plan promoted growth of sawtimber, with thinnings sold for poles and pulpwood; longleaf pines over 8 inches in diameter were worked for naval stores before cutting. The importance placed on regular economic returns derived from thinnings reinforced the perception of fire as destructive, since regular small fires thinned forests without providing salable products. 127 79
Despite Southern Railway’s emphasis on the production of sawtimber, the pulp and paper industry soon provided railroads with another important source of business. Union Bag and Paper Corporation began construction of its mill in Savannah, Georgia in 1935. After establishing successful operations during the 1920s and early 1930s in Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida, the Southern Kraft Division of the International Paper Company built a mill in 1937 on former Atlantic Coast Lumber Company lands near Georgetown, South Carolina. This International Paper mill was the largest in the world at that time. After maintaining a woodland purchase program in the Carolinas for a number of years, West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company (later Westvaco) erected a mill just north of Charleston, South Carolina during the late 1930s. Also during the late thirties, Riegel Paper Corporation constructed a mill at Acme, North Carolina (now Riegel, NC) south of Wilmington. The Guide listed six additional companies as obtaining wood supplies and practicing some type of forestry in the Carolinas and Tennessee during the late 1930s: Champion Paper and Fibre Company of Canton, NC, the Chesapeake-Camp Corporation of Franklin, VA, the Halifax Paper Company of Roanoke Rapids, NC (owned by Albemarle Paper Manufacturing Company of Richmond, VA), the Hummell-Ross Fibre Corporation of Hopewell, VA, The Mead Corporation (including the Harriman Company in Harriman, TN, Mead Corporation of Kingsport, TN, the Southern Extract Company of Knoxville, TN, and Sylva Paperboard in Sylva, NC), and the North Carolina Pulp and Paper Company of Plymouth, NC. Two other companies listed as operating in APSAF territory, Carolina Fibre in Hartsville, SC, and the Columbia Paper Company in Bristol, VA, made no report of their forestry policies in the Guide.128 As large-scale, permanent enterprises, pulp and paper companies were the first major employers of foresters in industry. None could afford to build heavily capitalized pulp and paper mills just to abandon them when supplies of pulpwood ran low. No lumber companies were featured in the Guide, or listed as employing foresters, or as practicing sustained yield forest management as of 1939. However, ten of twelve pulp and paper companies listed in the Guide as procuring wood within the Carolinas and eastern Tennessee were participating in the Southern Pulpwood Conservation Association, and nine of those companies employed foresters. For both economic and political reasons, the pulp and paper industry recognized the value of forestry more quickly than other sectors of the forest industries did. The Southern Pulpwood Conservation Association (SPCA) was organized in 1939 by members of the American Pulpwood Association (APA) in response to public criticism of the industry in the South. At least some of the alarm over the expansion of the pulp and paper industry in the South was attributable to lumber companies who feared competition from pulp and paper companies for forest resources. Conservationists and foresters were also concerned, however, by the industry’s instability and by the sudden increase in pulpwood cutting that followed the construction of pulp and paper mills. In North Carolina, the Board of Conservation and Development met to consider “the rapid development of the pulp industry in the past year or two in North Carolina and surrounding States.” It was during this meeting that Clarence Korstian suggested that interested agencies in the state needed to coordinate their efforts, “particularly in those communities that have recently been invaded by pulp and paper concerns.” During that 1938 meeting, the Board took a formal position “against the establishment of any additional pulp mills which would expect to draw their supplies from this State without definite assurance that their supplies can be assured on a sustained-yield basis.” In 1939, the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development published a bulletin on the condition of forests in North Carolina. The overview included a plea for increased funding of forestry and a fairly bleak estimation of private forestry practices in the state. On two million acres of industrial forest, 40 percent were judged as fair to good management. Cutting practices on the remaining 56 percent were believed to have measurably reduced the land’s productivity. The bulletin reported that North Carolina’s farm woodlands were split evenly between land under fair to good management and land that had been severely over cut. Frank Heyward, the first manager of the SPCA, was a former soils researcher at the USDA Forest Service Lake City, Florida station and then State Forester of Georgia. Heyward described the pulpwood cutting practices of the 1930s:
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For the most part, little or no thought was given to forest practices when cutting pulpwood. The main idea was to satisfy the gargantuan appetite of the big mills which ran 24 hours a day seven days a week. As a result many privately owned timber tracts were stripped as thoroughly of their second growth pines as had been the original virgin forests by steam skidders. There was an immediate outcry from the public, the press, and the public foresters. Was the South again to see its forests reduced to waste stump land? ii
According to Joseph E. McCaffrey, the problems faced by pulpwood producers were discussed at an American Pulpwood Association meeting in New York City during April, 1937. The Southern Division of the APA met in New Orleans the next month to discuss the issue further with representatives of industry, state forestry organizations, and the USDA Forest Service. In New Orleans, meeting attendees decided to form a new association in the South for the purpose of educating landowners in forestry. Thus, the SPCA joined the railroads in encouraging nonindustrial forest owners to practice conservation. Educational strategies consisted of distributing instructional pamphlets, conducting demonstrations, and requiring members to set a good example. Members of the newly formed SPCA adopted minimum cutting rules for their company lands and agreed not to purchase pulpwood from other landowners that had not been cut in compliance with the SPCA rules. SPCA rules encouraged sustained yield forestry as understood by foresters during the 1930s and 1940s. Standards included leaving seed trees when cutting, thinning forest stands at regular intervals, selective rather than clear-cutting, and replanting areas where natural regeneration was sparse. Frank Heyward remained general manager of the SPCA from 1939 until 1945, when Henry J. Malsberger left the Florida Forest Service to assume the post (APSAF member Howard J. Doyle became Area Forester for the SPCA in Sanford, NC around 1947). Henry Clepper credits Malsberger with producing an effective and well-respected organization with the financial backing of 26 pulp mill members by 1967. In 1968, the SPCA was renamed the Southern Forest Institute and Malsberger retired; he was succeeded by George E. Kelly.129 C.O. Brown and Joseph E. McCaffrey of International Paper, Charles Luke of West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company, Walter J. Damtoft of Champion Paper and Fibre Company, and Jim Allen of Union Bag and Paper Corporation, among others, were important promoters of the SPCA in its early years. Indeed, Damtoft presented a paper about the SPCA to the 1942 APSAF annual meeting in Asheville, NC. As might be expected, the companies most involved in founding the SPCA were also the most involved in applying forestry within their own operations. International Paper established its forestry department under J.E. McCaffrey in 1937. Emulating SPCA guidelines put forward in New Orleans, Union Bag and Paper Corporation presented its forestry program to a meeting of the Georgia Forestry Association in Athens, Georgia, also in May, 1937. Union Bag and Paper promised to adhere to a sustained-yield forestry policy on both its own lands and on other lands where the company purchased pulpwood. In addition to employing forestry staffs, pulp and paper companies in the Carolinas and eastern Tennessee reported specific forestry activities and policies to the APSAF Guide: Champion Pulp and Paper Company - public education, replanting (maintained a forest tree nursery), diameter cutting limits, fire protection (employed a company warden), cooperation with state forestry departments and fire protection associations. [Foresters: Walter J. Damtoft (1921+), and, not listed in the Guide: Edward C. Haff, Jr., (1940-1945), Donald D. Stephenson (1945+), Joseph Youorski (1945+), Theodore H. Davis, researcher, (1946+), Max M. Dillingham (1946+), James Ray Orr (1946+), Howard B. Frankenfield Jr. (1946+), James R. Orr in Edgefield, SC (1946+), Walter H. Hoffman (by 1947+), Austin A. Pruitt in Washington, GA (by 1947+)] Chesapeake-Camp Corporation - public education, replanting and leaving seed trees, aid to farmers with forestry problems, sustained yield management, cooperative fire protection. [Foresters: J.C. Shearin, James Campbell. Not listed in the Guide: Thomas B. Henderson, Jr.(1938-1940), Winslow L. Gooch (19321943), James H. Johnson (1940+)]
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International Paper - Southern Kraft Division-Georgetown, SC - compliance with SPCA rules, education of contractors on SPCA rules, cooperation with states for fire protection, selective cuttings, and future plans for tree planting.[Foresters: C.C. Shoptaw, William H. Utley (first employed in 1937), and William J. Bridges, Jr. and, although not listed in the Guide, Joseph E. McCaffrey (IP - Canada 1928 1929, IP Southern Division 1937+), Richard E. Huff (ca.1940), Thomas N. Busch (1941+), Herbert A. Thompson Jr. (1941+), Ralph L. Chastain (compassman, 1941-1942), Philip M. Drumheller (cruiser, 1941), John F. Heilman (employed from 1944?), Lawrence E. Howard (compassman-cruiser in 1942, then forester 1945+), Oscar G. Traczewitz (from 1941 to 1943, then 1946+), Elwin F. Leysath (1943), Callender F. Winslow (1943-1946, Maryland, then North Carolina Pulp and Paper, 1947+), John M. Wheeler (19441946), William D. Gash (1946+), Frederick F. Snell (1946+), Edward K. Tupacz (1946+), David Fortgang (by 1947+), Frederick C. Gragg, Georgetown, SC (by 1947+), Leo McDonald (by 1947+), Roger W. Wolcott (1947+)] The Mead Corporation - public education (no company-owned land). [Foresters: Karl A. Swenning, W.P. Bullock] North Carolina Pulp Company - sustained yield management, compliance with SPCA rules, cooperation with government agencies in fire protection, attempting to buy only lands where natural regeneration was occurring. [Foresters: Theodore W. Earle (1937-1945), Navarre T. Barron (1937-1939), Samuel A. Boutwell (1937-1942, then Gair Woodlands Corp., Savannah, GA, 1945+), George B. Curry (1939-1946). Others not listed in the Guide were: Edward K. Ach (wood procurement, North Carolina Pulp and Paper Company and Weyerhaeuser Co., Plymouth, NC, 1942-1968), Joseph W. Alfred (1941), Nicholas Denesuk (1942-1947+), Camman Henry Niederhof (1944+), Paul M. Muller (1945+), Harold A. Nelson (1946+), Oscar W. Nettles (by 1947+), Edgar K. Pitman in Camden, SC (by 1947+), K.S. Trowbridge (by 1947+), Nelson M. White (by 1947+)] Riegel Paper Corporation - replanting, complete aerial mosaic made of area, formation of fire protection association, independent fire protection and road construction. [Foresters: E.A. Sterling, Frank A. Elliott (Johns-Manville Corp., Jarratt, VA, 1937-1938, Riegel Paper Corp., Bolton, NC, 1938-1941, JohnsManville Corp., Jarratt, VA, 1946+). Not listed in the Guide: James B. Lattay (1941-1942 and 1944+)] Union Bag and Paper Corporation - replanting (maintained a tree nursery), fire protection (cooperation with government agencies and private associations, purchased tractors, plows and other equipment, fire breaks, trails, and towers constructed with help of CCC), compliance with SPCA rules, sustained yield management, thinnings (low-quality trees used for pulpwood, better trees sold for pole and other uses). [Foresters (Savannah): M.S. Kahler, Arthur Lincoln, H.M. Shirley, Charles Cannon, Charles Hooper, John L. Butler. Others not listed in the Guide were Basil E. Allen (1946+), Howard J. Doyle (1944), Eric H. Ericson, Jr. (1941-1943), John E. Ford (1942-1945), Hilary R. Oliver (timber marker, 1942, then Fairfield Forest Products, Newberry, SC, 1944+), Willard P. Verduin (cruiser, 1943, then forester for Westvaco, 1944+), and John A. Vousden (forester, Savannah, GA, 1942-1947)]. During 1941, Duke graduate student and research assistant Eric H. Ericson, Jr. worked jointly for Duke University and Union Bag and Paper Company in Savannah, GA. West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company - public education (including fire prevention), compliance with SPCA rules, replanting where natural reproduction unsatisfactory, sustained yield management, salvage cuttings with best use of timber, cooperation with government agencies in fire protection (constructed fire breaks, roads, towers, and telephone lines, purchased fire-fighting equipment, patrolled woods). [Foresters: S.C. Sweeny, Russell E. Haynes (1927+), Willard A. Sexton (1937+), Lefflette T. Easley (1924+), Delanson Y. Lenhart (1937+). Foresters not listed in the Guide: Herman Work (Pennsylvania and Virginia, 1919+), Siftley B. Blanton (compassman, Wilmington, NC, 1929-1932), William L. Foster, Wilmington, NC, 1940-1944, Ted M. Jollay (pole-cutting overseer, 1940-1941), Harvey C. Rettberg 82
(ranger, Georgetown, 1940-1943), George F. Walker (field assistant for Donald R. Brewster, Savannah, GA, 1940-1941, then forester for Westvaco, Charleston, SC, 1941-1942 and 1945+), Frank A. Santopolo (1942), Millard B. Ferguson (1943+), Edward A. McAllister (1944-1946), John T, Robinson, Jr. (1945+), David P. Snavely (1946+), Myron S. Myers (by 1947+)] Halifax Paper Company, Inc. - did not employ a forester in 1939, but reported compliance with SPCA rules and future reforestation plans. In 1946, the Halifax Paper Company hired Vern H. Cutler as Wood Procurement Representative and Thomas G. Harris as forester. John E. Mausteller, a tie and timber agent for Seaboard Air Line Railway in Norfolk, VA from 1937 to 1945, also began work for Halifax Paper Company as a forester that year.130 In his 1944 study of private forestry, Clarence F. Korstian reported that 14 technically trained foresters were employed by industry in Virginia by 1941. Employers included lumber, pulp, and coal companies who hired foresters for forest management, timber and land acquisition, and forest operations. Many other APSAF members worked as industrial foresters by the end of World War II. In addition to those already mentioned, members employed by industry within the present-day boundaries of the APSAF included:131 Frank H. Aldrich (Gair Woodlands Corp., Allendale, SC, 1945+) Thomas W. Alexander (James D. Lacey and Co., Asheville, NC, 1927-1932) George A. Anderson (cruiser, D.R. Brewster Co., Savannah, GA, 1940-1941, and forester, Brunswick Pulp and Paper Co., Brunswick, GA, 1945+) Carlton J. Blades (Duke Power Co., Charlotte, NC, 1939-58) Marlin H. Bruner (E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co., Clemson, SC, 1942+) Harry B. Chalfant, Jr. (Flack-Jones Lumber Co., Ridgeville, SC, 1945+) Daniel E. Collins (Veneer Products, Inc., General Plywood Corp., Tarboro, NC, 1945-1946, then General Plywood Corp., Savannah, GA, 1946+) Joseph L. Conrad Jr. (Lightsey Brothers Lumber, Co., Hampton, SC, 1945+) Max M. Dillingham (consultant, Asheville, NC, 1940-1941, and W.J. Parks, Co., Asheville, NC, 1941-42) William J. Ellis (Johns-Manville Products Corp., Jarratt, VA, (by 1947+) Edward P. Farrand (Virginia-Maryland Pulpwood Procurement Representative, Armstrong Forest Co. Johnsonburg, PA - Lynchburg, VA, 1945+) Norbert B. Goebel (D.R. Brewster Co., Savannah, GA, 1940-1944) John W. Griffith (United States Gypsum Co., Altavista, VA, 1946+) Phillip A. Griffiths (self-employed private forester, Raleigh, NC, 1938-1939) Alvin B. Hafer (McNair Investment Co., Laurinburg, NC, 1945+) Harry C. Haines (Duke Power Co., Great Falls, SC, 1940-1942, and 1945+) Giles Gregory Hall (Alderman Lumber Co., Alcolu, SC, 1937-1938, and Hummell-Ross Fibre Co., Hopewell, VA, 1943-1944) Clement A. Halupka (Continental Can Co., Hopewell, VA, 1947+) William L. Hardin (Haws-Hardin Lumber Co., Walterboro, SC, 1946+) Robert C. Heller (Duke Power Co., 1940) Herman M. Hermelink (Duke Power Co., Charlotte, NC, 1940-1941) William B. Hill, Jr. (Gair Woodlands Corp., Savannah, GA, 1941+) James L. Huff (Blades Lumber Co., Elizabeth City, NC, 1938-1941) Gorham Eddie Jackson (Hines Brothers Lumber Co., Kinston, NC, 1944-1945 and J. Herbert Bate Co., 1945-1946) Stuart G. Keedwell (Johns-Manville Products Corp., Jarrett, VA, 1937-1941 and the Virginia Pine Lumber Co., Stony Creek, VA, 1941-1942) Luitpold W. Kempf (Brunswick Pulp and Paper Co., Brunswick, GA, 1940) Robert F. Knoth (various 1937-1941, including J.T. Kollock, Inc., Charleston, SC and D.R. Brewster Co., Savannah, GA, then Robert F. Knoth and Co., Charleston, SC) 83
Kenneth C. Korstian (Duke Power Co., Charlotte, NC, 1941-1946) Christian G. Kuehlke Jr. (Roanoke Railroad and Lumber Co., Washington, NC) Harrison F. Lathrop (Poinsett Lumber and Manufacturing Co., Pickens, SC, 1941-1944) Ralph K. Lee (Lightsey Brothers Lumber Co., 1945+) Robert B. Milne (Johns-Manville Products Corp., Jarrett, VA, 1937-1941) Leland F. Myers (Myers Lumber Co., Purcellville, VA, 1945+) George A. Myles (Myles Lumber Co., Goshen, VA, 1945+) Orion J. Peevy (consulting forester, Donald R. Brewster Co., SC and GA, 1941-1943) James A. Pippin (consulting forester, Washington, NC, 1935-1945) John G. Plowden (Gair Woodlands, Greenwood, SC, 1946+) Robert E. Reed (Southern Railway Co., Washington, DC, 1941-1944) Harvey C. Rettberg (self-employed, 1930-1940, West Virginia Pulp and Paper Co., Georgetown, SC, 19401943, and Poinsett Lumber and Manufacturing Co., Pickens, SC, 1943+) Verne Rhoades (Self-employed timber cruiser and retail lumber, Asheville, NC, 1907-1910) Madison M. Riley (consulting forester, Raleigh, NC, 1942-1946 and Roanoke Railroad and Lumber, Co., Washington, NC, 1946) Horace E. Ruark (Haws-Hardin Lumber Co., Walterboro, SC, 1946+) Amasa P. Russell (log scaler/surveyor, Santee River Hardwood Co., St. Stephen, SC, 1929-1934, cruiser, Korn Industries, Inc., Sumter, SC, 1937-40; self-employed commercial forester, Sumter, 1940+) Francis X. Schmidley (pre-WW II military service- Plywood Plastics Corp., Hampton, SC, post-war Southeastern Industries, Inc., Conway, SC) Seymour I. Somberg (Lane Lumber Co., Lane, SC, 1946+) William W. Spain (Poinsett Lumber and Manufacturing Co., 1940-1944, partner in Miller-Spain Co., 19441946) Carl H. Stelling (Hardwood Lumber Co., Augusta, GA, 1946+) Edward Stuart Jr. (consultant, Simmons and Stuart Co., Burgess Store, VA, 1946+) Milton E. Trimm (Johns-Manville Products Corp., Jarratt, VA, 1937-1947) Roy L. Westerfield (Veneer Products, Inc., General Plywood Corp., Tarboro, NC, 1946, and Scotland Neck Lumber Co., Scotland Neck, NC, 1946+) J. Atwood Whitman (consultant, Sanford, NC, 1946+) Charles E. Williams (Johns-Manville Products Corp., Jarratt, VA, 1941-1945) Richard A. Wood (Appalachian Hardwood Company, Asheville, NC, 1946+) Howard S. Wright (Canal Wood Corp., Conway, SC, 1942-1943) William E. Wright (Appraiser and timber cruiser, self-employed, Savannah, GA, 1946+) Harold E. Young (Duke Power Co., Great Falls, SC, 1941) Of these 56 APSAF foresters, at least 29 worked for lumber or plywood companies, 18 worked for paper, pulp, and fiber companies, eight were consulting foresters, and four worked in their own or their family’s businesses. Obviously, private forestry underwent tremendous growth between the mid-1930s and the late 1940s. In response to this growth in the forest industries and industrial forestry, the APSAF appointed a Committee on Private Forestry in 1939 to continue monitoring developments. Duke University professor and former industrial forester Albert E. Wackerman proposed the committee and served as its first chairman. Wackerman and Charles A. Gillett alternated as chairmen of the Committee on Private Forestry until 1943. Gillett had a good working relationship with companies such as International Paper from his days as extension forester and as the first State Forester in Arkansas. Gillett had also published an article on “The Cooperative Approach in Forestry” in the Journal of Forestry in 1939 advocating a cooperative rather than a regulatory approach to private forestry. In 1945, he became chief forester for American Forest Products Industries, Inc. and thereby integrally involved with the fledgling tree farm program. The tree farm program began in western Washington during 1941 when Weyerhaeuser designated 84
a tract of company-owned land the “Clemmons Tree Farm.” Weyerhaeuser intended to encourage people who used the land for recreation to cooperate in fire prevention programs. The publicity generated by Weyerhaeuser’s tree farm led forest industry associations to establish the West Coast Tree Farm Program and the American Tree Farm System in late 1941. By the following spring, the Tree Farm concept had reached the South. Alabama’s state chamber of commerce-sponsored program certified its first tree farm on April 4, and the Arkansas Forestry Commission certified that state’s first tree farm on June 6. The careers of both these foresters suggest that the APSAF Committee on Private Forestry was generally sympathetic to the forestry efforts of industry. In 1943, William J. Barker replaced Wackerman and Gillett as chairman. Barker was with the North Carolina Extension Service from 1939 to 1942 and afterwards with the Clemson College Extension Service. After making verbal reports to APSAF meetings for the first four years, the Committee on Private Forestry made its first written report at the 1944 winter meeting, then expanded the report at the 1945 winter meeting. Due to a favorable response, the committee condensed and updated its report for publication later that year. In addition to W.J. Barker, at least six other APSAF members worked on the report: (1) Edward C. Haff, a private forester then with Champion Paper and Fibre Company in Canton, NC, (2) Roger D. Huff, a management forester with the USDA Forest Service attached to the State Forester’s Office in Raleigh, N.C., (3) Locke Craig, a resident of Camden, S.C., (4) James W. Cruikshank, Forest Economist with the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station in Asheville, N.C., (5) Thomas Lotti, Associate Forester for flood control surveys, 1939-1941, then forest economist 1941-1945 with the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station, and (6) William E. Cooper, the 1945 chairman of the Committee on Private Forestry, a forester with the SCS in South Carolina from 1938 to 1941, and with the Clemson College Extension Service from 1941 to 1942. Cooper became Assistant State Forester for South Carolina in 1942, and Executive Director of the not-for-profit Virginia Forests, Inc. in 1946. [The name was later changed to Virginia Forestry Association.] Committee members represented an appropriate cross-section of foresters connected to private forestry during the late 1930s and the 1940s. The growth of the southern pulp and paper industry was slow, but steady. Less than 25,000 cords of pulpwood were processed in South Carolina during 1936, although 48,600 cords were produced, including pulpwood shipped to other states. The next year, South Carolina produced 393,700 cords of pulpwood and, in 1939, produced 550,600. By the late 1930s, the Georgetown mill of International Paper’s Southern Kraft Corporation alone had a maximum capacity of 325,000 cords per year. Union Bag and Paper Corporation of Savannah, Georgia estimated it obtained approximately 80,000 cords from South Carolina, and West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company’s North Charleston liner board mill used 120,000 cords. These plants accounted for as much as 525,000 cords, or over 95 percent, of South Carolina’s 1939 production. Moreover, International Paper’s Southern Kraft Corporation and West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company had the combined capacity to handle at least 80 percent of the pulpwood processed in South Carolina during 1939—491,000 cords. In North Carolina, where several pulp and paper mills had been operating for decades, the pulpwood cut was 239,500 in 1937. Of this, approximately 75 percent was processed in North Carolina. In the next few years, North Carolina’s pulpwood cut climbed steadily; in 1938 the cut was 372,100 cords, and in 1939 it was 425,500 cords. The amount of pulpwood processed in North Carolina— 406,000 cords in 1938, and 411,000 in 1939, nearly matched the total cut for those two years. Plainly, the possibilities for pulp and paper production in the South were firmly established. In particular, the southern kraft paper industry was expanding; the first sulphite mill for newsprint in the Southern states began production at Herty, Texas in 1939. By 1946, fourteen new kraft and sulphite mills had been constructed in the South, bringing the total number to fifty. Farmers in the vicinity of mills not only took advantage of newly available jobs, they took advantage of expanded markets for pulpwood by increasing the cut on their land. By 1940, 588,000 cords of pulpwood were processed in South Carolina out of a total cut of 670,300 cords. The effects of industrial growth were even more apparent in North Carolina, where 645,900 cords were cut and 638,000 were processed. Tennessee’s pulpwood production remained relatively low, reaching only 158,059 cords by 1949; Tennessee would not become a major source for pulpwood until 1954, when Bowaters Corporation built its plant near Calhoun, Tennessee. In contrast, Virginia’s pulpwood production was slightly higher than North Carolina’s: 686,500 cords 85
(51,743 thousand cubic feet) in 1940, according to USDA Forest Service estimates. Virginia’s 1940 pulpwood output was over four times its 1920 output of 167,000 cords. William A. Duerr’s estimates for pulpwood production in Virginia and North Carolina during 1940 were even higher, 837,600 and 732,700 cords respectively. World War II brought another sharp increase in pulpwood production, with highs in North Carolina of 796,100 cords for 1942 and in South Carolina of 974,800 cords for 1943 and 979,657 cords for 1946. The post-war period saw continued vigorous growth; North Carolina’s total pulpwood output was over 1.5 million cords by 1953. In 1956 Virginia’s cut was over 1.6 million cords, and South Carolina’s topped 1.8 million cords.132 ii
The History of Industrial Forestry in the South (University of Washington, College of Forestry, 1958) 38-39, as quoted by Henry Clepper in Professional Forestry in the United States (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1971) 249.
Chapter 7 The Expansion of Forestry and the Employment of Foresters The pulp and paper industry’s expansion in the South had an immediate impact on southern forestry and foresters. In 1921, Walter Damtoft had been the lone APSAF member employed by the pulp and paper industry. As of 1939, nine pulp and paper companies operating in the Carolinas and eastern Tennessee employed at least 27 foresters, in addition to the 14 industrial foresters reported by Korstian in Virginia. By 1948, when the first APSAF membership directory was published, the employment statistics for foresters had changed dramatically. The 1948 membership directory listed 383 foresters and gave the current employment for 348, out of a total membership of 415. About eighty percent of the listings included biographical entries containing personal and professional information. Of these, more than half (181 members) reported employment in industry during or previous to 1948. Over 40 percent currently worked in industry, representing all sectors. The paper and pulp industry predominated, employing over 45 percent of the industrial foresters. For comparison, the relative employment figures derived from the 86
membership directory are listed in the table below. The overall total in this table for foresters with industry experience does not match the sum of the categories because some foresters had worked for more than one type of company.
Paper Lumber (all types) Consulting Business Owner Other Private Association Railroads Plywood/Veneer Power Companies Rayon/chemical Rubber Total
1948
Overall
73 38 10 10 6 6 4 3 3 2 1 156
97 74 18 12 11 6 7 6 8 3 3 181
In comparison to the roughly 50 percent of members with industry experience, a minimum of 238 APSAF members in the 1948 directory (approximately 70 percent) had worked for a government agency. Members’ entries showed that at least 181 had worked for state governments and 169 had worked for the federal government. Likewise, approximately 15 percent had worked for colleges and universities, either within APSAF’s territory or in other regions. About 40 percent had worked in both public and private forestry. Only about ten percent had been employed entirely in private forestry, and most of these were just beginning their careers. Since roughly half of the membership in 1948 had worked in industry, it follow that approximately half had worked exclusively in public forestry, either for the federal government, state government, or for colleges and universities. These statistics are by no means definitive as many of the entries in the 1948 membership directory were incomplete, but they do provide a general impression of forestry employment patterns for the era. The specific categories of federal employment represented by the 1948 membership are as follows: 1948 Total Federal: USDA Forest Service (overall) New Deal (overall) SCS (includes state) TVA Park Service Entomology Plant Industry/Pathology ECW Fish and Wildlife AAA/Farm Security/Land Bank/ Resettlement Administration Army Corp of Engineers Veterans Administration
Overall
89 66 14 10 3 3 1 3 0 2 0
176 159 90 33 18 7 9 8 5 3 10
0 1
3 1
The most striking change in federal forestry between 1939 and 1948 was the sharp decrease in foresters employed by New Deal programs. In 1939, over 50 percent of APSAF’s membership was involved in New Deal programs. By 1948, less than 6 percent worked in New Deal programs. Part of the decline was due to changes in the Appalachian Section territory. Eastern Tennessee withdrew from the APSAF during the early 1940s to join western Tennessee and Kentucky in a new section. As a result, most TVA foresters were no longer APSAF members. When Virginia returned to the Appalachian Section in 1947, however, the number of TVA foresters in the APSAF was not affected. Only one TVA forester listed
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was stationed within APSAF territory during 1948: Ralph A. Vogenberger of Asheville, NC. The two other TVA foresters listed as APSAF members in 1948, William W. Jolly and Earl F. Olson, were stationed in Norris, TN, although they may have been responsible for TVA lands in North Carolina. After the beginning of World War II, a massive cutback in the number and scale of New Deal programs further reduced the number of foresters so employed. The end of the New Deal and the demands of World War II also reduced the number of APSAF members employed by the USDA Forest Service. USDA Forest Service employment in the Appalachian Section dropped by 25 percent between 1939 and 1948; the total number of APSAF members identified as federal employees fell by more than 50 percent, from 194 to 89. Conversely, state employment of foresters increased between 1939 and 1948, from approximately 40 to 73 or more. Furthermore, the 181 APSAF members with experience working for state agencies was comparable to the number with federal experience (176) and equal to the number with industry experience. The total number of foresters employed by the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia in 1948, however, was slightly below that of federally employed foresters in these states: 74 as compared to 89. The distribution of APSAF members in state employment during 1948 was relatively uniform by state. The South Carolina State Commission of Forestry employed at least 27 foresters. The North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development had at least 25, and the Virginia Forest Service, at least 21. Distribution of state-employed foresters by land area was less uniform, presuming the forested areas for each state were accurately reported. South Carolina, with about 12 million acres of forest, had at least 1 state-employed forester for every 445,000 acres. With 17.24 million acres of forest, Virginia’s ratio was 1:822,000 and North Carolina’s was 1:840,000 for 21 million acres. The actual proportions were slightly less extreme. If the employment percentages for APSAF members not listed in the directory were similar to the percentages for those who were, approximately 14 additional APSAF members worked for state agencies, five for South Carolina, five for North Carolina, and 4 for Virginia. In that case, the ratios of state-employed foresters to forest acreage in the Carolinas and Virginia was South Carolina - 1:375,000, Virginia - 1:690,000, and North Carolina - 1:700,000 (two foresters employed by the State of West Virginia were also listed as APSAF members for the year, but were not considered in this discussion). In 1948, the responsibilities of state-employed foresters were literally immense.
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Old photo showing the use of mules for pine thinnings in the 1950s
Growth of state forestry programs within the Appalachian Section drew upon a number of foresters who began their careers in federal agencies. A sizeable segment of the APSAF membership followed this sequence in their careers. Henry W. Bashore worked as a foreman for the CCC in Pennsylvania during 1940. After military service in World War II, he joined the Virginia Forest Service. Other foresters who held federal jobs before military service also joined the Virginia Forest Service after the war. They included William G. Grieve, Frederick J. Iobst, Joseph J. Shomon, and Charles C. Steirly. Frank J. Miller left the USDA Forest Service for the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development in 1942. William H. Wheeler Jr. held federal jobs from 1938 until 1943, then spent two years as an industry forester before beginning work for the North Carolina Extension Service in 1945. Foresters with the State of North Carolina who worked for federal agencies before service in World War II included Lyell E. Hicks, David J. Martz, Charles C. Pettit, Jr., and Robert W. Shaw. George W. Pettigrew left the USDA Forest Service in 1939 for private employment, then joined the South Carolina State Commission of Forestry in 1940. George E. Smith and Gregory H. Giles also exchanged federal employment for state jobs in South Carolina. Both returned to SC after service during World War II, whereas Clifton W. Hall left New Deal programs for the Clemson College Extension Service in 1942. The distribution of federally-employed foresters in the APSAF territory during 1948 was even less proportionate than that of state-employed foresters. Fifty percent, 44 members, were stationed in North Carolina, with 26 in Asheville and 39 in western North Carolina as a whole. Only five federal foresters listed addresses in the eastern two-thirds of North Carolina. Three of those five worked for the SCS, one in the sandhills at Carthage, NC, one in Halifax, NC near Roanoke Rapids, and one in Windsor, NC, near the Albemarle Sound. Roger D. Huff, a management forester with the USDA Forest Service, was attached to the North Carolina State Forester’s Office in Raleigh. Finally, Fred C. Henneberger was a USDA Forest Service District Ranger in what is now Uwharrie National Forest. In western North Carolina, 23 foresters were affiliated with the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station (formerly the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station) in Asheville. In addition, Marvin D. Hoover lived in Dillard, Georgia, just across the
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state line from Coweeta Experimental Forest, where he was stationed. Eleven foresters in the 1948 directory were assigned to Pisgah National Forest, although two of these were also associated with Croatan National Forest and others were also connected with the Experiment Station. Six were assigned to Nantahala National Forest, and one worked for the Veterans Administration in Bryson City. Another federal forester held a joint position with the USDA Forest Service and the North Carolina Extension Service in Morganton, NC and the remaining two were SCS foresters in Gastonia, NC and Newton, NC. In Virginia, the eighteen foresters identified as federal employees were distributed across the state, with ten scattered through the mountains, four in the piedmont, and four in the coastal plain. Three resided in Franklin, VA at the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station’s Northern Atlantic Coastal Plain Branch. Ivan H. Simms directed the Branch, working with Kenneth B. Pomeroy and Kenneth B. Trousdell in Franklin. One SCS forester resided in Hampton, VA on the Chesapeake Bay. In the piedmont, a fourth Southeastern Forest Experiment Station forester, George F. Gruschow, worked at the Lee Experimental Forest in Buckingham, VA, and the National Park Service employed three foresters in Richmond. In the mountains of Virginia, three federal foresters worked in the Jefferson National Forest, three worked in George Washington National Forest, and one SCS forester was stationed in Winchester. Three additional foresters were employed by the USDA Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine and the Forest Service in Harrisonburg. The eighteen federal foresters listed in South Carolina were concentrated in the coastal plain, with nine in the eastern part of the state, three in Columbia, three in Spartanburg, one between Columbia and Spartanburg in Union, and two in the mountains. Four of the federal foresters in eastern South Carolina were assigned to Francis Marion National Forest. A fifth, William P. Baldwin, worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Southeastern Forest Experiment Station had three men at the Central Atlantic Coastal Plain Work Center in Charleston and one, William P. LeGrand Jr., at the Santee Experimental Forest near Moncks Corner. In Charleston, Thomas Lotti was the Work Center leader, Leon E. Chaiken was the Silviculturalist at the Center, and Karl F. Wenger was Assistant Silviculturalist. The federal foresters in Columbia and in the South Carolina mountains were affiliated with National Forest Units that were eventually consolidated into Sumter National Forest. Another Southeastern Forest Experiment Station researcher, Peter W. Fletcher, was located in Union, SC at the Central Piedmont Branch of the Station. At least three SCS foresters were based in Spartanburg at the headquarters for the SCS Southeastern Region. They included Joseph A. Gibbs, who had replaced R.M. Ross as Chief of the regional Forestry Division, and Ralph B. Heberling, now Assistant Chief of the Regional Land Management Division. A few federally-employed foresters from outside the Carolinas and Virginia were listed as members of the APSAF in 1948. Besides two TVA foresters in Norris, TN, they were (1) Ernest V. Brender, Forest Manager, Hitichi Experimental Forest, Round Oak, GA, (2) Lucas M. Dargan, Biologist, Fish and Wildlife Service, Patuxent Research Refuge, Laurel, MD, (3) Norman R. Hawley, Silviculturalist, Southern Atlantic Coastal Plain Branch, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Cordele, GA, and (4) Elmer R. Roth, Associate Pathologist, USDA Bureau of Plant Industry, Soil, and Agricultural Engineering, Beltsville, MD. All four men were involved in research within the Section or were connected to the Southeastern Station.
From a Tiny Acorn... By the late 1930s, the APSAF boasted many prominent members, including three SAF Fellows: John S. Holmes, elected in 1939, Clarence F. Korstian, and E.H. Frothingham, both elected in 1942. Other members continued to gain prominence through participation in national forums. Virginia State Forester and University of Virginia Professor R. Chapin Jones continued to be very active; he chaired a panel at the 1941 SAF annual meeting in Jacksonville, Florida on “The Forestry Situation in the South.” The panel included D.E. Lauderburn of the SCS in Spartanburg, SC who presented a talk on farm forestry. North Carolina State Forester John S. Holmes chaired a session on controlled burning and co-chaired another on management and utilization problems in longleaf-slash pine forests. Duke University’s Roy B. Thomson
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served as discussant for a panel on forest insurance at the same meeting. As the Depression years drew to a close, the APSAF extended its tradition of affiliation with accomplished and prominent foresters. Clarence Forsling, who served as the director of the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station during the mid-1930s, became the USDA Forest Service Chief of Research in 1937. Forsling came to prominence as a range specialist and author of the US Forest Service report The Western Range (1936). As Chief of Research for Earle Clapp and Lyle F. Watts, Forsling oversaw forestry research during the latter part of the New Deal and throughout World War II. After World War II, he was directly involved in organizing the Branch of Forestry and Forest Products within the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. In 1946, he transferred to the Department of the Interior as Chief of the Grazing Service in the newly-formed Bureau of Land Management. When Clarence Forsling left Asheville in 1937, Richard E. McArdle succeeded him as station director. McArdle was born in Kentucky but earned his forestry degrees at the University of Michigan and began his research career in the Pacific Northwest. In 1935, he became director of the newly-established Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station in Colorado. After his transfer to Asheville in 1938, McArdle gave his “New and Renewed Impressions of the South” at the APSAF meeting in Charlotte, NC that year. McArdle remained a member of the APSAF until he left the Section in 1944 to become Assistant Chief for State and Private Forestry Cooperative Programs in Washington, DC. In 1952, McArdle became Chief of the US Forest Service. After retiring in 1962, he served as Executive Director of the National Institute of Public Affairs and remained active in various forestry organizations. He received the SAF’s Sir William Schlich Memorial Medal in 1962, as well as many other awards over the years. Irvine Theodore Haig followed McArdle as the Director of the Station in 1945 and presided over a major territorial change that brought Georgia and Florida into the sphere of the newly-renamed Southeastern Forest Experiment Station in 1946. In 1951, Haig went to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture’s Branch of Forestry and Forest Products. Distinguished southern forester Elwood L. Demmon guided the Southeastern Station from 1951 until his retirement in 1956. Carl E. Ostrom also transferred from Asheville to Washington DC in 1957 when he was promoted to US Forest Service director of forest management research.133
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Chapter 8 The APSAF in World War II World War II restricted SAF and APSAF activities, but did not completely curtail them. Ten days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the SAF Executive Committee decided to proceed with the 1941 national meeting in Jacksonville, Florida. It was the last national meeting until 1946. To limit travel and conserve resources, SAF members relied on section meetings to conduct society business during the war years. Similarly, the parent Society’s staff turned their attention from society business to war-time concerns. Henry Clepper took a leave of absence from his position as SAF Executive Secretary. From 1942 until the end of the war, Clepper assisted Arthur Upson, chief of the Lumber and Lumber Products Branch of the Bureau of Industrial Operations for the war effort. War affected Americans in all walks of life, and foresters were subject to the same events and exigencies that Americans typically experienced during the war. From the USDA Forest Service alone, World War II Poster by Vanderlaan. Made by nearly two thousand foresters departed for military service the Douglas Aircraft Company (NARA Still the first year of the war. In all, over 16 million Americans, Picture Branch: NWDNS79WP103) including 350,000 women, served in the military between 1941 and 1945. Over 30 percent of America’s adult male population enlisted during World War II; the proportion of men between the ages of 18 and 38 who served was even higher. The life histories of members profiled in the 1948 APSAF directory paralleled the experience of American society as a whole—nearly 40 percent reported military service during World War II. Likewise, some APSAF members saw military service when they were over the age of 38, illustrating the pressing need for personnel. At the height of the war, both selective service and recruiters took men up to age 45. The enormity of World War II’s impact on the United States, on the world, and on individuals was almost incomprehensible and often traumatic. Some members’ profiles disclose military service only by means of a gap in their biographies, suggesting discomfort with wartime memories. This and other reactions to harrowing wartime experiences were also prevalent among veterans of World War II, as they are for any group greatly exposed to physical and emotional trauma. Other members recorded their military service in great detail, frankly proud of both accomplishments and survival under formidable conditions. APSAF members served in all branches of the military and were present at many major battles, including Saipan, Tinian, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, the liberation of the Philippines, the invasion of Normandy, the invasion of Italy, the campaign in North Africa, and actions in New Guinea, China, Burma, India, the Middle East, France, Belgium, and Germany.
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Forestry in the Military and the Military in Forestry Although World War II’s impact on Americans was incalculable, its influence on American forestry was quite concrete. Military-industrial demands on forest resources made forestry essential to the American economy. Concurrently and congruently, military service provided opportunities for foresters to develop and use skills that were related to their profession. Many APSAF members served in the US Army Corp of Engineers, including John S. Barker (Southern Box, Corbett), Walter L. Brewer, Jr. (NC and SC state forestry), Stephen H. Conger (Coastal Lumber), William G. Davis (FSA, Veterans Administration), Phillip M. Drumheller (IP), Carl G. Krueger (USFS), Leo F. Labyak (Duke), John W. McNair (US Gypsum, UVA), Louis J. Metz (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station), Richard C. Moore (USFS), Paul M. Muller (Continental Can, NC Pulp, Gair), and Francis X. Schmidley (Southeastern Industries). Joseph W.R. Alfred (NC Pulp, Savannah River Lumber) was a sawmill operator for the Corp of Engineers in Burma. Champion Paper’s Walter H. Hoffmann was Chief of Party for the Corp of Engineers in Hawaii before serving as a pilot in the US Air Force in China, Burma, and India. Leland F. Myers of Myers Lumber began the war as a Senior Engineering Aide in the Corp of Engineers then spent 18 months in Europe with the US Army Armored Engineers. Consulting forester John R. Frazier rose from 2 nd Lieutenant in the Infantry to Captain in the US Army Combat Engineers. Hugo J. Pawek (Duke Forest) began as an administrative assistant for the Aircraft Warning System in Alabama, then served with the Corp of Engineers in Australia. Horace C. Eriksson (CCC, USFS) commanded the only forestry unit in the Mediterranean. Other APSAF members in forestry units included Carlton J. Blades (Duke Power) - 796 th Engineers, Forestry Battalion in France, Belgium, and Germany; Samuel A. Boutwell (Gair) - 800 th Forest Engineers, Africa and Italy; Max M. Dillingham (Champion, USFS) - Labor Foreman, Forestry Engineers, Mediterranean; and Herman M. Hermelink (Duke Power) - Major, 1389 th Forestry Engineers, Europe. Specific elements important in post-war forestry were also represented in APSAF members’ military records. Posts in ordnance, materials and processes, and the Quartermasters Corp conferred experience in equipping and running large organizations. Particular APSAF members engaged in this type of work included Henry W. Bashore (VA state forestry) - Inspector of Materials, US Navy; George I. Blain (VA state forestry) - US Army Infantry and Ordnance, and 1 st Lieutenant in US Quartermasters Corp; John E. Ford (NC Extension Service) - US Quartermasters Corp Materials Inspector, Kendaia, NY; Henry L. Hansen (Clemson) - Materials and Processes, US Air Force; George A. Myles (Myles Lumber) - Materials and Processes, US Air Force, Atlanta, GA; and Carl H. Stelling (Hardwood Lumber Co.) - Commander, Company F, Quartermasters Regiment, 57th Quartermasters Battalion, Pacific. Other foresters gained similar experience as civilians. Future Duke graduate student George Marra was the Chief of Wood Procurement for the US Army Air Forces Eastern Procurement District. Wood technologist Roy M. Carter (USFS, NCSU) first served in US Air Force Air Plane Procurement. Later in the war, he worked as a process engineer for Fairchild Aircraft Corporation in Burlington, NC. Along slightly different lines, Duke professor Elwood S. Harrar, Jr. lent his expertise in wood technology to the Materials and Process Laboratories of the Curtiss-Wright Company in Louisville, Kentucky from 1942 until 1945. Along with organizational techniques, Henry Hansen, George Myles, George Marra, and Roy Carter received valuable experience with aircraft. Aircraft were an increasingly important category of forestry equipment as wartime labor shortages increased the use of machinery for fire control. Illustrating the trend, foresters began using aircraft to spot fires in the Francis Marion National Forest during 1940. After World War II, military surplus machinery became standard equipment for state forestry departments. Frederick J. Iobst (VA state forestry) also acquired familiarity with aircraft, spending 1941 through 1944 as a construction engineer for Bendix Aviation in New Jersey. Henry Hanson and George Myles may have garnered comparable experience during their time with US Air Force Materials and Processes. Foresters assigned to military air crews became particularly well-informed about the capabilities of aircraft and about their operation. APSAF members flew during the war as pilots, navigators, bombardiers, and gunners, while others worked as instructors and mechanics: Jesse W. Chalfant (NCSU, USFS) - US Air Force Institute at the University of Rome, Italy. Warren T. Doolittle (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) - navigator
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William S. Edmunds (NC state forestry) - Captain, Air Force Aviation Engineering Squad Charles S. Glidden (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) - navigator Harlock W. Harvey Jr. (SC state forestry) - decorated fighter pilot and squadron leader, US Air Force John F. Heilman (IP) - US Marine Corps aviation Robert C. Heller (Duke Power) - US Navy aviator Lewis E. Herron (Champion) - aerial gunner Christian G. Kuehkle (Roanoke Railroad and Lumber) - one of the first members of the US Army Airborne Divisions James B. Lattay (Riegel, AFA, CCC, NC state forestry) - aircraft mechanic Walter J. Marshburn (consulting forester)- military pilot Richard L. Piepenbring (IP) - Air Force pilot Edwin E. Rodger (VA State Forestry) – bombardier, US Army Air Corps Air Force, unspecified: A.W. Boswell (consultant); Burt D. Carlson (Champion); Donald G. Creighton (Catawba Timber); William J. Ellis (Johns Manville); Henry B. Fishburne (Westvaco); Edwin A. Friend, Jr. (Union Camp); Otho C. Goodwin (NC state forestry); John E. Graham (SC state forestry); Horace J. “Boe” Green (NC Forest Service); Woodrow W. Green (Southern Railway); Otis F. Hall (VPI); Benjamin R. Harley (IP); Robert J. Hare (Hoerner-Waldorf); John P. Harper (Chesapeake, IP); Thomas M. Hassell, Jr. (IP, Weyerhaeuser); Alvin E. Kunz (SC state forestry); Edward D. Lett (VA state forestry); Samuel A. Marbut (Clemson); Dean N. Quinney (USFS); and George E. Smith (SCS, SC state forestry).
These men, along with many others, learned and applied valuable skills with other types of mechanical equipment as well. North Carolina’s William Milliken served as an officer in US Army Motor Maintenance, exemplifying the “nuts and bolts” skills that sustained both military efforts and forestry activities during World War II and afterwards. Experience with fire control had familiarized many foresters with weather patterns, and this experience was also put to good use by the military. Theodore S. Coile (Duke) worked as a meteorologist for the Allied Air Force before joining the Marine Corps. Alexander K. Conrad served as a weather observer for the US Army Air Depot in Middletown, Delaware. Radio communications was another area where forestry skills overlapped with military skills, as radios came into widespread use during the 1940s for reporting fires and managing fire crews. A 1948 APSAF newsletter documented the trend in a report from the North Carolina Department of Forestry: We are now well on the way toward installing a 2-way short wave radio system in North Carolina. A radio communications engineer has been added to the Central Office staff and our initial order of some thirty sets was placed almost two months ago and delivery on some of the sets is expected at most any time now. Thirty sets will, of course, mean only a starter in a state as large as North Carolina; however, it is expected that we shall be able to place a much larger order almost immediately following the beginning of the forthcoming Fiscal Year.
Examples from the APSAF membership lists of foresters who worked with radios during World War II were Thomas C. Evans (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) - US Navy Radio Materiel School in preparation for Torpedo Squad duty in Vera Beach, Florida Richard N. Gaiser (USFS) - US Army Signal Corps John L. Gray (NC Extension Service) - Communications Officer, US Air Force 1st Fighter Command Marvin D. Hoover (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) - radio technician, US Navy James B. Hubbard (NC state forestry) - US Army Signal Corps Robert C. Overby (Hoerner-Waldorf, Halifax Paper) - Aviation Radioman, US Navy
Navigation skills also related to foresters’ use of maps and mapping as a tool in forest management. USFS forester Donald W. Peterson’s position as Aerographer’s Mate in the Navy was likewise related. Other functions were even more closely allied. Nelson L. Peach (SC state forestry) saw action with the Topographic Engineers in North Africa and the Pacific. Charles E. Gill (Richmond Cedar Works) was a Cartographic Engineer for the Navy in Washington, DC. Peter W. Fletcher (Southeastern
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Forest Experiment Station) took part in aerial mapping of Pacific Islands with the US Naval Reserve. John D. Earle (Westvaco) taught mapping and aerial photography at the Engineering School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. In the civilian war effort, George A. Anderson (Brunswick Pulp and Paper) and Robert P. Brierly (VA state forestry) contributed to the Geological Survey of the USDI Topographical Engineers, and James E. Hobbs (NC Extension Service) surveyed the Edenton Air Base in North Carolina.
APSAF Members’ Experience in WW II Below is a list, as far as we know, of those who served: Edward K. Ach (International Paper, NC Pulp Co. and Weyerhaeuser) - 1942-68, Wood Procurement, civilian Walter T. Ahearn - US Marine Corps, 1943-46 Joseph W. R. Alfred (NC Pulp and Paper, St. Regis Paper, Savannah River Lumber, US Marine Corps - Quantico Base Forester) - 1941-45, US Army Corps of Engineers, sawmill operator, Burma Kenneth M. Allan (Westvaco, Milliken Forestry Co.) - 1941-50, War Production Work, Cleveland, OH Ben L. Allen (NCFS, Union Camp, Peoples Bank and Trust, Rocky Mount, NC) - 1942-45, US Army Commission Robert Max Allen (Clemson) - 1942-45, US Marine Corps, Pacific George Arthur Anderson - USDI Topographical Engineers, Geological Survey Harry Avedisian (SC Forestry Comm, John B. Frazier, Inc.) - US Army, 3 years, Nat’l Guard, 20 years, ret. Lt.Col. Claude Franklin Barden (SC Forestry Commission) - 1943-45, US Army John S. Barker (Southern Box and Lumber Co., Corbett Package Co., and Corbett Lumber Co.) - 1942-46, Officer, US Army Corps of Engineers in US and Europe, and 22 years Reserve Ralph James Bartholomew (VA Division of Forestry) - 1941-46, Major in US Air Force Henry W. Bashore (VA Division of Forestry) - 1942-45, Inspector of Materials, US Navy Richard M. Berry (SC Wildlife, Forester, US Naval Ammunition Depot, Charleston, SC, Forester, US Marine Corps, Quantico Base, VA) - 1943-46, US Army Carlton J. Blades (Chief Forester, Duke Power, Charlotte, NC)- 1942-45, 796th Engineers, Forestry Battalion, France, Belgium and Germany George Ian Blain (VA Division of Forestry) - ca.1941-46, 2 years US Army Infantry and Ordnance, First Lieutenant in Quartermaster Corp for 3 years William A. Bland (Halifax Paper, NC Division of Forestry) - 1942-1946? Lewis Myron Boice (consultant, SC Commission of Forestry) - 1943-46, US Army A.W. Boswell (consulting forester, forester-surveyor) - 194?-1945, US Army Air Force Samuel Arthur Boutwell (Gair Woodlands, Savannah GA) - 1942-45, 800th Forest Engineers, Africa and Italy Stephen G. Boyce (Research Forester and Administrator, USFS) - 1943-45, US Army? Ray W. Brandt (USFS, Francis Marion NF, Training and Safety Officer, Atlanta, GA, Forest Supervisor LA and SC) 1943-45, US Navy Walter Lawrence Brewer Jr. - (NC/SCFS) 1941-43 US Army Corps of Engineers Robert P. Brierly (VA Div. of Forestry) - 1942 USDI Topographical Engineers, Geological Survey, Clarendon, VA Richard John Campana (NCSU, Mont Alto) - 1943-46, US Army, Europe Burt D. Carlson (Champion) - 1941-46, US Air Force Paul B. Carson, Jr. (SC Commission of Forestry) - 1944-46, US Navy Roy M. Carter (Wood Technologist, USFS, NCSU) - 1942-43, US Air Force, Air Plane Procurement; 1943-44, Process Engineer, Fairchild Aircraft Corp., Burlington, NC James Bliss Cartwright (USFS) - 1946, T/5 France and the Philippines Richardson B. Cartwright (Chesapeake Corp) - 1943-46, US Army Leon Edward Chaiken (Silviculturalist), Southeast Forest Experiment Station, Asheville, and Duke University) 1942-46, Captain, US Army Harry Bailey Chalfant, Jr. (CCC, Flack-Jones Lumber Co.) - 1943-45, Gunner’s Mate, USS Santee, US Naval Reserve, South Pacific Jesse Wayne Chalfant (NCSU, USFS) - 1944-45, US Army, Italy, the Allied Headquarters, US Air Force Institute at University of Rome Graham Vance Chamblee (NCFS) - 1941-45, US Army Victor T. Chastain (Westvaco) - 1942-45, US Air and Ground Forces
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Frederick Hamilton Claridge (NC Division of Forestry) - 1940-46, US Army Military Police Theodore S. Coile (Duke Univ.) - 1942-43, Meteorologist for Allied Air Force, 1943-45, Captain, US Marine Corps Stephen H. Conger (Coastal Lumber Co.) - 1945-46, US Army Corps of Engineers Alexander K. Conrad - 1942-45, Lumber Economist for War Production Board, Washington, DC and Ensign in US Naval Reserve, 1942, Weather Observer, US Army Air Depot, Middletown DE. H.C. Freeman Cook (USDA in Costa Rica, Panama Canal Co.) - 1942-47, CPO in US Navy Bingham M. Cool (Clemson) - 1942-45, US Navy Reserve B.H. Corpening (USFS and NCSF) - 1942-46, US Army, Europe Clairborne R. Courtney (Chesapeake Corp) - US Navy, Pacific including Philippines Liberation Archie C. Craft (Westvaco) - 1943-45, US Navy James William Craig (consulting forester, forestry supply) - 1941-46, US Army Douglass A. Craig (USFS) - 1941-46, Lieutenant Colonel US Army Donald Guy Creighton (Catawba Timber Co.) - 1943-46, US Army Air Force James Mark Crider, Jr. (Westvaco) - 1945-46, US Navy Joseph McGavock Crockett (Westvaco, Virginia Woodlands) - 1945-46, US Army Rufus Turner Crouch, Jr. (NC Pulp Co.) - 1943-45, Ensign, US Naval Reserve, Europe and Normandy Invasion Wallace Frank Custard (VA Div. of Forestry) - 1941-46, Captain, Purple Heart, US Army, Asiatic-Pacific, Europe Vern H. Cutler (SC State Commission of Forestry, Halifax Paper Co.) - 1941-46, Captain, US Army, Pacific Eugene Czuhai (US Fish and Wildlife Service) - 1943-46, US Navy Reserve, Pacific Lucas McIntosh Dargan (consultant) - 1942-45, US Naval Reserve Brooke Rosen Davis (USFS) - 1942-45, US Army Johnie E. Davis (USFS, Southern Forest Experiment Station and District Ranger) - European Theater Theodore H. Davis (Farm Security Administration, Champion) - 1942-45, US Army William Gerald Davis (Farm Security Administration, Veterans Administration) - 1943-45, Private to 1st Lieutenant Corps of Engineers, School of Military Government Civil Affairs, Far East John Deyton (NC Forest Service) Army Air Corps Max McMillan Dillingham (Champion, USFS, consultant) - 1942-46, Labor Foreman, Forestry Engineers Company, US Army, Mediterranean Warren Truman Doolittle (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) - 1943-46, Navigator, US Army Air Forces Silas Alexander Dowdell, Sr. (NC Forest Service) - unspecified Daniel R. Drumheller (VA Division of Forestry) - 1940-46, Major, US Army, Europe Phillip McCain Drumheller (International Paper, grad student, Duke) -1942-46, Captain, US Army Corps of Engineers John W. Duffield (USFS, Univ. of Washington, Industrial Forestry Assoc., NCSU) - 1942-45, 2nd Lieutenant then Major in US Army Howard William Duzan, Sr. (Weyerhaeuser) - unspecified John Dorset Earle (Westvaco) - 1941-45, Instructor of mapping and aerial photography, Engineering School, Ft. Belvoir, VA, Map Officer, Ft. Jackson, SC and Ft. Bragg, NC Lefflette Teed Easley (Westvaco) - 1942-45, Lt. Commander in US Coast Guard Reserve William S. Edmunds (NC Forest Service) - 1942-45, Captain, Aviation Engineering Squad, Allied Air Force Acie Carlton Edwards (Westvaco) - 1944-45, US Navy, Pacific Theater Frank Albert Elliott (Johns-Manville, Riegel) - 1941-1945, Captain, US Army William J. Ellis (Johns Manville Timber Corp) - US Army Air Corps James Wallace Engle (VA Comm. of Game and Inland Fisheries) - 1943-46, Active duty in US Naval Reserve Eric Howard Ericson, Jr. (McLaney Lumber Co., Union Bag) - 1944, Project Forester, TPWP, Monroesville, AL Horace Canfield Eriksson (CCC, USFS) - 1941-46, US Army, commanded only forestry unit in Mediterranean Guy Estes (Director, Seward Forest, Univ. Of VA) - 1042-45, US Navy Joe Tucker Evans (Mead Corp. and Champion International) - 1945-46, US Army Thomas Carlyle Evans (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) - 1942-?, US Navy, Charleston Navy Yard, Radio Materiel School, and US Naval Air Station, Vera Beach, Fl, Torpedo Squad 8 Robert John Fast (Westvaco) - 1942-46, US Marine Corps 2nd Marine Division, Pacific, Saipan, Tinian, Okinawa Carl Dawson Fetzer (Soil Conservation Service, CCC) - 1942-46, 1st Lieutenant, US Army, Europe, Africa, Italy Henry Burnett Fishburne, Sr. (Westvaco, consultant) - 1941-46, US Air Force Peter W. Fletcher (Central Piedmont Branch, Southeast Forest Experiment Station) - 1943-45, Aerial Mapping of Pacific Islands, US Naval Reserve John Edgar Ford (NC Extension Service) - 1941-42, US Quartermasters Corps Materials Inspector, Kendaia, NY
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Howard Beidler Frankenfield, Jr. (Champion) - 1942-46, 1st Lieutenant, US Army John Rhett Frazier (consultant) - 2nd Lt., US Army Infantry, 1st Lt. & Captain, US Army Combat Engineers Edwin Abell Friend, Fr. (Union Camp Corp) - 1943-45, US Air Corps 91st TC Squadron, Europe Grady Reed Fuller (Fuller Pulpwood Co.) - unspecified Marvin T. Gaffney (SC State Comm. of Forestry) - 1943-46, US Navy Amphibious Assault Force, South Pacific Richard Nicholson Gaiser (USFS, graduate student - Duke) - 1942-45, US Army Signal Corps Charles Sherer Gardner (NC Pulp Co) - 1942-45, 81st Chemical Mortar Battalion, US Army Joseph Edward Garrison (International Paper) - 1942-46, US Navy William D. Gash (USFS, International Paper) - 1941-46, US Army Roland Bruce Geddes (VA Division of Forestry) - 1945-46, US Navy William Edward Gibbons - (Halifax Timber Division, Hoerner Waldorf Corp., International Paper, Tennessee River Pulp and Paper) - 1941-46, 2nd Lieutenant to Lt. Colonel in US Army Monroe C. Gibson (Canal Industries) - 1940-45, active duty US Army Reserve Charles Edward Gill (Richmond Cedar Works) - 1942-45, Cartographic Engineer, US Navy, Washington DC Charles Sauret Glidden (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) - 1942-46, Navigator of B24, Allied Air Force, Asia, navigator of C54, Middle East, Asia, Europe, Pacific, decorated. Winslow L. Gooch (VA Division of Forestry, Chesapeake Paper Corp., consultant) - 1944, Chief of Tannin Material Survey, Mexico, 1945-46, Forest Products Specialist, attached to US Embassy, Paris, France Otho C. Goodwin (NC Division of Forestry, consultant) - 1942-45, US Army Air Force, 8th Air Force, Europe Seth Gordon, Jr. (VPI) - 1942-46, US Army, Ft. Bragg, NC and Ft. Sill, OK, Field Artillery, Pacific John Nelson Graff (VA Division of Forestry) - 1942-46, US Navy John Elton Graham (SC State Commission of Forestry) - 1943-45, US Army Air Corps John Lewis Gray (NC Agricultural Extension Service) - 1942-44, Communications Officer, 1st Fighter Command, US Army Air Force Horace J. “Boe” Green (NC Forest Service, consultant) - 1943-46, US Air Force Woodrow Wilson Green (Southern Railway) - 1941-45, US Army Air Corps, decorated William George Grieve (VA Division of Forestry, TVA) - 1943-46, US Navy Ralph Hawkins Griffin (VA Division of Forestry) - 1943-46, US Army John W. Griffith (US Gypsum Co.) - 1943-46, US Naval Reserve, mine warfare, Pacific Joseph Hilliard Griggs, Jr. (International Paper) - 1943-46, US Navy, survivor USS Twiggs George F. Gruschow (Lee Experimental Forest, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Buckingham, VA) William Garrett Haag (VA Division of Forestry) - 1942-45, US Army, Company B 63rd Armored Infantry Alvin B. Hafer (consultant, TVA) - 1942-1945, unspecified Irvine Theodore Haig (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) - 1943-44, Chief, Chilean Forest Mission, Washington DC Harry Caum Haines (Duke Power Co.) - 1942-45, Field Technician, Rubber Development Corp., Brazil Charles Herbert Hale (True Temper Corp., American Package Corp., Georgia Pacific Corp.) - 1941-46, US Army, Europe Giles Gregory Hall (SC State Comm. of Forestry, Hummel-Ross Fibre Corp., consultant) - 1944-45, US Army Field Artillery Otis F. Hall (VPI, Univ. of Minn., Perdue, Univ. of NH) - 1943-46, US Army Air Force Russell Kurt Hallberg (Catawba Timber Co.) - 1943-46, US Army Clement Andrew Halupka (CCC, Continental Can Co.) - 1942-45, US Navy J.T. Hance (SC Commission of Forestry) - 1944-46, US Army Henry Leo Hansen (Clemson)-1942-43, Materials &Processes, Air Force, 1943-46, Aerial Gunnery Officer, USNavy William Lawrence Hardin (consultant, SC Commission of Forestry, Westvaco) - 1940-46, US Army, Europe Robert Jennings Hare (Hoerner-Waldorf Corp.) - 1942-45, US Air Force Benjamin Rudolph Harley (International Paper, Turnell and Morgan Inc.) - 1940-45, US Infantry and Air Corps John Paul Harper (Chesapeake Corp, International Paper) - 1943-45, US Army Air Force Elwood Scott Harrar, Jr. (Duke) - 1942-45, Materials and Process Laboratories, Curtiss-Wright, Louisville, KY Thomas Gardner Harris (Chesapeake Corp, Halifax Paper) - 1942-45, Company Commander, US Army, 1st Battalion 329th Infantry, 83rd Division, Europe William John Hart (Coastal Zone Resources Corp.) - 1944-46, US Naval Reserve Harveock Walter Harvey, Jr. (Sonoco Products Co., SC State Commission of Forestry) - 1941-46, US Army Air Force, Fighter Pilot and Squadron Commander, decorated Thomer Morritt Hasell, Jr. (International Paper, Weyerhaeuser, Neuse Contracting and Development Co.) - 1942-
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45, Naval Air Corps John Brush Hatcher (consultant, USFS) - 1943-46, US Navy, Admirals’ staff and air combat intelligence officer Erwin A. Heers (CCC, USFS) - 1943-45, Project Forester, TPWP, Lufkin, TX John Franklin Heilman (International Paper) - unspecified, US Marine Corps, aviation Robert Chester Heller (Duke Power Co.) - 1941-45, Naval Aviator, US Navy Fred Calvin Henneberger (USFS) - 1943-45, Project Forester, TPWP, Burgaw, NC Joe Herlevich (NC Division of Forestry) - 1942-46, US Marine Corps, Pacific Herman M. Hermelink (Duke Power Co., Crescent Land and Timber Corp) - 1941-46, Major in US Army, 1389 Forestry Engineers, Europe Lewis E. Herron (Ethan Allen Co., Champion) - 1943-46, gunner in US Army Air Corps John R. Hicks (USFS) - unspecified, 1943-48 Lyell E. Hicks (NC Forest Service) - 1942-45, US Navy, South Pacific James Ewell Hobbs (NC Agricultural Extension Service) - Surveyor, Edenton Air Base, Edenton, NC Walter H. Hoffmann (Champion) - 1942-43, Chief of Party, US Army Corps of Engineers, Hawaii, 1944-45, Pilot, US Air Force, China, Burma, and India Jack Calif Holland (International Paper) - 1943-46, US Navy Robert Fisher Holmes (consultant) - 1942-45, Sargent in Company D, 337th Regiment, 85th Division, US Army Marvin D. Hoover (Southeast Forest Experiment Station) - 1945-46, Radio Technician, US Navy Erith Leroy Hopp (Owens-Illinois Corp) - 1941-46, Captain, US Army Field Artillery John F. Hosner (VPI, Dean, College of Forestry) – 1944-47, Navigator Bombardier in Italy, Army Air Corps Douglas Thurman House (Albemarle Paper Co., pulpwood dealer) - unspecified Milford C. Howard (consultant, USFS) - 1st Lieutenant, US Army Field Artillery Reserve James B. Hubbard (NC Forest Service) - 1941-46, Major in US Army Signal Corps, Europe, Africa, Mediterranean James Lawrence Huff (Albemarle Paper Co./Hoerner Waldorf Corp., Halifax Paper Co., Toler Lumber Co.) - 194143, Project Forester USFS-TPWP, Newton, NC Richard Edward Huff (International Paper, Federal Land Bank, Columbia, SC, RE Huff Lumber Co.) - unspecified, US Naval Reserve and instructor at Notre Dame Midshipman’s School Boris Hurlbutt (consultant, SC State Commission of Forestry) - 1942-46, US Navy Frederick Joseph Iobst (VA Division of Forestry) - 1941-44, Construction Engineer, Bendix Aviation Corp., NJ John V. Jackson (consultant, VA Division of Forestry) - 1942-46, US Army 9th Infantry Division Reuben Hamilton Jeffries (various industry positions) - 1945-46, US Marine Corps E. Sigurd Johnson (various industry, consultant) - 1942, Senior Industrial Consultant, War Production Board, Washington, DC, 1944-45, US Navy Ted Marvin Jollay (consultant, Westvaco) - 1941-45, US Navy Stuart Grant Keedwell (consultant) - 1942-46, US Navy Nicholas S. Kmecza (Indian Affairs, USFS) - unspecified Carl G. Krueger (USFS) - member Society of American Military Engineers Christian G. Kuehlke (Roanoke Railroad and Lumber Co.) - 1939-46, Field Artillery, Parachute Artillery, 11th Airborne Division, US Army, Pacific Alvin E. Kunz (SC State Commission of Forestry) - 1941-45, US Army Air Corps, Master Sargent, Pacific Leo Francis Labyak (Duke) - 1943-46, US Army Corps of Engineers, Pacific Erwin Gene Lambrecht (SC State Comm. of Forestry) - 1944-46, US Naval Reserve, Pacific and 1950-52, Korea Owen Gordon Langdon (USFS Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) - 1941-45, US Army James B. Lattay (Riegel Paper Corp., AFA, CCC, NC Division of Forestry) - 1942-43, aircraft mechanic, US Army Ralph Kenneth Lee (Lightsey Brothers Lumber Co.) - 1940-45, Captain, US Army William Pleasant Legrand (Santee Experimental Forest, Southeast Forest Experiment Station) - 1943-45, Timberman, TPWP, Lexington, NC Albin Andrew Lehocky (SC State Commission of Forestry) - 1941-46, Captain, 6th Cavalry, US Army, Europe Koloman Lehotsky (Clemson) - 1942-44, 777th Military Police Battalion, California, 1944, Ordnance, CA and MD Edward Dixon Lett (VA Division of Forestry, Newport News Waterworks) - 1942-45, US Air Force Anson William Lindenmouth, Jr. (Southeast Forest Experiment Station, Asheville) - 1943-45, Project Forester, TPWP in Starkesville, MS Arthur William Lotz - 1940-48+, Manager for Firestone rubber plantations in Liberia Frederick N. Mack (consultant, SC State Commission of Forestry) - 1942-46, US Army, Europe Samuel Alexander Marbut (Clemson) - 1942-45, US Air Force Ernest Grant Marlow (Longleaf Lumber Co., Koppers Co.) - 1943-45, US Army 94th Infantry Division
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George Marra (graduate student, Duke Univ) - 1942-45, Chief of Wood Procurement Unit (civilian), Army Air Forces Eastern Procurement District, New York City Thomas W. Marshall (Weyerhaeuser) - 1944-46, US Navy Walter James Marshburn (consultant) - unspecified, military pilot John E. Mausteller (Halifax Paper) -1937-45, Tie &Timber Agent (civilian) Seaboard Airline Railway, Norfolk VA Robert Gooding McAlpine (USFS Research Forester) -1943-1946, on destroyers in US Naval Reserve, Pacific Albert R. McBeth (Riegel Paper Corp., Federal Paperboard Co.) - 1943-45, US Army Robert L. McElwee (Crown-Zellerbach, NCSU, VPI - extension) - 1945-47, US Army William H. Davis McGregor (Clemson) - 1945-46, US Navy John Erwin McIver (International Paper) - 1941-46, US Armed Forces John W. McNair (US Gypsum Co., UVA, consultant) - unspecified, Infantry private to Captain in US Army Corps of Engineers, World War II and Korean War Louis J. Metz (Southeast Forest Experiment Station, USFS) - 1942-46, US Army Corps of Engineers William Milliken - 1941-46, Officer in US Army, motor maintenance Richard C. Moore (W VA Conservation Comm. and State Parks, USFS) - 1943-46, US Army Corps of Engineers William Grady Morris, Jr. (Duke Power Co., Weyerhaeuser, Riegel) - 1944-47 and 1950-52, submarine service in US Naval Reserve Paul Max Muller (Continental Can Co., NC Pulp Co., Gair Woodlands) - 1943-45, US Army Corps of Engineers, New Guinea and the Philippines Leland F. Myers (Myers Lumber Co., VA) - 1941-42 Senior Engineering Aide, US Army Corps of Engineers; 194245, US Army Armored Engineers, 18 months in Europe George Anderson Myles (Myles Lumber Co, Goshen, VA) - 1942-45, Wood and Glue Unit, Materials and Processes, US Army Air Force, ATSC, Atlanta, GA Chauncey R. Nichols (SC State Commission of Forestry) - 1943-46, US Navy George E. Nietzold (consultant, USFS) - 1942-46, US Army Robert Waring Oast (St. Regis Paper Co., Southern Pine Inspection Bureau, Raiford Lumber Co.) - 1945-47, US Army, Europe Kenneth D. Obye (US Gypsum Co.) - 1943-46, 1st Lieutenant US Army Infantry, Germany David Frederick Olson, Jr. (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) - 1944-46, Seaman 1st Class, US Navy John V. Orr (USFS) - 1944-46, US Army Robert Cathey Overby (Hoerner-Waldorf Corp., Halifax Paper Co.) - 1942-1944, Aviation Radioman, US Navy James Robert Padgett (USFS) - 1942-45, US Navy Francis Candler Parker (consultant, Champion, US Plywood-Champion) - 1942-45, US Navy William John Paschal (consultant, US Army Supervisory Forester, Fort Bragg) - 1943-46, US Marines Hugo J. Pawek (Duke, CCC, USFS, various industry) - 1942-43, Administrative Assistant for Aircraft Warning System in Alabama, 1943-45, US Army Corps of Engineers, Australia Nelson Littlepage Peach (SC State Commission of Forestry) - 1941-45, Master Sergeant, Topographic Engineers, US Army, North Africa and Pacific Caleb M. Pennock, Jr. (VA Division of Forestry) - 1943-46, US Navy William D. Pepper (TVA, NC Division of Forestry, Formica Corp.) - 1941-44, US Navy Donald William Peterson (USFS) - 1946-48, Aerographer’s Mate, US Navy Charles C. Pettit (NC Division of Forestry, CCC) - 1942-45, US Marine Corps, 1st Division Ernest Douglas Pew (Canal Wood Corp., Pew Timber Co,) - 1941-46, Lieutenant, US Navy Edward Carlisle Pickens (SC State Commission of Forestry) - 1944-46, US Navy Richard Lee Piepenbring (International Paper) - 1942-45, 2nd Lieutenant and Pilot, US Air Force William L. Pierce (VA Division of Forestry) - 1943-46, US Navy Marvin Gilbert Porter (Union Camp) - 1946-47, US Army Dean Niles Quinney (USFS forest products marketing research) - 1946-47, US Army Air Force Charles William Ralston (Duke) - 1942-45, Captain, British Star, US Army Field Artillery, Europe James Ralston (International Paper) - 1945-46, US Navy William Stuart Ratliff (Westvaco) - unspecified Wlibur H. Reames (SC State Comm. of Forestry) - 1941-46, 1st Lieutenant in US Army, Okinawa and I.E. Shima Robert Randolph Richardson (Federal Paper Board Co., Riegel Paper Corp.) - unspecified, Sergeant in US Army 45th Infantry Division, Italy, France, Germany John Thomas Robinson, Jr. (Westvaco) - 1943-46, US Navy Edwin Earl Rodger (VA Division of Forestry) - unspecified, Bombadier, US Army Air Corps
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Gordon L. Rodgers (Weyerhaeuser) - 1942-45, US Army Charles Clifton Rountree, Jr. (SC State Commission of Forestry) - 1945-46, US Army Thomas Sylvanus Rhyne (NC Forest Service) - 1945-46, US Marine Corps Albert Alexander Salt (Salt Wood Products) - 1942-46, Captain, Bronze Star, 2nd Cavalry, US Army, Europe Lester P. Schaap (USFS, Walhalla, SC) - 194?, Senior Timberman, TPWP, Raleigh, NC Robert Lee Scheer (NC Division of Forestry, USFS - Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) - 1943-46, US Army Francis X. Schmidley (Southeastern Industries, Conway, SC) - 194?, US Army Corps of Engineers Roland E. Schoenike (Clemson) - 1945-47, US Army George H. Seago, Jr. (C.C. Royal and Co., Flack-Jones Lumber Co., Westvaco) - 1941-45, Major, US Army Martin N. Shaw, Jr. (NC Division of Forestry) - unspecified Howard Wesley Sheffer (Glatfelter Pulp Wood Co.) - 1943-46, US Naval Reserve William G. Shepperd (Westvaco) - 1941-45, US Navy John Marion Shirer (SC State Commission of Forestry) - 1942-46, US Navy Walter Simons (SC Industries Inc.) - 1944-46, US Marine Corps Joe P. Simpson (Bowater) - 1943-46, US Navy Ivan H. Sims (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Northern Coastal Plain Branch, Franklin, VA) - 1941-45, Senior Forester, Forest Research Administration, Washington DC Sam Mitchell Slade (SC State Commission of Forestry) - 1943-46, US Navy George K. Slocum (NCSU) - 1945-46, Federal Forest Resources Appraisal for NC Robert Weston Slocum (VA Division of Planning and Community Affairs, VA Division of Forestry) - 1941-46, Field Artillery, US Army, Europe Archer Dickerson Smith, Jr. (USFS) -1943-51, War Forest Fire Emergency Dir. & CM-2 Inspector, Southern Reg. George E. Smith, Jr. (USDA Soil Conservation Ser., SC Land Resources Conservation Comm.) -1942-46, US Air Force John David Smith (VPI, Smith Timber Products) - 1943-46, Capt. US Army Infantry, Europe, Africa, Middle East Carl H. Stelling - Commander, Company F, Quartermasters Regiment, 57th Quartermasters Battalion, 31 months in the Pacific Donald Day Stevenson (Champion) - 1943-45, Senior Forestry Specialist, Federal Emergency Administration in Guatemala and Peru Lewis R. Smith (USFS) US Army WWI Robert L. Smith (Consultant) US Navy Commander, US Electronics Facility 1942-45 Charles F. Speers (USFS) US Navy Reserves 1942-46 John F. Spivey (NC Forest Service) Army Air Corps 1942-45 Everett Stainback (Hoerner Waldorf) US Air Force Pilot 1942-46 William J Stambaugh (Prof.-Duke Univ.) US Army 1945-47 Carl H Stelling (Georgia Pacific) US Army 1942-46 Edward Stuart, Jr (Consultant) US Army, Captain Infantry, 1942-46 Samuel Chadwick Sweeny (West VA. Pulp &Paper) US Navy WWI and WW II Del Walker Thorsen (Consultant) US Marine Corps 1942-46 Frederick Trew (Westvaco) US Air Force 1943-46 Myron Tupper (NC Forest Service) National Guard, Lt. 319 Eng .Bn. 1942-46 Donald Varner (NC Forest Service) US Marine Corps, South Pacific 1944-46 Albert Wackerman (Prof, Duke University) US Marine Corps WWI William Wahlenberg (USFS & Duke Univ.) US Army Eng. WWI Thomas Walbridge, Jr. (Prof VPI) USNR 1942-45, Mid Pacific George F. Walker (Westvaco) Sgt. AAF, European Theater 1942-45 Wesley Wallace (Whiteville Plywood) US Navy Reserve, LCDR Melvin Ward (International Paper) US Navy 1940-46 John R. Warner (Prof- Clemson) US Army Transportation Corps 1945-47 Virgil Watkins (NC Forest Service) Lt. US Army 1941-45 Bryant E. Watts (USFS) US Navy 1945-47 John Weatherly (Catawba Timber) US Marine Corps, Major, Fighter Pilot 1944-47 Hugh M. Westbury (SC Forestry Comm.) US Army Air Force, 1944-47 Wallace Wix (Champion Paper Co) US Army Air Corps Atwood Whitman (Consultant-Atlantic States Forestry) Lt., US Army Field Artillery
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Dallas Wilfong, Jr. (VA Div. of Forestry) US Marine Corps, Pilot, Captain Alvin D. Wilson (VA Div. of Forestry) US Army, Europe, 1941-45 Spencer Wilson (Consultant) US Army 1941-45 Harold Winger (International Paper) US Naval Reserve 1943-45 Ralph Winkworth (NC Forest Service) US Navy, Captain 1943-45 Richard Woodling (VA. Div. of Forestry) US Marine Corps 1942-45 Thomas E Yancey (VA. Div. of Forestry) US Air Force, Bombardier, 1942-45 John A. Youmans, Jr. (Georgia Pacific) US Army 10th Mt. Div Ski Troops, Cpt 1943-46 Bruce Zobel (NC State Univ.) US Marine Corps 1944-46
Trees for the Siege Other civilian wartime employment pertained specifically to forestry, as the war accelerated growth in all wood-using industries. The War Production Board (WPB) coordinated American efforts to meet wartime demands for raw materials, including lumber, lumber products, pulp, and paper. In addition to locating and allocating forest resources, the WPB tried to ensure that labor and equipment were available for cutting operations, sawmills, naval stores production, pulp and paper plants, construction, fabrication, and the production of chemicals and plastics from wood. Towards these ends, the WPB obtained draft deferments for forest industries workers, gained increased appropriations for road building in National Forests, located timber stands containing critically needed resources, and helped to supply equipment required by forest industries. At least two APSAF members were associated with the WPB: Alexander K. Conrad as a lumber economist, and E. Sigurd Johnson as a Senior Industrial Consultant. Another, Appalachian Forest Research Station Silviculturalist Ivan H. Sims, spent the war years as Senior Forester with the Forest Research Administration in Washington, DC. In that capacity, Sims almost certainly participated in the WPB’s efforts. Clarence Forsling, formerly Chief of the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station and then USDA Forest Service Chief of Research, was even more directly involved. Forsling was a member of the War Production Board, as were future USDA Forest Service Chiefs of Research Verne L. Harper and M.B. Dickerman. Foresters who worked with the USDI Geological Survey were also a part of the military-supply effort, as were the many foresters who took part in the WPB Timber Production War Project (TPWP). Also known as “Teepee Weepee,” this project was administered by the USDA Forest Service to coordinate production by small and medium-sized enterprises. TPWP was particularly important in the Southeastern states where there were thousands of small operations. Working in cooperation with state and local agencies, most TPWP foresters stayed in the field recruiting labor, ferreting out equipment and stumpage, and providing advice on cutting practices and business administration. As a result, the program was very effective with relatively low funding and only 200 employees. There were a number of TPWP alumni in the APSAF Directory for 1948: Eric H. Ericson, Jr. (Union Bag) - Project Forester, Monroesville, AL. Erwin A. Heers (CCC, USFS) - Project Forester, Lufkin, TX. Fred C. Henneberger (USFS) - Project Forester, Burgaw, NC. James L. Huff (Hoerner-Waldorf, Halifax Paper, Toler Lumber) - Project Forester, Newton, NC. William P. Legrand (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) - Timberman, Lexington, NC. Anson W. Lindemuth, Jr. (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) - Project Forester, Starkville, MS. Lester P. Schaap (USFS) - Senior Timberman, Raleigh, NC.
The war effort took a few civilian APSAF members as far afield as it did those in the military. Some foresters gained experience in tropical forestry while in quest of alternatives for resources cut off by Japanese expansion in the Pacific. Winslow L. Gooch (VA state forestry, Chesapeake Paper) went to Mexico in 1944 as Chief of the Tannin Material Survey, then he relocated to France during 1945 and 1946 as Forest Products Specialist attached to the US Embassy in Paris. I.T. Haig (Southeastern Forest
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Experiment Station) spent 1943 and 1944 in Washington, DC as Chief of the Chilean Forest Mission before becoming Director of the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station in Asheville in 1945. During the same years, Donald D. Stevenson (Champion) held the position of Senior Forestry Specialist with the Federal Emergency Administration in Guatemala and Peru. In the private sector, Harry C. Haines (Duke Power) lived and worked in Brazil as a field technician for the Rubber Development Corporation from 1942 until 1945. Similarly, Firestone Company employed Arthur W. Lotz (SC state forestry) to manage its rubber plantations in Liberia throughout the 1940s. Other APSAF members who performed notable services during World War II included Archer D. Smith (USFS) - War Forest Fire Emergency Director and Inspector, Southern Region, 1943-1951, and George K. Slocum (NCSU) - in charge of the North Carolina section of the AFA’s Forest Resources Appraisal, 1944.
The Impact of War on Forestry Research Just as in other spheres, military requirements overrode pre-war plans for forestry research. The personnel of the USDA Forest Service Research Divisions dwindled steadily; by 1945, 198 scientists had joined the armed forces and two had been killed. Field studies halted as the remaining civilian researchers focused on military needs. Not all research programs were suspended, however. Unlike most research branches, the U.S. Forest Products Laboratories (FPL) in Madison, Wisconsin increased its staff. The FPL gained prominence because its programs were directly applicable to military needs. The exigencies of war moved ideas and technology pioneered during preceding decades out of the FPL laboratories and into practical use. Wood laminates were adapted for airplane construction. Wood chemistry research grew in importance for the production of plastics, explosives, and wood alcohol. As military service drained workers from the woods, the FPL accelerated efforts to increase the efficiency of wood utilization and to find new ways to utilize scrap wood. Most importantly, FPL researchers developed new packaging techniques and materials. Their work allowed safe shipment of military equipment and supplies to Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. In the South, the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station joined the Southern Forest Experiment Station in conducting surveys and preparing reports for the WPB. E.V.M. Roberts served as Survey Division Chief at the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station. At the 1940 APSAF meeting in Asheville, Roberts acquainted members with the newly launched national forest survey and discussed its socioeconomic implications. By 1945, some pulp and paper companies were using the Forest Survey’s data on forest inventory, growth, and drain to guide their policies regarding forestland ownership, timber management, and pulpwood procurement. Consulting foresters and foresters with the various agencies involved in managing forest lands relied on Survey reports. The Forest Survey also connected the forest industries to forest resources by providing information about the availability of various tree species. In some cases, this created markets for species that previously had not been valued. The 1945 report of the APSAF Committee on Private Forestry described the impact of the Forest Survey on industry: Forest inventory, growth, and drain data of the Forest Survey are used by several of the leading pulp companies as a basis for formulating company policy in respect to forest land ownership, timber management on their own lands, and pulpwood procurement in their drawing territory. Forest Survey reports are used by consulting foresters engaged in private work. Volume tables prepared by the Forest Survey have been made available to private foresters and to public foresters engaged in assisting private timber owners. Forest Survey reports provide background information for public and private agencies engaged in conservation and development of private timber lands. The Forest Survey provides wood-using industries with information concerning the forest resource available in certain localities, thus broadening the market for timber held by private owners. In some cases this develops a market for hitherto unsalable species.
Even during the late 1940s, most research publications reflected projects begun during the 1930s or projects related to
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the war effort. Jesse H. Buell published several reports on forest mensuration based on work he had begun at the western North Carolina Bent Creek Experimental Forest in the early 1930s. Robert A. Campbell’s research at Bent Creek during and after World War II generated at least 22 reports between 1946 and 1959. Campbell’s publications considered practical topics that remained tenable under wartime conditions and were indispensable to the expansion of forest industries after the war. Subjects included farm woodland management, timber production, timber grading, timber growth, and pulpwood production. The morning session of the APSAF winter meeting held January 14, 1949 in Greensboro, NC illustrated the increasing focus on industry within the Section. The session topic was “The Use of Wood in Manufactured Products.” The papers presented were “Furniture and Forestry” (Walton R. Smith, Forest Utilization Service, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Asheville, NC), “Dogwood Products,” (Elwood Cox, Joseph D. Cox and Sons, Inc., High Point, NC), “Railroad Ties,” (Monie S. Hudson, Research Chemist, Taylor-Colquitt Company, Spartanburg, SC), “Veneer and Plywood” (William L. Beasley, Jr., Veneer Products, Inc., Tarboro, NC), “Containers” (Madison M. Riley, Planters Manufacturing Company, Portsmouth, VA), and “Hickory Dimension Products” (Robert C. Buchholz, Draper Corporation, Biltmore, NC). Despite cutbacks, Carl E. Ostrom recalled that USDA Forest Service personnel from Lake City, FL, the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station, and the Southern Forest Experiment Station made a “considerable effort” to establish a system of research centers across the South. The effort received very strong support from the Forest Farmers Association, suggesting that private timberland owners valued the Stations’ work. Lee Experimental Forest in Virginia and Sumter Experimental Forest in South Carolina were established during the early 1940s to provide test sites for research problems in particular forest types. Additional centers took shape after World War II when then USDA Forest Service Chief Edward I. Kotok promoted the concept nationally. Forest pathology research continued during World War II, again because it reflected military priorities. During this period, George Hepting oversaw pathologists at the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station and at satellite research centers located near the habitats of diseases under study. Working in Asheville, Elmer R. Roth established a connection between incipient decay infection in oaks and accelerated decay in lumber. He found that ties and posts cut from infected trees decay at a faster rate than those cut from uninfected trees, although the decay is caused by a different fungi. Roth also studied wood decay in boats, a topic directly helpful to the military. Similarly, George Hepting researched problems in woods used to construct aircraft. Military demands on forests perpetuated interest in pathogens that reduced tree growth. The 1941 APSAF annual meeting included the first mention in the APSAF records of littleleaf disease, a soil-bourne fungal disease of shortleaf pine (Phytophthera cinnamomi). George H. Hepting introduced the topic along with a summary of littleleaf disease research, which he expanded upon at the 1942 APSAF annual meeting. Littleleaf disease was most severe in the South Carolina piedmont, where it often prevented shortleaf pine from growing larger than pulpwood size. In 1947, Calhoun Experimental Forest was established within Sumter National Forest near Union, SC. Calhoun contained some of the worst soil conditions in the piedmont and the most severe outbreak of littleleaf disease; 7,400 acres out of 11,000 acres were affected. Appalachian Forest Experiment Station personnel set up a research center at Calhoun to tackle the problems of heavy clay soils in general and littleleaf disease in particular. Soils expert Otis L. Copeland, Jr. conducted research there from 1948 until 1953 with the assistance of Robert C. McAlpine. He published his first articles relating soil conditions to littleleaf disease in 1949. Marvin D. Hoover did related research on soil moisture in Calhoun Experimental Forest, resulting in seven articles between 1950 and 1954. By 1953, progress on controlling the disease had advanced sufficiently for the Union, SC research center to close. The APSAF Report of the Committee on Private Forestry appraised work done by the Division of Forest Pathology, Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering: Research on the decays and discolorations of pulpwood, veneer stock, and lumber has been conducted in
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cooperation with these forest industries, and the results made available to them. Forest management methods for minimizing the losses from the littleleaf disease, heart rots in standing timber, and other diseases of forest stands are being constantly improved and the information put in the hands of the operators.
The report’s assessment of work by the Division of Forest Insect Investigations, Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine was similar: Studies on the outbreaks of the pine bark beetles, especially the southern pine beetle, have led to reductions in loss from, and prompt salvage of, infested timber on private as well as public lands. A considerable amount of direct service has been given the forest industries in reducing losses from powder-post beetles, termites, and other forms of insect damage to wood products. The development of cheap and effective methods for the chemical impregnation of non-durable woods to prevent insect attack and decay, thus giving greater serviceability, have been widely utilized by farmers and industry wood-users.
Perennial Tasks, Unsettled Matters In addition to cognizance of federal forestry research, APSAF meetings continued to address the relationship between federal projects and forestry. The 19 th annual meeting, held in Asheville on January 19 and 20, 1940, included a presentation by W.M. Baker on TVA forestry projects. Homer A. Smith reported on the Santee-Cooper project that ultimately flooded many thousands of acres of bottomland hardwood forest in eastern South Carolina. Smith particularly focused on the expected impact of the project on forestry and wood-using industries in the southeast. Edward N. Munns gave APSAF members an overview of USDA flood control activities. Members in attendance also considered policies and plans for developing new state forestry projects. Fire remained the perennial topic. Patriotic slogans equated woods-burning with sabotage of the American war effort. The war effort itself removed potential woods-burners from the region when many rural men were inducted into service. The number of acres burned annually in the South decreased greatly in 1945 as a result of continuing fire suppression efforts and a drop in the number of fires set. Archer D. Smith (USFS) - War Forest Fire Emergency Director and Inspector, Southern Region, 1943-1951, and H.A. Smith gave a comprehensive discussion of that year’s fire season. Albert E. Wackerman addressed progress in private and industrial forestry in the Southeast, while H.M. Sebring summarized developments in the USDA farm forestry program. Meeting attendees adopted resolutions urging increased appropriations under the Clarke-McNary Act and establishment of farm forestry programs under the Norris-Doxey Farm Forestry Act.
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The 1941 annual meeting, once again in Asheville, also covered farm forestry. William E. Cooper spoke on the topic based on his work with farmers through the TVA, SCS, the South Carolina Commission of Forestry, and Clemson University from 1935 through 1942. Leon S. Minckler spoke on tree planting, T.W. McKinley related his experiences “prescribing private timberland management,” and Mead Corporation forester W.P. Bullock described procurement and forestry problems relating to hardwood pulpwood. Samuel S. Snook of Walterboro, SC delivered a report on the Naval Stores Conservation Program, followed by D.E. Hervey’s presentation “Conservation of What, For What?” At the 1941 annual meeting, Julius V. Hofmann continued APSAF’s consideration of forestry education with a talk on recent trends. The education and professional status of foresters was further addressed in the meeting resolution recommending that “key” foresters hired by state forestry departments be graduates of SAF-recognized schools of forestry. Moreover, it was resolved that the SAF Council should consider requesting the Secretary of Agriculture to make hiring graduates of recognized schools a prerequisite for federal funding of state forestry programs. The 1942 annual meeting marked the first recorded discussion of the effects of Word War II on forests and forestry in the APSAF. Southeastern Forest Experiment Station Chief Richard E. McArdle discussed his work with the USDA on post-war planning. In later years, McArdle remembered that he had little enthusiasm for the effort. Most of the planning work was not applicable to actual postwar conditions. Its main benefit was in encouraging different branches of the USDA to work together when planning for the future. [see Steen--US Forest Service] Despite reservations, foresters continued to participate in postwar planning efforts. The Committee on Postwar Agriculture Policy of the Association of Land-Grant Colleges and Universities was 105
one such effort. The committee included George H. Aull, head of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Clemson Agricultural College, and John R. Hutcheson, Agricultural Extension Service, Virginia Polytechnic Institute. George Aull was responsible for establishing what later became Clemson Experimental Forest, and both men represented schools with strong commitments to forestry. The committee included representatives from around the country. In addition, a series of regional conferences that gathered the opinions and suggestions of representatives from agricultural colleges in all 48 states. The meetings also solicited the expertise of USDA specialists, officers of national farm organizations (including the Grange, Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union, Farm Bureau Federation, and the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives), and experts on technical subjects from land-grant colleges. In the forward to the committee’s report, Association President C.B. Hutchinson wrote, "What [American farmers] have accomplished during the present war has been little short of miraculous, fully comparable with the achievements of any of our civilian activities in support of the war. Long hours of skilled labor and the wide use of new and better practices developed by science and technology have made these accomplishments possible. American agriculture has been successfully mobilized for war." Chapter V of the report dealt specifically with the conservation of land, water, and forests. The chapter repeated the oft-told story of the exploitation of land and natural resources in the United States and voiced concern for "areas blighted because the soil was depleted, the timber gone, water lacking, or resources put to unsuited uses." Although these were not new concerns, the report couched them within the context of World War II and wartime demands on natural resources: "The war has driven home the importance of this nation's resources, making it unthinkable to allow the wasteful use of them to continue. We must act, and in a manner much more adequate than in the past." The committee's arguments for the importance of conservation echoed the wartime arguments against woods burning. Both equated protecting forests with patriotism. In wartime, conservation equaled "doing one’s part" for the war effort. Therefore, patriotism demanded "wise use and adoption of improved soil management practices," along with continued development and use of fertilizers. The report also advised attention to social factors affecting land use: land tenure, farming submarginal land, indebtedness, farm income, and access to technical knowledge. From the professional and academic point of view, "a sound conservation program is one of finding the facts, educating people to the action which the facts require, and giving some guidance and support to farmers in applying the recommendations. Education was considered the "primary conservation measure." It followed that the expansion of educational programs, extensions services, research programs, and soil conservation districts was necessary. The report also called for coordination of public and private programs at local, state and national levels. It continued that all farm land programs should be consolidated under one agency. The committee stressed reliance on education and voluntary programs, but recommended public assistance for conservation work on private land. C.F. Evans spoke on the effects of wartime demand for forest products on cutting practices. By 1943, APSAF members were entirely focused on war-time issues. S.C. State Forester William C. Hammerle outlined South Carolina's requirements and plans for increased fire control. Hammerle pointed out the specific problems related to the war. Areas around military installations and where military operations were conducted received increased fire protection. Decreased visibility from smoke was also a concern, particularly along the coast where lookouts scanned for enemy aircraft and submarines. In addition, inexperienced personnel and high turnover rates on fire crews were creating problems. Wartime demands on American forests were enormous. Some 215 billion board-feet of lumber was produced between 1940 and 1946. Half of this went for military use. Some pulp and paper companies responded to increasing demand by beginning their own research programs. Conversely, labor shortages during World War II led the forest industries to abandon selective cutting and artificial regeneration methods. Companies increased selective cuts from 30-40 percent of a stand to 40-60 percent, or replaced selective cutting with clearcuts that left seed trees for natural regeneration. In spite of labor shortages, some tree planting continued. By the late 1940s, southern pulp and paper companies had 106
planted 45 million trees on their own lands and helped small landowners plant an additional 11 million. These efforts covered about 60,000 acres across the South. Clarence Korstian predicted that the military drain on American forests would be a source of concern for foresters after the war. He believed that annual cuts would need to be reduced “for a period of years” to allow forests to recover. Fears that forest resources might be depleted by military demands refocused attention on forestry and conservation. In Virginia, the General Assembly appointed the Commission on Forests and Forest Land Problems in 1941. The Commission’s report in 1942 recommended “an extensive education program” rather than government regulation of private forest lands. However, the report also urged the State of Virginia to “take a stronger hand in the protection of our forest resources and in encouraging reforestations.” Proposals to that end included the extension of Virginia’s seed tree law from pine lands to all forest lands, increasing the minimum diameter of seed trees from 10 inches to 12 inches, and increasing the number of seed trees required to at least four healthy trees per acre. A more popular approach, supported by “a number of foresters,” was a system of different guidelines for different forest conditions in various parts of the state. The guidelines would be formulated by the Virginia Conservation Commission based on hearings held around the state. This system allowed public and industry participation in formulating the rules. It also provided foresters with latitude to exercise their professional judgment in a heterogeneous landscape. Korstian himself favored regulation of forest lands to ensure compliance with minimum forest management practices. He preferred regulation by state government over federal regulations because he felt state governments were better able to adapt regulations to local conditions. He advised the forest industries to support state-level regulation both for their own self-interest in preserving forest resources and to forestall federal action. Korstian also proposed licensing all operators who cut timber, pulpwood, or procured other forest resources. Those who did not comply with minimum forest management practices would be penalized, including possible forfeiture of their licences. In May, 1943, the SAF Executive Council issued a statement which also seemed to favor state-level regulation of forests. The statement called for the states and industry to shoulder “the responsibilities resting on them to face and solve the problem of regulating timber cutting promptly and effectively.” It continued that failure to act would make federal regulation necessary “to protect the national interest.” “National interest” held particular importance during wartime, and many in industry shared SAF concerns regarding future supplies of forest resources. The Tree Farm program was one forest industry response to these concerns, as well as a calculated move to forestall federal regulation. Weyerhaeuser began the Tree Farm program in Washington state during 1941. The company designated 120,000 acres of its property a “tree farm” to raise awareness of fire prevention among recreational users. Forest industry associations in the West quickly adopted and expanded the idea and successfully campaigned for a national tree farm program within the National Lumber Manufacturers Association (NLMA). A national tree farm program began in 1942 under NLMA’s then-subsidiary, the American Forest Products Industries( AFPI). However, AFPI did not administer tree farm programs east of the Rocky Mountains until the 1950s. Tree farm certification began in the South under various state organizations during 1942 and was quickly sponsored by the Southern Pine Association (SPA). By 1948, the SPA conservation committee had certified tree farms in nine southern states including North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Forest resource appraisals and surveys were another noteworthy response to concerns about the war’s consumption of forest resources. In 1940, E.V.M. Roberts gave APSAF members an overview of the national forest resource inventory. TVA forester William W. Jolly expanded on Robert’s overview at the 1941 APSAF meeting with “The Inventory of Forestry Resources and Industries of the Tennessee Valley.” In addition to the USDA Forest Service and WPB surveys, the AFA began its Nationwide Forest Resource Appraisal in 1944. Charles H. Flory led the South Carolina State Forestry Survey of the Congaree and Wateree river bottoms in May, 1945. Along with continuing efforts by government and industry, postwar changes in wood use patterns helped to reduce non-industrial demands on available timber. In particular, the percentage of the total cut 107
that was used for fuelwood dropped sharply. In North Carolina, 36 percent of the total cut was used for fuelwood, compared to 52 percent for sawlogs, 4 percent for pulpwood, 3 percent for veneer, and 5 percent for other uses. By 1955, only 13 percent of the total cut was used as fuelwood compared to 57 percent for sawlogs, 19 percent for pulpwood, 6 percent for veneer, and 5 percent for other uses. Nevertheless, the prospect of a postwar housing boom caused justifiable concern; the National Housing Authority called for the construction of 3 million new houses by the end of 1947.
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Chapter 9 Post-War Forestry The US Forest Service began to fund and conduct wildlife research in 1946. After Verne Harper became Chief of Research in 1951, appropriations for USDA Forest Service research began a steady climb. The increase was partially the result of a general increase in government funding for research that began with World War II, but Harper’s efforts lobbying Congress were crucial.
Postwar Research Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, most foresters viewed selective cutting as the best approach to timber management. Selective cutting was carefully distinguished from high-grading, which removed only the most valuable trees and left low grade, unmarketable trees to restock the forest. Foresters associated selective cutting with thinning operations and with the removal of low grade trees. Clear-cutting implied widespread, indiscriminate over-cutting to foresters who still remembered the massive areas cleared of trees during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the 1930s, Raymond D. Garver and John B. Cuno produced reports promoting selective logging of loblolly and longleaf pines in the Carolinas. Garver also co-authored “Selective Logging in the Shortleaf and Loblolly Pine Forests of the Gulf States Region” with Raymond H. Miller, and “Selective Logging in the Northern Hardwoods of the Lake States” with Raphael Zon. During this same period, however, forestry researchers began to grapple with the problem of hardwood invasion into forests formerly dominated by pine. In 1938, the Duke University School of Forestry published the bulletin “Plant Competition in Forest Stands” by Clarence F. Korstian and Theodore S. Coile. At the 1942 APSAF meeting, L.I. Barrett agreed to chair a committee to determine the consensus on appropriate silvicultural practices in the Carolinas. Along similar lines, L.I. Barrett and A.A. Downs contributed “Hardwood Invasion in Pine Forests of the Piedmont Plateau” to the Journal of Agricultural Research in 1943. In Forestry on Private Lands in the United States (1944), Korstian discussed the connection between cutting methods and forest composition, noting “wide differences of opinion and attendant confusion concerning” cutting methods. Forestry researchers were variously advocating seed-tree, singletree selection, and group selection systems, and often assumed that one method or another would be most effective in all cases. Unlike proponents of one particular system, Korstian distinguished methods that were successful for regenerating southern pine forests, as opposed to methods that favored establishment of hardwood forests. Korstian recommended heavy cuttings and clear cutting in strips or patches for the reproduction of pine. To support his recommendation, he cited research results from Duke Forest and H.H. Chapman’s endorsement of group selection for pine regeneration. For hardwood forests, he recommended single-tree selection, group selection, or shelterwood cutting methods. Other APSAF-area foresters apparently shared Korstian’s assessment. The first even-aged timber sale on a national forest occurred in 1949 at Francis Marion National Forest. Seed trees were left for regeneration and prescribed burning prepared the seedbeds. The following year, Francis Marion National Forest’s Timber Plan was the first to prescribe even-aged silviculture as forest management policy. Forestry Research at Bent Creek Experimental Forest also changed emphasis in response to concerns that forest resources were dwindling. From 1946 until the early 1960s, Bent Creek researchers tested various silvicultural systems to measure their impact on forests and their utility for producing forest resources. Experiments compared uneven-aged to even-aged stand management, long and short cutting 109
rotations, and extensive versus intensive timber stand emendations. This represented a shift in focus from earlier eras’ particular stress on the physical effects of land use on the forested landscape. The APSAF devoted the afternoon session of its winter meeting held January 14, 1949 in Greensboro, N.C. to the topic “The Control of Hardwoods in the Tidewater and Coastal Plain Areas of Virginia and the Carolinas.” The Industrial Foresters’ Viewpoint was presented by J. H. Johnson, Forester, The Chesapeake Corporation of Virginia, West Point, VA and F.C. Gragg, Division Forester, Southern Kraft Division, International Paper Company, Georgetown, SC. R.J. Riebold, Forest Supervisor for the South Carolina National Forests gave the views of federal foresters on the problem. State foresters were represented by F.H. Claridge, Assistant Forester, N.C. Forest Service. L.E. Chaiken, Silviculturist, Central Atlantic Coastal Plain Branch, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Charleston, SC discussed research on the control of hardwoods. George M. Jemison, Chief, Division of Forest Management Research, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Asheville, NC presided as discussion leader. Increased demand from forest resources during World War II led some forest industry companies to organize research units. In 1944, Westvaco established a research project on the protection and management of southern pines with a staff of six. At the same time that new research positions were created in industry, opportunities for employment also expanded in government and university research. Continued growth in forest industry research escalated collaboration between industry, government, and university research programs. The forest industries increasingly sponsored research at universities and stimulated expansion of research programs at universities. As a result, the need for forestry personnel with advanced degrees grew steadily and the number of advanced degrees sought and awarded in forestry rose.
Chemicals and Herbicides In 1947, a small post treatment plant began operations in Bladen Lakes State Forest, North Carolina. The plant used cold soaking in Pentachlorophenol to preserve pole-sized pine thinnings. By 1953, the treatment plant was producing 2,000 treated posts per week and served as a model for similar operations around the state. During the 1950s, foresters at Bladen Lakes State Forest also began to use herbicides to kill scrub hardwoods that competed with pine seedlings. A research project compared the use of herbicides with under-planting oaks with pine seedlings, followed by girdling or felling the oaks. One advantage of
the latter was the production of firewood for sale locally. Wildlife and Forestry After World War II The USDA Forest Service began to fund and conduct wildlife research in 1946.
The Growing Recognition of Forestry Research After Verne Harper became Chief of Research in 1951, appropriations for USDA Forest Service research began a steady climb. The increase was partially the result of a general increase in government funding for research that began with World War II, but Harper’s efforts lobbying Congress were crucial.
SAF Postwar Concerns After World War II, the burgeoning numbers of new forestry school graduates going into private forestry intensified concerns about the proper qualifications and ethics of professional foresters. Most of the returning servicemen who flooded forestry schools were only tangentially exposed to the SAF during their education. However, most forestry professors were SAF members and some emphasized the importance of SAF membership for professional foresters to their students. Some students, particularly those pursuing post-graduate degrees, attended APSAF meetings. Stephen Boyce often attended forestry meetings to learn from researchers and practicing foresters. He recalled the state-level APSAF meeting held in Raleigh during 1949 where he first met I.T. Haig, then director of the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station. In 1948, the SAF held a referendum, which led to the adoption of a formal code of ethics for the forestry profession. During the late 1940s and 1950s, the SAF also took the lead in promoting licensing and registration of foresters. This effort grew out of discussions within the SAF during the late 1930s. In 110
his annual report for 1938, SAF President H.H. Chapman noted "legal recognition and protection are the objectives of all professions." In 1939, Chapman worried "in the absence of a license system, this socalled profession of forestry is at the mercy of charlatans in private fields and politicians in public employment." Georgia passed the first legislation providing for licensing or registration of foresters in 1951, but did not make it mandatory until 1959. South Carolina was the first state within the APSAF to require registration (1961). Because state legislation usually requires foresters to hold a degree from an SAF-approved school, such laws put additional pressure on unaccredited schools to meet SAF requirements. The explosive growth of forestry after World War II soon affected the structure of the SAF and the APSAF. The 1948 SAF survey of the Sections showed the total number of members in the Section: Senior Members l64, Junior Members 218, all other grades 18. [The following paragraphs are apparently minutes from a Virginia meeting.] WELCOME NEW MEMBERS: new SAF members in 1948: William A Turner, Wayne A. Rifenberg, William J. Barton, John R. White, Travis M. Beeson, Douglas T. House, Ralph S. Johnson, Allen Everet Anderson, Charles E. Schreyer, Donald V. McVey, Hartwell C. Martin, Edward H. Ward, Fay M. Straight, William K. Ferrell, Robert R. Evans, Carl P. Schreiber, Giles G. Hall (joined 1940, reinstated 1948), George E. Smith, Jr. (41R48), William G. Grieve (37R48), Joseph T. Stewart (Af 1948), Henry B. Fishburne (Af 1948), H. Roland Price (1941 - transferred), David M. Waite (1940 transferred), Charles L. Turner (1946 - transferred), James M. Mann (1944 transferred), C. F. Winslow (26S35, transferred), Keith W. Dorman (35S45, transferred), Monte M. Young (1943 - transferred), Peter H. Johnson (1944 transferred), James L. McKendree (1947 - transferred), Roland D. Cowger (1947 transferred). Since the first of January in Virginia there have reported for duty primarily in the field of forest management, the following men: Caleb Pennock, Jr., Penn. State Forest School; Edwin A. Friend, Jr., Penn. State Forest School; Francis. M. LaDuc, N. Y. State Ranger School; Frederick Trew, N. Y. State Ranger School; William. J. West, V. P. I. and Duke Forest School. Due to the expansion of the timber service to landowners, activities made possible by the recent General Assembly, it is probable that the State organization will be taking on 12 to 15 new foresters around July 1. Changes in membership categories and requirements were one response. To: All Section Officers; Prom Shirley W. Allen, President Subject: Changes in Membership Grades 1947, recommendations to the Council 1. Provide for the grades of Member and Junior Member, 2. Abolish the grade of Senior Member, 3. Provide that the Junior Member grade be probationary for at least two years and not more than five years, 4. In other respects, the Junior Member grade to be unchanged, 5. Members to have special privileges (such as voting and holding office) not accorded Junior Members. Recommendations were discussed by the Council at its meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 21-22. I want all the Sections to consider the recommended changes thoroughly before any referendum is held this coming fall. See the Journal of Forestry for January 1947, pages 67-70. Nov. 7, 1947. To Mr. Henry Clepper: The Executive Committee of the Appalachian Section, Society of American Foresters has requested me to advise you that [we sic] have considered President Allen’s memo of August 5 and feel that there should be no change in the present membership status. Regarding the increase in the number of foresters in the United States, the Section Executive Committee feels that the Parent Society should take action to provide statistical data to forestry schools for the schools to pass out to applicants for admission. This data should clearly outline the prospects for employment in forestry. Yours, H. F. Bishop
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Another response was the division of large sections into new, smaller sections, or the establishment of subsections. April 5, 1948; To: Vice President Charles Evans, and Chairmen of Sections and Subsections Society of American Foresters Our largest sections are: Columbia River (487 members, 2 subsections with another forming), Northern California (425 members - 4 subsections with another being organized), Central States (403 members), Appalachian (400 members), and Allegheny (399 members) The thought I derive from this broad survey is that subsections are very desirable, especially where sections cover a large territory. They bring the Society closer to the junior and field foresters, and the Society benefits from securing the views and understanding of its younger members. These smaller groups make the Society worthwhile to more foresters, hence encourage membership. Appalachian lists 12 committees. I believe every section should have committees on Policy, Publicity and Public Relations, Programs, membership, ethics, and such other projects as are of local interest. Each should also have an executive committee which could act in emergencies between meetings and serve a quick contact with the national Society when problems arise that require prompt action. Membership Committee: Chairman Lenthall Wyman: How often are Section meetings held each year? Twice: January and May. Does your Section have subsections, local groups, or other subdivisions which hold meetings? No. Committee chairmen: Executive; N. T. Barron, Chesapeake-Camp Corp., Franklin, Va; Historv, P.W. Fletcher 17 Woodlawn Ave, Union, SC Jr.; Membership, S. J. Johnson, U.S. Forest Service, Asheville, N.C.; Directory, W. E. Cooper, Virginia Forests Inc., Richmond; Research, Theodore H. Davis, Forestry Department, Champion Paper & Pulp Co., Canton, NC; Silvicultural Committee Representative to Parent Society, George M. Jemison, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Asheville; Photo Collection, W. D. Miller, Department of Forestry, North Carolina State College, Raleigh, NC; Program, F. H. Claridge, N.C. Forest Service, N.C. Department of Conservation & Development, Raleigh, N.C.; Newsletter C.W. Hall, Columbia, S. C.; Nominating, C. H. Schaeffer Columbia, S.C. Licensing Foresters; Seth G. Hobart, Virginia Forest Service, Charlottesville, VA; Membership, Lenthall Wyman, Forestry Department, N.C. State College. Are the Section bylaws up to date? yes. Has each Section member been supplied with a copy of the bylaws? yes Does the section issue a news bulletin? yes How often? April and October. When was the latest Section directory of members issued? one being printed now. Does the Section issue reports on meetings? yes. On a separate sheet give any ideas you may have as to (l) how the Sections might be brought into closer contact with the Council and the whole Society, (2) how participation in section affairs and in meetings by the membership might be obtained, and (3) how the Sections might more effectively provide local leadership in forestry and conservation affairs. (Answering this item is optional but your suggestions will be appreciated.)
During the late 1940s, the possibility of dividing North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia into three sections was put forth. In March 1949, Henry Clepper sent a letter to the officers of all sections asking for opinions concerning formation of subsections. APSAF Vice-chairman W.J. Barker wrote to APSAF Chairman Lenthall Wyman on May 11, 1949 in support of forming subsections and opposing the division of the APSAF into three smaller sections: By and large, I am in accord with the proposed bylaw as it appears on page 149 of the February 1949 issue of the Journal of Forestry...I base my opinions on a personal belief that the Appalachian Section with its large territory and its 450 members is too large for a feeling of close friendship and association with its numerous members in its operation. Frankly, I believe that each of the states in the Appalachian Section have a sufficient number of members to justify a Section of their own. I hesitate to recommend this because the annual winter meetings are usually my only chance to talk with friends in the forestry
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profession in North Carolina and Virginia. These contacts are most enjoyable and I would hate very much to miss them. On the other hand, there are very few cities in any of the three states that can house a delegation such as ours...I would like very much to see the Appalachian Section have an annual winter meeting in some North Carolina city accessible to foresters of both Virginia and South Carolina and that we have separate summer meetings by states. I would further recommend that these summer meetings be staggered in such a way that an individual could attend more than one if circumstances permitted it. As to the bylaws, my suggestions have in mind how best this can be written to cover the above described situation. (1)I would favor a Subsection of any Section to be authorized by the Executive Committee of the Section upon written petition of 15 or more voting members of the Section of whom at least five shall be members. (2)Subsection shall hold at least one meeting each year. (3)The officers of each subsection shall include a chairman, vice-chairman, and a secretary-treasurer who should be voting members of the Society but need not serve concurrently with the officers of the Section (Section meeting will be held in the winter and Subsection meeting will be held in the summer so consequently it would be awkward for the Subsection officers to serve concurrently with the Section officers). (4)I believe that the Section should have the exclusive right to rescind the authorization of any Subsection and to terminate its existence. I see no need for the council to be bothered with such trivials. I am in agreement with all other phases of the bylaws as submitted.
Another way foresters met the need for smaller, close-knit organizations was to establish associations for foresters in different sub-fields. APSAF members helped to establish the Association of Consulting Foresters of America, Inc.(ACF). [http://www.acf-foresters.com/aboutacf.cfm on 1/24/2001] Alex Setser of Tennessee polled all consulting foresters then working in the United States, "a relatively small number." He found strong support for an organization specifically dedicated to the needs and concerns of consulting foresters. Paralleling the general concern for guaranteeing the professional status of forestry, consulting forestry needed a uniform standard for qualified professionals in the field. Consultants also wanted an arena where they could interact with colleagues. Professional contacts would allow them to compare conditions and practices in different regions and share ideas. Membership in a common organization would allow consultants to identify one another as fellow professionals and help both foresters and the public locate qualified consultants around the country. Consulting foresters needed opportunities to familiarize themselves with new forestry methods applicable to their field. Finally, they needed a forum for identifying and addressing issues that were important to consulting foresters but not to foresters in general. The first meeting was held December 1948 in conjunction with that year's SAF annual meeting in Boston. The initial plan was to form a new division within the SAF. Henry Clepper informed the group that the SAF Executive Council would not approve the proposal. The Council was concerned that a special division for consulting foresters would lead to the proliferation of specialized divisions in the SAF. Instead, the foresters in attendance became the founding members of the ACF. They included Halsey Hicks, Robert Moore, Clinton Peltier, Ed Stuart, and J. Atwood Whitman. ACF founders immediately adopted standards designed to ensure that members would be qualified consulting foresters. In addition to a forestry degree from an approved institution, ACF membership required a minimum of five years of forest administration experience and one year of consulting work. Furthermore, the founders defined a consulting forester as "a professional forester who devotes not less than 75 percent of his working time each year to performing...technical forestry work...on a fee or contract basis" for "the public rather than to a single full-time employer." Five APSAF members were among the ACF charter members: Ed Stuart (who presided over the first meeting), founding members J. Atwood Whitman and Halsey Hicks, with the addition of Seymour I. Somberg and Robert Knoth. Knoth came to APSAF as a staff member of George Washington National Forest in Virginia. He subsequently worked for Koppers Company in Charleston, SC before founding his consulting firm there in 1939. Edward Stuart was a partner in the consulting firm of Simmons and Stuart in Burgess, VA. J. Atwood Whitman graduated from the North Carolina State College School of Forestry in 1938. Whitman
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was based in Sanford, NC. Seymour I. Somberg received his Master of Forestry from Duke in 1946 and was co-owner of the Lane Lumber Co. in Lane, SC. Other consulting foresters in the APSAF in 1948 included Donald R. Brewster (SC and GA), Winslow L. Gooch (West Point, VA), Gorham Eddie Jackson (Washington, NC), E. Sigurd Johnson (Salem, VA), Stuart Grant Keedwell (Emporia, VA), Robert Bruce Milne (Petersburg, VA), and Robert Edward Reed (Clinton, NC). Roanoke Railroad and Lumber Co. Associate Forester Orion Jones Peevy worked for Donald Brewster from 1941 to 1943. James Adrain Pippin had worked as a consulting forester in Washington, NC from 1935 to 1945. William Maughan began consulting work in 1938, in addition to his duties as Professor of Forest Management in the Duke School of Forestry and Associate Director of Duke Forest. APSAF leadership was opposed at that time to changes proposed in selection of Council members as relayed in this letter. Columbia, South Carolina, September 11, 1947. To: Mr. G. F. Evans, Assistant Regional Forester U. S. Forest Service Glenn Building, Atlanta, Georgia Dear Mr. Evans, Chairman Bruner of the Appalachian Section has requested me to answer your letter of July 17th relative to the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the Society as regards the election of Council. The consensus of opinion in the Appalachian Section is in favor of the present method of electing officers and Council members. Important points against the change are as follows: 1. Larger Council would be too unwieldy to be practical, 2. Annual turn-over in Section officers would make it doubtful as to whether or not important Society affairs would receive the mature consideration the present system gives, 3. The present system has always provided outstandingly active Council members and therefore should not be changed. If we can provide additional information, please advise. Yours very truly H. F. Bishop, Secretary-Treasurer and Executive Committee June 6, 1947.
Evidently SAF leadership was successful in managing the society’s growing pains. SAF President Clyde Martin capitalized on and continued the diplomacy and fence-mending begun by Clarence Korstian. APSAF Chairman N.T. Barron (Chief Forester, Camp Manufacturing) wrote a letter of congratulations to Martin dated Jan 17, 1949: "Your sincere enthusiasm of forest management practice, based on 40 years plus of dirt forestry and administration, has stimulated my desire to carry on and improve. Your professional integrity, likewise, in the Society and of foresters outside the Society has greatly enlightened my scope of the growing importance and responsibilities confronting us. You may be assured that the Appalachian Section will long remember you. The multitude of complimentary remarks spoken to me by members at the meeting concerning you left me with no doubts that you are a top-ranking forester, a real man and a fine gentleman. You may be pleased to know that my wife was greatly impressed by you and extends her personal regards. We feel very pleased that our practices of forestry and logging in this Section presented new ideas for your own problems. We have barely scratched the surface, but by pooling our ideas we can move forward faster. Mr. John Camp read your letter to me, which I appreciated, and I let him read mine. He stated that I should frame it..."
Another letter: March. 14, 1950; Mr. Clyde Martin, Chief Forester Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Tacoma 1, Washington:
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Dear Clyde, Your term as President of the Society of American Foresters was so outstanding in constructive service to the profession of forestry, and to forestry itself, that the Appalachian Section of the Society by unanimous vote at its annual meeting last January. They have instructed me as its Chairman to write you in appreciation of your fine service. While it goes without saying that you as a prominent industrial forester demonstrated, during your term as President of our Society, the high ideals of service characteristic of the forestry profession, yet it is a pleasure to say so to you. My personal feeling is that the Society became of age during your term of office, your leadership contributed in a major way to this achievement. You demonstrated. that our Society is an organization dedicated to the general welfare and that professional forestry knows no master but the pubic good, and that regardless of employment affiliations, professional integrity and professional motives are of a high order. You guided it to a position of influence both internally in the profession and. externally in its consideration of public affairs involving forestry. A. B. Wackerman, Chairman, Appalachian Section,
Although many New Deal social programs ended during World War II, APSAF foresters continued to include benefits to local residents in their management decisions. The 1949 USDA Yearbook of Agriculture [Trees} featured Mervin A. Matoon's article "Appalachian Comeback" describing timber management in southern Appalachian National Forests. Foresters' central work remained reforestation, but Matoon stressed the frequent small sales of "remnants of over-mature forests and thinnings from second growth." Small sales to locals provided work and forest resources for farm use. State forests provided similar and sometimes broader benefits. The post treatment plant in Bladen Lakes State Forest, NC employed local residents. Seed collection for reforestation began in 1936 and continued to employ local men and women through the 1940s and 1950s. Efforts to replace scrub oak with pine plantations gave jobs to men who plowed under scrub oak or assisted in prescribed burning. The state forest also supplied chain saws to small scale local contractors. Contractors earned two dollars per cord for felling and bucking pulpwood from thinnings and salvage operations. They earned $4.85 per cord hauled to concentration barges near Elizabeth City, NC for transport to pulp mills. This arrangement netted the State of North Carolina between $6.00 and $6.25 per cord. In 1954, two beehive kilns were installed to produce charcoal. Charcoal production was introduced to promote economic returns from farm woodlands. The kilns used low grade hardwoods removed as pine plantations were established. Thereafter, many small plants began producing lump charcoal in North Carolina. By 1958, one large charcoal briquetting plant had been constructed in the state and a second was underway. In South Carolina's 46,000-acre Sandhills State Forest, active forestry programs begun in the early 1960s included a demonstration area, intensive reforestation, prescribed burning, and habitat improvement. Habitat improvement required personnel to sow brown millet for mourning doves, place nesting boxes for ducks, and stock ponds with bass, bream, and catfish. These activities improved hunting and fishing opportunities as well as creating jobs directly. Furthermore, 25% of the receipts from hunting and fishing permits were paid to Darlington and Chesterfield Counties. In 1958, Chief Forester McArdle "put Pinchot's timber famine to rest." [Steen p289, p48] Carl Ostrom left Asheville in 1957 to become Director of Forest Management Research in Washington DC. At that time, he considered continued forest regeneration studies and recruitment of statisticians the most pressing need in forest management research. Forest statisticians were in demand to compile and analyze large amounts of data from regeneration studies. During the 1960s, Bent Creek Experimental Forest shifted from large scale tests to intensive data collection on numerous small research plots. Researchers changed approach to obtain an increased level of detail and to understand site specific ecological relationships. Donald E. Beck began long term studies on the growth and yield of yellow poplar and of northern red oak. Charles Berry investigated the effects of air pollution on southern Appalachian forests, particularly white pine. Della-Bianca studied forest soils and
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indirect estimation of site quality from soil-site relationships. Other work looked at deer browse production and control of rhododendron in timber stands. [web site, Bent Creek bibliography]
Professionalism versus Politics The SAF began its post-war rebuilding effort with surveys of state forestry administrations in cooperation with the Charles Lathrop Pack Foundation. Professional foresters continued to be concerned about political appointments to state forestry posts. An exchange of letters between SAF President Clarence F. Korstian, SAF Executive Secretary Henry Clepper, and USDA Forest Service Chief Forester E.I. Kotok in November 1941 clearly illustrates this concern: Dear Mr. Kotok, November 3, 1941 H.A. Smith, state forester of South Carolina, has notified me that he will be leaving South Carolina on November 17. From the standpoint of maintaining a high quality of professional competence in state forestry work, I hope that you will take such steps as may be appropriate to insist to the governor and to the State Commission of Forestry that Mr. Smith’s successor be a professionally educated forester. As you know, Georgia has a nontechnical state forester and, in September, the State of Mississippi appointed a nontechnical man as state forester. This tendency on the part of some southern states to ignore professional qualifications in the long run cannot help but retard the forestry effort. Have you any suggestions for Society action in bringing to the attention of the proper officials in South Carolina the need for insisting on the appointment of a man of full professional training and competence? Cordially yours, Henry Clepper Dear Clepper, I have your letter of November 3. While in the field over the week-end, I too learned that H.A. Smith was going to the Tennessee Valley Authority. I also heard a rumor to the effect that Bill Hammerle might receive the appointment as H.A. Smith’s successor although as I understand it this is only a rumor. I am wondering if it would not be a good plan to contact Mr. Smith in an effort to ascertain whether he has been consulted as to his successor and also as to whom it might be desirable for you to address a letter emphasizing the need for a technically trained man to succeed Mr. Smith, unless you have information to the effect that some other procedure would be more desirable. Very sincerely yours, C.F. Korstian
As the matter unfolded, William Hammerle was appointed State Forester of South Carolina, but concerns about political appointments to professional positions continued. The surveys were one way for the SAF to monitor and encourage professionalism in state forestry departments. Henry Clepper mentioned the planned survey to the attendees of the 1944 APSAF meeting in Columbia, SC. At the time, the survey was seen as a step toward a rating system for state forestry organizations similar to the SAF’s accreditation system for forestry schools. The first survey was conducted in North Carolina and published in 1946.
Recreation Recreational use of forests grew steadily during the early twentieth century. During the post-war period, forest recreation grew explosively. The re-employment of returning soldiers and a widespread sense of prosperity encouraged Americans to increase spending on discretionary goods and services. The number
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of Americans who owned automobiles increased rapidly. Greater mobility combined with larger incomes translated into greater demand for recreational facilities. In 1945, the North Carolina General Assembly foresaw an increasing demand for facilities and created the North Carolina State Recreation Commission. The new commission promoted development of local facilities and enabling legislation authorized counties, municipalities, and townships to acquire land and build facilities. [Pomeroy and Yoho, pp 348350.] The USFS received its first substantial funding for recreation research in 1955. In 1966, the first line item of the USFS research budget was for studies of recreational use of National Forests. Forest recreation studies investigated the proper spacing of campsites, placement of facilities, site protection measures, and recreational use of wilderness. [Steen, USFS Research,44] By 1951, William Greeley felt that water pollution from pulp and paper mills was enough of a problem to comment on it in his book Forests and Men. Greeley's main concern was lignin washing into streams and rivers. He recommended further effort to find uses for lignin to eliminate the need for disposal. Marlin Bruner, then an extension forester at Clemson College, related cooperative farm forestry work by the USDA Extension Service and the South Caroline State Commission of Forestry [1942 APSAF meeting]. [1943 APSAF meeting] By 1943, APSAF members were entirely occupied with wartime matters. South Carolina State Forester William C. Hammerle outlined South Carolina's requirements and plans for increasing vigilance against wildfire and arson. Hammerle pointed out the specific needs related to the war: for increased fire protection around military installations, and the need to prevent smoke from reducing visibility along the coast. At the same time, departure of personnel for military service created problems with inexperienced fire crews. H.B. Bosworth echoed Hammerle's concern over the loss of personnel from National Forest fire control crews to military service. However, Bosworth also pointed out accomplishments in fire prevention, law enforcement, and increased efficiency due to the application of fire danger ratings. Fire detection became more efficient as motor patrols and air patrols augmented fire towers. Unfortunately, ever more successful fire control measures were creating ever larger fuel loads in southern forests. More fuel meant larger, disastrous fires, and the 1950s were noted for severe fire seasons [See Boe Green comments]. Efforts to reduce fuel loads led to large scale controlled burning projects in some areas. In Bladen Lakes State Forest, foresters conducted controlled burns in 1957 and 1958 on 4623 acres and made plans to burn all longleaf pine stands on three year rotations. According to Graham Chamblee, "these controlled burns...greatly reduced the hazardous threat of forest fires on the State Forest and... aided in the suppression of several potentially disastrous fires." Bladen Lakes suffered no wildfires between April 1955 and October 1958. APSAF membership dropped sharply from 249 (45 delinquent) in 1939 to 178 (47 delinquent) in 1940. Numbers rebounded in 1941 and 1942, but again dropped to 178 in 1943. The second drop was the result of the transfer of Tennessee out of the APSAF to form a new section with Kentucky. In addition, 30 to 40 APSAF members, about 20 percent, were serving in the military. Membership dropped further to 155 in 1944, then began to increase gradually. It reached 178 again in 1946; 1947 brought a dramatic increase in the rolls and a taste of things to come. As returning veterans and new forestry school graduates joined the SAF, APSAF's membership nearly doubled to 340. APSAF field trips during the 1940s illustrated the growing importance of the pulp and paper industry in the Carolinas. In 1940, the section held its last summer field meeting until after World War II near Georgetown, SC. Field trips included inspections of demonstration plots and pulpwood cutting operations of the Southern Kraft Division of International Paper Company, West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company (Westvaco), and the South Carolina State Commission of Forestry. APSAF also visited the Georgetown pulpwood mill, the South Carolina State Nursery, Francis Marion National Forest, and Hampton Plantation. Similarly, the 1942 winter meeting in Asheville included a field trip to the Ecusta 117
Paper Company. The increasing mechanization of forest work included timber harvesting. APSAF member G.H. Lentz wrote an article in 1931 for Southern Lumberman "Logging bottomland Hardwoods with Caterpillar Tractors" (142(1796):38). Fellow member Kenneth B. Trousdell contributed a 1947 article to Southern Lumberman on felling and bucking costs in the piecework system in eastern North Carolina. In 1946, Southern Lumberman published an article by E.G. Wiesehuegel that discussed power chainsaws. Other articles in Southern Lumberman during the 1940s promoted mechanization as a way to cut costs (Kusz, William. 1946, "Tractor Logging Reduces Costs," Southern Lumberman 173(2177):156-159). The Southeastern Forest Experiment Station published a 1951 Technical Note by R.A. Ralston .
New Chemicals Military and industrial chemical use proliferated during World War II. During both World War I and II research into chemicals for military purposes as well as industrial chemical research produced many new compounds for a myriad of uses. Many wartime discoveries were later adopted for general use. In forestry, herbicides, insecticides, and wood preservatives were the most important of these chemicals. Foresters used herbicides (chlorophenoxy compounds, 2:4-diclorophenoxyacetic acid or 2:4-D, and dioxins) to cope with the increasing problem of hardwood invasion in pine stands. Insecticides (chlorinated ethanes: DDT, lindane; Cyclodienes -aldrin, chlordane, dieldrin, endrin, chlorocyclohexanes, organophosphates -diazanon, dimethoate, dichlorovos, trichlorfon, malathion, methyl parathion, parathion; carbamates: aldicarb, baygn, zectran) promised solutions to insect damage in forests. In 1947, the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, the Southern Forest Experiment Station, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the major schools of forestry in the southeast formed the Coordinated Wood Preservation Council. By the early 1950s, the use of wood preservatives was sufficiently prevalent that the Coordinated Wood Preservation Council compiled a list on the treatment of fence posts for use by teachers, agricultural extension workers, and landowners. Concerns about possible unintended consequences of widespread chemical use arose almost immediately. Foresters noted increased mortality of birds and amphibians around areas where DDT had been sprayed aerially. Many new toxins were associated with neurological damage, kidney damage, liver damage, and increased rates of cancer, raising public health concerns as well. Foresters' interest in fertilizers for forest plantations grew as fertilizer costs dropped. L.C. Walker (University of Georgia School of Forestry and Forestry consultant, National Plant Food Institute) and R.L. Bleacher (Southern Regional Director, National Plant Food Institute) published a report on forest tree fertilization in 1963. Walker and Bleacher summarized research from the 1930s through the early 1960s, noting the major research effort during the 1950s and 1960s in the Southeast. Ground-breaking studies appeared as early as the 1930s. B.H. Paul and R. O. Marts considered the role of nutrients in their 1931 bulletin “Controlling the proportion of summerwood in longleaf pine.” R.M. Addoms described nutritional studies on loblolly pine in 1937. Also in 1937, Southern Forest Experiment Station researcher L.J. Pessin produced “The effect of nutrient deficiency on the growth of longleaf pine seedlings.” In 1938, R.F. Chandler, Jr. contributed “The influence of nitrogenous fertilizer applications upon seed production of certain deciduous forest trees” to the Journal of Forestry. C.H. Hobbs published “Studies on mineral deficiency in pine” in the journal Plant Physiology during 1944. During the 1950s and 1960s, larger research programs and greater attention to the fertility of forest soils led to a marked increase in publications. An awareness of problems caused by limited phosphorus in forest soils was an important early result. The influence of nitrogen and calcium on growth was studied as well. L.C. Walker conducted important research on phosphorus during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1953, Karl F. Wenger wrote “The effect of fertilization and injury on the cones and seed production of loblolly pine seed trees” for the Journal of Forestry. Other researchers included R.I. Barnes and C.W. Ralston at the University of Florida, B.A. Bateman and C.B. Roark in Louisiana, R. Zahner in Arkansas, R.E. McDermott and P.Y. Burns, H.A. Fowells and R.W. Krauss, F.E. Hoekstra, L.W.R. Jackson and M. C.
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Cloud, E.R. Roth and O.B. Copeland, R.G. McAlpine. W.H.D. McGregor produced a research note for the Southeastern Station “Fertilizer increases growth rate of slash pine,” in 1957. In 1958, G.M. Woodwell published “Factors controlling growth of pond pine in seedlings in organic soils in the Carolinas” in Ecological Monographs, and T.S. Maki wrote an overview, “Fertilizers in Forestry,” for Southern Lumberman. Beginning in the early 1960s, J.W. Curlin began research under TVA auspices while R.H. Hughs and J. E. Jackson studied fertilization of young slash pine plantations for the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station. Also with the Southeastern Station, G.D. Huppuch analyzed the effect of site preparation on survival and growth of sycamore cuttings; A.F. Ike, Jr. researched fertilization of sycamore and yellow poplar seedlings. J.R. Hamilton, R. Mergan, G.K. Voigt, H.L. Pritchett, W.K. Robertson, C.S. Schopmeyer, L.F. Smith, E.I. Sucoff, K.R. Swinford, and E.V. Williams, and Bruce J. Zobel were also researching fertilization of southern pine at various facilities.
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Chapter 10 Oral History Interviews These seven interviews were conducted by Susan Yarnell during the year 2000.
1. Harold Olinger Oral History Interview, June 1, 2000 Susan Yarnell - How did you get into forestry? Harold Olinger - By default. I was a pre-med who couldn’t get into medical school with a biology-chemistry degree. What can you do? I had a very wise senior advisor who said to me, “Harold, you’re a farm boy, you’ve played sports. I can get you into bacteriology graduate school, but you’d be happier forestry.” And Duke was just beginning the 3/2 program with Franklin and Marshall. Everything worked out, and I haven’t looked back.
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SY - So that turned out to be a good decision? HO - There have still been many days when I wished I could have been a doctor. But as far as forestry, no regrets. I’ve enjoyed 40 years of it. SY - You went to Franklin and Marshall, then Duke. Was SAF involved in student life at that point? HO - We were told about SAF. I joined as a student at Duke. SY - But there wasn’t a major presence? HO - No. I don’t believe there were student chapters then, but all of my professors were active in SAF. Then I went to Virginia, with no intention of staying, and just fell in love with the state and the work. It was a natural fit for me, personality-wise and living conditions, and everything. I just loved it. I continued on with SAF membership and I became a member of the Virginia Forestry Association. Throughout my career I’ve been active in both. SY - What chapter did you first join in Virginia? HO - Southeastern chapter. I started out in Lawrenceville. I spent a training period in Farmville, but went to Lawrenceville very quickly, before I was ready professionally, but those things happened in those days. I learned fast, made some bad mistakes, but recovered! And I have been active ever since and got associated with a guy from Portsmouth, who was later my supervisor. He and I and several others started attending Appalachian meetings.
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We’ve missed only two or three since 1955! And I ran through all the chairs and the offices at the local level, and I was chair of the Appalachian Section. SY - What role did the SAF play in your work? HO - We attended meetings for the opportunity to learn what was new. For the continuing education and for the social aspects, getting to know people. Later on, some very distinguished people wanted to split the Appalachian Section and were defeated. I wasn’t involved the first time. The second time, I was chair of the Appalachian when some very prominent people, including Bob Allen and Scott Wallinger, wanted to split it into three state societies. I fought it tooth and nail. I won. That’s the only time I’ve ever taken on Scott Wallinger and won! I didn’t take him on often, because I agreed with him about most everything. That issue, I disagreed with him and I made a passionate appeal to the members, who supported me. SY - Why did membership as a whole prefer to keep the Appalachian Section? HO - They enjoyed the social aspects of meeting people from the other states and seeing what’s happening. If it was just a state society, you’d be seeing the same people all the time. You’d have more of a burden putting on programs because if you do a summer program already, and Virginia has only five chapters, doing a winter program as well would be a burden. That was part of the reason I was in favor of keeping the three-state society, and part of the reason was getting to know the people from the other two states. That has been tremendously helpful to me. Knowing what they are doing. For a number of years now, I’ve been chair of a licensing committee trying to get licensing in Virginia. I can call people in the other two states and I know who they are. I work with them in the SAF, so we have a personal relationship. SY - Networking and exchanging information is easier with the larger section. HO - Yes. SY - What kinds of things were you doing in state forestry? HO - It was a lot different then. It was very much one-on-one work with individual landowners. In those days, the 1950s and 1960s, the landowners were farmers, people who owned and lived on the land. This is no longer true. Very few farmers own timberland or reside on that property. When I was a county forester, we were teaching them how to manage their forest, hands-on. We’d teach them how to mark for a thinning, sell what they cut, how to do reforestation, how to poison hardwoods, how to use an ax to girdle a tree, how to use injectors, and the different chemicals that were available. We had to teach them how to plant trees. How to heel in the seedlings when they were delivered from the nursery. Now that’s all done by contract labor. I taught many people to plant trees that were totally illiterate. They couldn’t read the instructions. The farm labor in tobacco country—these people were illiterate. They were good workers, wonderful workers, and you taught them how, and they did what you told them. But it was totally different than it is today. SY - How has what you do changed? HO - There’s been a gradual evolution. Probably the profound change was fire. When I first came to Virginia, we were still burning thousands and thousands of acres, and we were still in the process of organizing local crews. Getting the farmer and his tenants and his neighbors to respond when they’d hear of a fire. We’d hand rake lines around the fire. That’s what we had, and so fire was a tremendous hazard to the health and welfare of the community. Then Smokey Bear came along, and Smokey was tremendously successful as a program in teaching people to prevent fire. But the long-term implications of Smokey Bear are negative in the biological sense. We still have to prevent fire, because fires burn up homes, timber, and people. But on the other hand, because we’ve eliminated fire from the forest, we have undesirable vegetation. The shade-tolerant species have taken over many, many thousands of acres of forest that need fire to maintain the proper biological diversity. So, Smokey’s been a blessing in preventing and controlling fire, but the biological effects on the forest have been negative on many, many acres. SY - Has there been resistance to prescribed fire?
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HO - Not in Virginia. We’re really not getting much resistance. It’s been used since 1965. The state personnel started doing it, and industry was doing a very small amount prior to that. But when the State Forester at that time saw the wisdom of it, and we started prescribed burning, industry jumped in. They were better equipped to do it on a large scale. There has been so much prescribed burning, the public is intelligent enough to see the benefits. You get these wastelands created by clearcutting. It just looks so horrible, and then you do a good hot burn on it, and (the public) can see that it’s a lot cleaner after the fire. In two years, you have seedlings coming up and it’s a forest again. We were slow in learning how to manage smoke, and that’s a hit against forestry. The profession was slow in realizing that we had to manage smoke. Now Virginia has a program where you can be trained and certified as a prescribed burn manager, which gives you insurance protection, liability protection. I’m no longer associated with the state, but I believe they are doing the right thing. I have hopes that we can continue burning for a long time. SY - What are other changes? HO - The technology of logging. I saw mules, and horses, and carts. That was just beginning to change when I got (to Virginia) in the mid-fifties. Then the logging skidders were developed, and it has been going ever since. We went through a stage where they took the chippers into the woods, and trees were chipped in the woods. With the shift from kraft papers to white papers, chipping in the woods did not lend itself to white paper, too much dirt and trash. The worst was charcoal if there had been a fire. Then there was charcoal in the bark, and the littlest bit of charcoal would destroy a whole lot of white paper. They took their chippers back out of the woods to the mills, and everything was carted to the mills. Now the trend is to get chippers back out of the mills, rather than hauling the wood such long distances, to put chip mills in communities where the haul is not so great. It’s much cheaper to haul chips to the pulp mill than it is to haul whole logs. Of course, production isn’t increasing from that—any increase in production in Virginia is going overseas. Production isn’t increasing that much. People who are scared of timber harvesting and object to cutting a tree, they have used chip mills as a vehicle, and it’s a false misguided tactic. As someone stated in a public hearing, chip mills are the “spotted owl” of the east. Although, the spotted owl has done some good. But a lot of the statements made as fact were not fact. Spotted owls do not need mature, older timber. I’ve seen spotted owls in young-growth redwoods, but sooner or later, science will catch up with the emotion. SY - So that type of issue is more of an attempt to promote keeping more old-growth forest? HO - Yes. A tactic. I get bootleg copies of the networking from environmentalists and the Dogwood Alliance and people who are fighting clearcutting and chip mills. You read their literature and they are just using whatever public relations techniques they can find to achieve their goals. They are very clever. I disagree with them, but I respect their ability. They are not stupid. SY - How has the public relations side of forestry changed since you started? HO - When I started out, we’d go into every grade school every year with the Smokey Bear program to teach the kids, and we were teaching a lot more than Smokey Bear. We were teaching wildlife in the fifties, multiple use. That was what I was trained in for my master’s degree. It’s not something new. We recognized that kids were the key to the future. Unfortunately, with the vast increase in the number of kids, decreases in budget and personnel in the state forestry program, that isn't happening anymore. There are very few school programs done; when the state or an organization such as mine can get there, we are warmly received. The teachers love us and the kids are receptive, but we just can't get there; When I first went into the schools, there was a school near Broadnax, VA, a two room segregated elementary school. One of our gimmicks was to have a great big clock with hands that moved; Virginia has a 4 o'clock burning law during certain times of the year, and I tried to teach the kids the 4 o'clock law by showing them 4 o'clock on the big clock. The TEACHER didn't know how to read a clock. That's a fact —I just wasn't clever enough to handle it well; I handled it as best I could. The teacher in the other room had to come in to tell her when it was lunch time or time to send the kids to the bus. SY –I guess the changes in the educational level of the population in general have changed how you deal with things. HO - Yes. It's much more sophisticated now. We had a program working with the FFA (Federal Farm Administration) the high school Vocational-Agriculture students. We also went into those classes once a year with a program on management and that also isn't happening as often as it should. These were state programs –I don't believe there was any SAF involvement in those days; [since then] SAF has been very involved in Project Learning Tree (PLT) which
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is a program to teach the teachers. We obviously can't get to the kids any more—there's too many. So they've taken the tack, a number of years ago, of trying to teach the teachers in resource education. That's been very successful, varying on the time available and the enthusiasm of the professionals teaching the PLT, and SAF has been very much involved in that. It's varied between SAF and the forest industries and the Virginia Department of Forestry. SY - We were talking about multiple use being a long-term approach in forestry; has the emphasis within multiple use changed? HO - I'd say prior to 1975, the Department of Forestry was production-oriented; we got accused of feeding the lumber and the pulp industry and that was, to a certain extent, true. Not by intent, but the effect was that We WERE production oriented. If you want more trees, grow more forest. But then it began to change; the previous State Forester got in about 1970-71, and he was a little bit more multiple use-oriented; he was a Duke graduate! There were some subtle changes. Then when Jim Garner became state forester in 1981-82, he saw that we needed to change. Several newer people on his staff, Kigher and Artman, were very vocal in staff meetings, saying "Hey, we need to address the whole forest and not just grow fiber." Jim Garner instructed the field people, "Put these other uses into your recommendations." The ownership became educated to the point that a very simple but significant switch [happened]; when we went to a landowner, we didn't just look at his woods and tell him how to manage it. We went to a landowners and asked, "What do you want?" We let him tell us his goals and then we looked at the forest and told him what he could do towards achieving those goals. SY - A shift from a professionally-determined result to looking at what individuals in different situations want? HO – Yes. We still could work only with what he has, but in the degrees of working towards full multiple use and multiple use with production predominant, will vary from forester to forester. The State Forester can't review individual management plans, so it varies tremendously; we have county foresters who are darn near Greenpeace environmentalists. SY - What have been the changes in people’s attitudes towards chemicals? HO - That has not been a problem in Virginia. Farmers use chemicals. Our problem in overall pesticide management and in the field is getting them to use the right amount. In those days, so many farmers said, “If one ounce works, I’ll use two. It doesn’t cost that much.” It was a real struggle to get them to use the recommended and legal quantities. Although I have broken some rules, I very strongly believe in following the rules in compliance with use recommendations. That’s been an educational effort. People do want to use more than they should. SY - If some is good, more is better! HO- And that’s not true in a lot of things. Out biggest chemical in forestry today is Arsenal, and when I first saw that used on a test basis, they didn’t have rates down. My gosh, they killed a swath. They didn’t know it was soil active, and they put down a huge volume of it to kill some brush, and it not only killed the brush, it ran down the hill and killed a big stand of oak nearby! And it scared me, I wouldn’t use it for a couple of years until they brought the rates down. Now it’s the biggest seller. SY - After the research what did you do? HO - Well, then this labeling process. Of course the EPA requires, and they should, extensive documentation. We were still girdling trees and putting chemicals in the girdles. That’s not done anymore, because we don’t have the labor. Labor’s too expensive. I did that with several of the new chemicals —Velpar and Roundup; nobody else at that time wanted to do that, because a lot of the states and other people doing field testing didn’t have the labor, the tobacco labor, that’s what I was using in the winter time. Cheap labor and good workers, you could teach them to girdle a tree and put chemical in it. I did extensive tests with the chemical, which is now Roundup and nobody else did, so the Monsanto home office used my field data for the label on that product. As far as I know, that’s still the label. Most products are tested widely from here to Mississippi. Mississippi had a big testing program, and some of the states in between. Of course, we didn’t have to do much selling, because the companies have a financial investment, and they have field reps who do the selling. Even then, we, the state, worked with the companies in setting up field demonstrations, and they still do today. (State forestry personnel) will use the product and then
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they’ll bring the farmers in to tell them what you can do with this chemical. And the chemical company would buy them lunch to get them out there. SY - Are you still working with that or have you changed? HO - No. I worked with that only for five years and then my supervisors and I saw that I was more people-oriented than tree-oriented (laughs). I was changed over into administration. I worked up through the ranks and ended up as chief of administrative services for the state. I got out of research in 1981 and I was in management for two years, then assistant chief of administration for about five years and chief for about 10 years. SY - How did the changing roles in your career affect your work in APSAF? HO - Because of the work I did with herbicides, I did a lot of outreach. The industries knew that I had favorable results and I was used widely as a resource. I went into other states, all the way down to Mississippi and Louisiana. I did programs and gave my results, careful not to favor any one product or company over another. I just put the results on the board and let them interpret the numbers. Because of that, I was recognized as a neutral person who knew a little bit about herbicides. Even today I get calls on herbicides, and I don’t keep up with it; that’s not my job anymore! That’s been part of the fun of SAF. It’s helped me personally and professionally. I’m on several national committees: the national certification review board, the certified forester program. SY - That’s an outgrowth of your work in Virginia on that issue? HO - Yes. There’s two reasons I was put on that committee. One is that I’ve been the chair of the Virginia licensing committee for a number of years, and the president at that time was from Virginia, and knew me and worked with me for years. SY - What was the other committee you were on? HO - That’s the only national committee. I’m on a national committee with another organization. I have to think a minute which committee I’m on for which organization. SY - What were you involved in at the state level with APSAF? HO - I went through the chairs. I don’t think I was ever secretary-treasurer at the state level, but I was vice-chair and then chair and also at the APSAF level I was chair. SY - What kinds of things did you have to do in those positions? HO- Just leadership and trying to promote chapter activity. Teaching some of the younger fellas how to do these things. How to run chapter meetings. One of the best training tools, I’ve always told the young fellas to use, was Jaycees. I’ve always been very active in Jaycees, when I was within the age limit. That’s an excellent training vehicle to learn how to run organizations, how to conduct meetings and how to get the young people involved. At the APSAF level, you have your summer meetings and your annual meeting, and you are on the APSAF Executive Committee for three years. When Gary Youngblood did the reorganization, he put me on the reorganization committee, which extended my tenure on the Executive Committee for a year or two. SY - Were there any particular issues or concerns you had to deal with? HO - The biggest issue was when people in South Carolina wanted to secede and there was a lot of phone calling and impassioned speeches. I was selfish - I enjoyed going to South Carolina and North Carolina to the meetings, and I made friendships there. Ralph Cullom, he’s just outgoing chair now, he and I have been partying for years and years and years at APSAF and at the national conventions. A lot of fellas, Dean Carson from South Carolina; we’ve just become good friends, and Rhett Bickley, there’s just so many of them and the Westvaco fellas, great, great people. And very supportive of SAF. SY - Those connections between states must have been generally important to foresters. That comes up repeatedly.
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HO - Yes. And then, I served for years as president of the Duke Forestry Alumni Association. Which again put me back with SAF people. Dave Gearhardt and Dave Anderton, other Duke graduates who are active in SAF. This networking just rolls over from one activity to another. SY - You mentioned Gary Youngblood as one of the important leaders; are there any other people that you would mention as being particularly important? HO - The most influential person to me in SAF was Tom McClintock, who just passed away. He preceded me as chair of the APSAF. He was a big influence on me, a calming, steadying influence. He taught me that you have to be a peacemaker. That really came in handy the last couple of days! I’ve gotten into a couple of fights I really don’t want to be in! Tom was a positive influence on my career, professionally and in the SAF. He strongly encouraged me to run for Council, and I did twice, and was defeated both times by better people. It was a good experience, and I have no regrets about that. SY - What kinds of things tend to cause conflicts and lead to conflict? HO - Number one is personality. Two of the three I got involved with are personality. SY - Particular issues or differences of opinion are less a problem than personal styles? HO - Pretty much. There are policy issues, legitimate issues, which need to be addressed. Besides issues, some involved in conflict have personal problems with others involved and they refuse to look at the issues. We can look at issues and solve problems, but when people get to knocking heads and calling names, it gets emotional and they forget to work on the real issues. SY - There are running discussions about the proper role of the SAF in the documents, it’s not new. How has that discussion progressed in your experience? HO - It has fallen in intensity, in emotion. The RNRF (Renewable Natural Resources Foundation) controversy was violent, death threats, believe it or not, at times. Then some partial solutions were found and things quieted down. But the partial solutions were not, in truth, what was represented, so it all blew up again. Then there was some peace made, and now it’s blown up again! It just won’t go away. Some of these older fellas claim they were deceived in the original discussions and I’m inclined to believe them. They are very passionate about it. They consider themselves people of integrity, and they are bitter. SY - What was the original intent of that agreement? HO - Some people had the idea that natural resource agencies should work together on similar pursuits, in Congress and that sort of thing, under the umbrella organization of the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation. Then this wealthy forester purchased the Grosvenor Estate from the National Geographic Society and donated it to the SAF. When NRNF was founded soon thereafter, the Executive Director of the SAF signed us into the NRNF, and he signed a contract which took the property out of our hands, and there was an awful lot of hate and bitterness. He was muscled out of the SAF and he went over to them. He became “the enemy,” in some people’s perception he was a snake in the grass. Some haven’t forgiven and forgotten. I think the second round of negotiations ten years ago, the SAF maybe wasn’t taken advantage of, but they didn’t understand the legal complexities of Maryland, and we lost out because of law and circumstances of the time. We had some real good people negotiating for us at that time and they were trying to solve the problems. I have the utmost confidence in the integrity of John Moser and Banzhaff and Bill Segal, who is the outstanding tax attorney in the country. But if Maryland law and the original contracts bind their hands, there is only so much they can do. I think they are well-intentioned, well-informed, and doing their best. A one-armed paper-hanger is in trouble! SY - Any other important shifts? HO - Diversity.
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SY - Increasing? HO - Yes. One year there was a proposal made and carried out to increase diversity and opportunities by bringing in minorities to the convention. In the eyes of many, this is interpreted as Affirmative Action, which they interpret as illegal. So they say that the SAF did something illegal by subterfuge, by semantics. I managed to avoid that controversy. Just luck, wrong place at the right time. I’ve been supportive of the activities and the goals. I sometimes don’t agree with the techniques, the approaches used. But if they’re using SAF funds under the table, maybe it is illegal, I don’t know. I’m no attorney. Now this year they are talking about doing the same thing in Washington and there are people upset about that. SY - So there is a certain disagreement within the SAF about social activism, whether or not it should be included? HO - Yes. And in all honesty, there are a lot of good ol’ boys who accept diversity reluctantly. I’m all for diversity if it’s done properly. I have hired and promoted minorities and trained them. I’d do it again. Some of it in one case may have bordered on reverse discrimination, and I have no regrets. That gal has just done great. I’d take her in as my daughter. I was lucky. I got a good person. I thought I saw that, and I did. States and industry see that they really need to be diverse. There’s value to having women and African Americans on your staff. There were precious few African Americans available to us, because not many choose forestry as a career. We hired one man a number of years ago. They put him in a room with me at personnel camp. He went along well, and we settled in for the night, and he just said, “Harold, can I ask you a question?” I said sure and he asked, “How am I going to be treated?” I said, “Not well. We have a lot of bigoted racists. A lot of the older men, nonprofessionals, primarily.” I told him, “If I ever hear of anyone treating you wrong, let me know, and I’ll get the right people to correct that. But the covert stuff, I can’t protect you.” Nothing I could do about that. He wasn’t in my area. I was the confidant for personnel before we had a professional personnel manager. They officially announced that I would be a confidential confidant who would just listen and discuss and would report nothing without permission. This was when we were expanding fairly quickly into hiring women, because they were becoming available, and we believed in it. I saw some horrible things which individuals were not willing to kick up the line because they felt there would be retribution. And in the worst case, she was probably right. It’s been tough. I did manage to get her transferred to a more reasonable manager. HO - We could work with only what [a landowner] has, but in the degrees of working towards full multiple use, and multiple use with production predominate, will vary from forester to forester; the State Forester can't review individual management plans, so it varies tremendously. We have some county foresters who are darn near Greenpeace environmentalists! Some who really don't care about that and are production oriented; they are still required to at least give lip service to multiple use. And I think that they are coming around. SY - Was there a shift in attitude between foresters of different generations? HO - Absolutely. The younger people are taught in college better. Virginia Tech, our state university, had been very much industry production oriented. They got a lot of money; you go where the money is. But they also have had from the beginning since they were accredited, a wildlife school; and there was cross-class attendance. The management foresters had to take the basic courses in wildlife management too. Throughout the years, many guys and gals got into forestry because they like the outdoors. SY - How have things like the environmental movement changed forestry? HO - Made us, the foresters, go to multiple use, who were reluctant. They no longer have a choice; they've got to address those issues. Although we've kicked and screamed and used some unfortunate words, it's been good; it's been a good influence. SY - I've gotten the impression that the increasing diversity of people and the increasing numbers of people who are making demands on the landscape have changed. HO - One of the biggest problems in Virginia is fragmentation of land and landownership; unfortunately, quite a few counties tried to fight this overwhelming rush of population by saying, "OK, we won't allow any house lots under 20
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acres or 10 acres, and that was absolutely the wrong way to go. SY - You get them all spread out. HO - And you get one house in 20 acres where the owner doesn't want to manage the forest; he can't manage the forest. Even if he were willing to make a timber sale, which rarely happens, no logger is going to go into a 20 acre block with a house in the middle of it; there's just too many problems. So that land becomes unavailable to forestry. It's a forest, it looks like a forest and in the Forest Service surveys it will show up as a forest, but it is not available. SY - How do you do prescribed burning in that situation? HO - You can't, you absolutely can't. If you have development, even if you have 500 acres over here, you can't do a burn because they raise so much Cain. SY - So what happened in Florida a couple of years ago could happen in Virginia with a long enough drought. HO - That's part of the reason that state and industry went to these prescribed burning manager programs; to hopefully get our burners to do the right thing in the first place and keep the smoke out of housing developments and protect us from liability, and the state will assume the liability if everything is done by the book. SY - How has the APSAF itself responded to some of these issues? HO - By good programs—the people who are on program committees and arrangement committees—they are us and realize what the problems are; programs have been aimed at directing the issues of the day. SY - That is one of the major roles of the APSAF? HO - Yes, I'd say that has been one of the key goals of the program—also social and beer drinking! But [education] is becoming much more important—two of our three states have licensing. We're working hard on it in Virginia; hopefully a year from now we'll have it. Any licensing or credentialing whatever form it takes, NC and SC—one is licensing and one is registering, they all require continuing education; the consulting forester and the service forester can no longer stay in the woods and do his thing; most of the states have an ethics requirement in the code and also in the continuing education program. Most require one hour of ethics training every year to keep reminding them— knock it into their head: there are certain things that you cannot do without violating ethics. SY - What are some of the things addressed by the ethics code? HO - The biggest one is serving two masters; a consultant or an industry forester is paid to cruise a tract of timber and cannot divulge that volume or value to a third party; that's an outright violation of every code of ethics; if one person pays you to give him a figure, that's his property; you cannot give it or sell it to anyone else, but it has happened. We had one consultant who apparently was selling his services to cruise timber and then turned around to buy the timber, and we don't know if he's under estimating in his report to the landowner but there's certainly the appearance of conflict. SY - How do the changing issues affect the organization? Have they affected the nature of the Society? HO - Yes. When I was Society chair, Gary Youngblood was next in line and Gary reorganized the APSAF in assignment of roles. END
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2. Arthur Cooper Oral History Interview, Raleigh, NC, June 1, 2000 Art Cooper - I was born in Washington DC, and finished secondary school in Maine. I got my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Colgate University and PhD at University of Michigan in 1958. I came to NC State in the fall of 1958 and did research in the Botany Department until 1971. From 1971-1976, I was first Deputy Director of the Department of Conservation and Development, which now doesn’t exist, and the first Assistant Secretary of what was then the Department of Natural and Economic Resources and what’s now the Department of Environment and Natural Resources [all with the State of NC]. After 1976, I came back here to NC State in the Forestry Department instead of Botany. I’d always had a joint appointment between Botany and Forestry, almost from the time that I first came to NC State. Then in 1980, I became the head of the Department of Forestry and was the head until 1994, when I stepped down. Susan L. Yarnell - What got you interested in forestry? AC - That’s a good question, because I never was interested in forestry, at the beginning, from the perspective of doing what traditionally would be considered forestry work. I was an ecologist and I had a great deal of interest in forest ecology. When I came here to NC State, I was in the School of Agriculture, and I was always treated very warmly in what was then the School of Forestry. It was run by Dick Preston, who was then the Dean. I always felt as if I were as much a part of the School of Forestry as the School of Agriculture. I served on many, many forestry graduate committees, God knows how many. The bulk of my committee assignments, not my personal graduate students, came from forestry, and I got research support from the School of Forestry through McIntyre-Stennis money. I had always had an innate interest in forests, but more from the perspective of forest ecology than forest management. When I came back to the University, after having worked downtown, my interests had really gravitated more towards the interface between ecology and public policy. There was no place in Agriculture for anyone with those interests, to be fairly blunt about it. The then-Dean Eric Elwood wanted somebody over here with interests in forest policy and resource policy. He and the Agriculture people traded me like you trade second basemen; I was traded to the School of Forest Resources, and my work since 1976 has been to a very, very large extent in that interface between ecology and policy, with an emphasis on policy. Policy has been what I taught. I haven’t taught ecology since I went downtown in 1971. SY - When you went to Colgate, was your degree in ecology? AC - It was in what they called “Natural Science and Physical Education.” At that time, it was a close thing as to what I was going to do. If you had asked me in college what my career objectives were, it was to be a coach at the college level. But when I started my master’s degree at Colgate, I started in physical education, and within months I became totally disenchanted with it because there was no intellectual content to it. That’s not intended as a disparaging comment on coaches or people who are in physical education, but it was not what I was looking for. I became interested in ecology largely as the result of a goofy professor in the biology department that I had. By any standard, he was goofy, he had alcohol problems, and he was a crazy teacher, but he was just kind of got under your skin. He had, in the short time he was at Colgate, sent on about five people to get PhDs in botany, in less than ten years. SY - Did you switch to botany at Colgate? AC - Yes, I got my master’s degree in botany, although technically they didn’t give a master’s in botany, that’s what I did the work in. And then I went to the University of Michigan and did my doctorate in botany there. I worked with a man named Stanley Cain at Michigan, and Stanley was one of the premier ecologists of his time. It was interesting; he had made the same transition just prior to the time that I went to Michigan that I made later in my career. He had gone from pure ecology to the interface between ecology and policy and government. The graduate students in ecology who were working with Stanley used to sit around at lunchtime, shooting the bull like you do, and we never could figure out why a good ecologist like Stanley would waste his time getting into politics (laughs), and that came back to haunt me later on, because I did exactly the same thing.
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SY - So when you were in school, you would not have been involved in the SAF. AC - The honest truth as to when I joined the SAF, and this is the God’s gospel truth, in the spring of 1977, I was appointed as the chairman of the committee of scientists to ride herd on the National Forest Management Act; there were seven of us. And at that time, I was not a SAF member. I got to thinking, I am going to be in a lot of public places in the next year or two, and questions about my credibility may arise and I’d better get my butt in motion and become a member of the SAF in a hurry, and pray that nobody asks me how long I’ve been a member (laughs). SY - So your interest in the SAF came out of your public policy interests? AC - Yes. I joined the SAF in mid-year of 1977. Nobody ever asked me, and it never became an issue. They were too busy throwing other harpoons at us! SY - What was involved with that work? AC - The Committee of Scientists? Well, I don’t know how much you know about the National Forest Management Act, but it was an important piece of legislation that was passed in 1976 in response, fundamentally, to the Monongahela decision, and one of the curious inclusions in the Act was a section that established a committee of scientists. That’s what it was referred to, charged with advising the Secretary of Agriculture on the adequacy of the regulations that were to be developed to implement the National Forest Management Act. We were required by the legislation to publish an independent report in the Federal Register. So, we had a great deal of power to say what we thought about what the Forest Service was doing. In other words, we didn’t have to talk to the world through the Chief Forester. We talked to the world through the Secretary and the Federal Register, and there’s a profound difference between those two routes of communication. The reason I was appointed chairman was simply because I was a reasonably good friend of the man who was the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture with responsibilities for the Forest Service, Rupert Cutler. Rupert and I had done a lot of lying and conniving together in the late sixties and early seventies about wilderness issues, and he knew me and knew my background in state government and he trusted me, and apparently I was the kind of personality that he thought should chair that committee, rather than a mainline card-carrying forester. SY - So you were seen as being a little more neutral on the issues? AC - Yes, I’m more neutral and clearly more attuned toward a more environmental view of forestry and also toward the necessity of having adequate public involvement in what the Forest Service was doing. Because in those days, it’s a little hard for anybody associated with the Forest Service now with the extraordinary extremes they go to in involving the public, to realize that there was a time when they really didn’t want the public involved in what they were doing. Their general view of the public was that they were a bunch of nuts. SY - There was a professional versus a lay person kind of thing? AC - Yes. It’s that traditional problem that the resource management field has and that’s the view that “we know best.” Like the medical profession. SY - I’m very familiar with that! So “leave it to the experts” was the attitude. AC - Yes. We know what we’re doing. Of course, what the public saw was 400 acre clearcuts and adamant resistance to any expansion of wilderness, and the litany of problems goes on and on, because most of them still exist today. That was the genesis of my appointment as the chair of the committee. SY - You said that you were involved in wilderness issues in the late sixties and early seventies, what kind? AC - The Smokies. When the Fontana Dam was built, are you familiar with that? SY - They were promised a road?
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AC - Yes. And the Park Service had, for reasons that are utterly unknown to living human beings, had all of a sudden decided that it was going to solve the contract for the road issue by building a second trans-mountain road. I don’t know if you know anything about the Smokies, but it would have gone across the Smokies, almost halfway between the current road and US 19 on the west end of the Smokies, from Tellico to Bryson City (I’m not sure the Tellico end of it is right). It would have gone right square through the largest remaining wilderness area in the eastern United States. As far as the environmental people were concerned, it was just like sticking a pin in a boil. So there was a tremendous effort on the part of the environmental community to stop the trans-mountain road. Which. Of course, they did. SY - I also recall there was a problem about the rock formations being acidic, Anakeesta. AC - Anakeesta shale, I think the rock formations are called, causes acidic runoff and that was one of the additional environmental issues that was raised about the road, but the fundamental issue was that it would simply bisect the wilderness area. SY - How were you involved in the effort to stop that? AC - Well, I was the chairman of the North Carolina Academy of Sciences Conservation Committee; at that time Clarence Korstian was on it and Frank Woods from Duke, Al Radford from Chapel Hill and a couple of others. We took a pretty strong position on the trans-mountain road, and I was one of the founders of the Conservation Council of North Carolina, although I doubt they even know that, because they have probably long since disavowed me (laughs). That’s neither here nor there, but I was one of the founders, and of course, that was one of the things that the Conservation Council was concerned with. Although, by the time it was created, the trans-mountain road was pretty much a dead issue, but there were others that came up in its place. The road through the upper half of the Joyce Kilmer, stuff like that. Just a constant series of proposals to do good things with roads in places where what was then a nascent environmental community just didn’t believe they should be put. SY - So the major issue was road building and the protection of wilderness areas? AC - Yes. Those were the focal points that drew the conservation and environmental communities into the arguments up there. Biodiversity and stuff that’s featured so prominently in arguments now wasn’t even on our radar screen then. SY - Who was mostly involved in promoting those roads? AC - The trans-mountain road was promoted by the Park Service, but of course the development interests in Swain County eagerly espoused it, and they were pushing the Park Service to resolve the contract dispute. The Park Service felt an obligation to do that, and the culture that existed in the mid-sixties made the construction of roads and works the appropriate way to meet that kind of an obligation. When you say who was pushing it, it was a combination of the Park Service that forwarded the proposal and the local development interests in Swain County promoting the Park Service’s resolution of the concerns that they were raising. They wanted the contract fulfilled. SY - Were you starting to get interested in public policy? Is this what started your interest in public policy? AC - Yes, probably. What happened was that I became more and more visible as a spokesperson for the conservation community in North Carolina. At that time the term environmentalist didn’t exist. We just referred to ourselves as the conservation community. A lot of the arguments centered on the fate of Baldhead Island, which is another matter. I became more and more visible, and when Bob Scott was elected governor, his Director of Conservation and Development, Roy Sowers, I had learned enough to know that the thing to do was to get to the people in charge and talk to them, so I had pretty much a running dialogue with [Roy Sowers] from my chair here at the University. I had been appointed to the State Mining Commission, and the Mining Law was passed, so I had a bit of an entree’ there. When issues would come up, Roy would call and say, do you want to fly down to X place with me and tell me what you think? Which I did. Then one day, I was working away in the office like this, and the phone rang and it was Roy. He said, Bob Scott’s going to call you in about an hour. I don’t want you to turn him down. I don’t know whether you know Bob Scott or not, but in an hour, the phone rang and my secretary came in with her eyes as big as
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saucers and said “The Governor’s on the telephone,” and it was Bob, who said, we have a vacancy for Deputy Director of the Department of Conservation and Development, and you’ve been advising us for two years now as to what we ought to do. I’m offering you that job, and you’ll have the chance to do the things that you have been urging us to do, and you’d better take it. I don’t remember just what his words were, but the implication was very clear that “If you don’t take this job, we’re not going to listen to you anymore, because you have lost your credibility, if you’re not willing to get out and fight.” So in the spring of 1971, I went on leave from the University and AC; I made the transition from Democrat administration to Republican administration. When the question of my leave came up, Jim Holshouser called out here and he said what can they say if the governor calls and says I want this guy to work for me, please extend his leave. I worked through the last two years of Scott’s term and almost all of Holshouser’s term. SY - How did things change between Scott and Holshouser? AC - That’s another story in itself. To be absolutely honest with you it didn’t make a great deal of difference. The biggest difference was the nature of the person that I worked for. The person that I worked under in the Scott administration was a political animal and didn’t know...he was a savvy guy and a shrewd guy. Unfortunately, after he left state government, he got involved in some scandals. It was really very sad. He did not handle his postgovernment life. The man I worked for under Holshouser was one of the brightest people I’ve ever known. He would have been quite at home on a university faculty. I probably had a closer relationship with him and with Governor Holshouser than I did with Governor Scott. And they knew from the very beginning that I was a registered Democrat. I told them, I’m not changing registration, because I don’t believe in what the Republican Party stands for nationally. I don’t know what you all here at the state level stand for, because you haven’t been in office for 70 years. But I’m simply not going to register Republican. This was when Nixon was president. They said, that’s all right, you’re working for us, you’re not working for the party. So it was a good arrangement. SY - So as far as conservation went, there wasn’t that much difference? AC - No. External events played a much heavier role in determining what was being done than the nature of the individuals involved. That was the period from 1971 to 1976, when North Carolina passed most of its first generation environmental legislation. I had a lot to do with the passage of most of it. Another fact which is lost in the clouds of history, but that’s not relevant. SY - And you said something about the Conservation Council had objected to your... AC - Well, the Conservation Council, when it was created in 1969, I think what happened when I say they disavowed me is I think my philosophy has, or their philosophy and mine have drifted apart sufficiently so that I continue to contribute to them. I contribute to their fund for lobbyists that they pay. I helped pay for Bill Holman when he was down in the legislature, and I have profound respect for Bill Holman and what he’s done. But their philosophy and the philosophy of the Sierra Club and a number of the other environmental organizations is just simply not my own personal philosophy. My own personal philosophy is to try to resolve problems rather than create constant confrontation. So when I say that they would probably disown me, I’ve been a member of too many centrist mainline operations and have been a part of the establishment. And now in the forestry department [NCSC], and what worse place could you be than in a forestry department? [laughs] SY - So you are saying that your approach to dealing with problems is different from environmental organizations’ more than your values and goals being different? AC - Yes, I would say so. I think that’s probably true although I do think some of the goals of some of the environmentalists today are not goals that I would have an easy time espousing. For example, I would not be comfortable with terminating logging on the National Forests. I do not think that’s a goal that’s in the national interest. On the other hand, I do believe very strongly that a much reduced intensity of logging on the National Forests is appropriate. By much reduced I mean in comparison, say, the level of logging now is much more consistent with the vision that I would have for the future of the National Forests than the level of logging that was carried on during the latter part of the Reagan administration. When they were harvesting 12 and a half billion board feet a year. SY - It increased a lot when Reagan came in.
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AC - Right. It’s been reduced, cut in about a quarter. And my feeling is that’s probably more consistent with what’s in the national interest. SY - What’s your feeling about the clearcutting issue? Since that’s related. AC - To me, clearcutting is a perfectly legitimate forest regeneration strategy. In fact, I suspect there are situations where clearcutting is the only realistic way to regenerate certain forest types, so I would certainly not be opposed to clearcutting per se. But I do believe that the constraints that have been exercised on clearcutting, in other words the reductions in size and the concerns with spacing and all the other changes that have taken place with respect to the use of clearcutting have all been appropriate and necessary. Because the way it was being applied 20 or 30 years ago was simply indefensible. From the environmental perspective, from the aesthetic perspective, from any perspective, really. But banning it, I don’t think banning it is appropriate. SY - I get the impression that in a lot of people’s minds clearcutting and over cutting have been linked as the same thing. AC - Yes. Clearcutting is, first off, in the minds of the public is not viewed as a regeneration strategy, it’s viewed as a cut-and-run strategy. And the public has a very difficult time making the distinction between the benefits of something like a well-designed well-executed clearcuts and the detrimental features of a poorly-designed poorlyexecuted selected cut. The public would probably select the latter as being desirable, whereas in reality from the perspective of... SY - If you go in and take the best trees and leave the undesirables behind, you’re not... AC - You’re not accomplishing a desirable objective and eventually you’ll degrade the forest to the point where in terms of species composition there’s really not much left to deal with. Now, of course, a lot of people’s hidden agenda is that they don’t really care; in fact the agenda’s not so hidden, they don’t really care for any cutting. They’d be just as happy if there were no harvesting. I can’t subscribe to that philosophy. SY - Well, there’s got to be a lumber supply from somewhere. AC - Yes, that’s right and I do believe that the United States—that it’s morally indefensible for the United States to continue its demand on forest products and fulfill that demand with products from overseas. SY - Just putting off environmental problems into another area of the globe. AC - Yes. Just fobbing them off on the Third World. That will catch up with you sooner or later. The same way that fobbing off our oil demand on the Third World has caught up with us. SY - So you joined the SAF when you got involved... AC - With the National Forest Management Act. SY - With the Monongahela controversy and the National Forest Management Act. What was the general attitude of people in the SAF on the Monongahela situation? AC - It’s hard to say, because by the time I became involved in the SAF in an active sense, which was about 1980, when I became department head. There were two things that stimulated my active involvement. The first one was becoming department head and the necessity to be out and be visible and represent the department in the forestry community. The SAF was the place to do that. The other thing was that I had come off my tenure as chair of the committee of scientists, and the other members of the committee and I were looked to for making presentations at meetings and to discuss what these new regulations meant for forestry, so I remember I gave one of the keynote addresses at the 1980 SAF meeting in Spokane. And it was at that point that my active involvement really began. SY - So it was interest on the part of the SAF in what you had been doing that partly got you involved.
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AC - Yes, and my interests in representing the department, being a more visible member of the forestry community because I wanted my department known. SY - Right. So you don’t really have much exposure to the SAF reaction to what you were doing? AC - No, except secondhand reaction and I’d say that the reaction of the SAF was decidedly mixed. The way it continues to be today to a number of national-level issues. There were a number of members of the SAF, and I’d say those were probably more among the high-level officers and administrators of the organization, who realized that, well they had been peripherally involved in the development of the National Forest Management Act and were interested in the outcome of the regulation drafting process. By interested I mean that they sought to influence it. They realized that the changes that were embodied in the National Forest Management Act were probably necessary, and their interests were to see the requirements of the Act implemented through the regulations in a way that made the best sense for forestry as a profession. As an enterprise. There were other members of the SAF who, I don’t think, I was going to say really understood the argument, but that’s too sarcastic. That’s not the right way to put it. I think they never felt that the arguments, that the issues that the National Forest Management Act responded to were real issues and that they again were issues that were being dealt with satisfactorily by the Forest Service. And just let the Forest Service do its thing. They were trained professionals and they knew the best thing to do. The National Forest Management Act represented the politicians trying to resolve problems that in reality should have been resolved by professionals. SY - There wasn’t, then, necessarily a split between the industrial foresters and Forest Service so much. AC - No. There was a distinct schism, but that didn’t so much represent schism that in any way represented the SAF, it was more a schism that was traceable back into the industrial forestry organizations, particularly the western industrial forestry organizations, and the environmental organizations on the other hand. There were several provisions that were written into the regulations that were the subject of very intense lobbying. Industry people, for example, one of them was the so-called departures from non-declining even flow, essentially the issue was how fast you are permitted to liquidate old growth on the western National Forests. The industry people wanted a provision that would allow relatively rapid liquidation, and the environmentalists wanted one that would allow it as slowly as possible. And could be used to prevent it if possible. And that issue took some real careful negotiation to try to resolve. But, again, that was not really an SAF issue as I recall it. It was more an industry-environmentalist issue. SY - So industrial foresters didn’t really speak through the SAF on these issues, they spoke independently. AC - No, they spoke through their interest groups. There were two or three industrial people who were more faithful attendees at the meetings of the committee of scientists than were some of the members of the committee. One or two of the members of the committee had a bit of a problem with attendance. I think there were maybe two of us who attended all 18 meetings. And there were several industry people who attended all 18 of them. They were there in the front row with their clipboards and their pens [laughs] and when we were in our public sessions they were as involved in the discussion as members of the committee. Now, there were also several environmental people who were equally involved. SY - That was more western industry than in this area? AC - Yes. Much more. SY - When you got more involved with the SAF, did you get involved with the local region? AC - Yes. I got involved with the Appalachian Society pretty early on. That was where my involvement as head of the department of forestry put me into that situation more than involvement with the National Forest Management Act. Because the place where there were always regular alumni meetings, well, we had them at the national meeting, and they were attended by 20 or 30 people. But we would have them at the Appalachian meeting or the North Carolina meeting and they’d be very, very heavily attended. So there was a lot of intercourse among people of one sort or another. I was involved in that pretty heavily and I think that’s where I got into the mainstream of managing the SAF, the local organizations.
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SY - There’s also the local chapter, as well. Is that the Triangle? AC - Yes. I don’t believe I was ever the chairman of the Triangle Chapter. I was chairman of North Carolina Division. I can’t remember [laughs], I’d have to look in my resume to tell you what years that was. I was also... SY - I probably have that written down. AC - You should, if you don’t I can give it to you. It was probably mid-80s. SY - Yes. It says 1984. AC - OK. SY - And chair of APSAF in 1990. AC - Yes. SY - So your main interest in the local chapter and in the regional chapter was to promote the department? AC - Well, it was promotion of the department that probably brought me into it. Once I got involved in it, I was interested in the full range of issues that both of the societies were dealing with. SY - What were the major issues when you got involved? AC - That’s a good question. I can remember that when I was the chairman of the Appalachian Society we were in the throes of redoing the charters. I think they were called charters rather than constitutions. Because the national had just changed its structure. And that was probably as big a job, as big an issue, that existed at the time when I was the chair, was to get all of our governing documents in line with those of the national, so they’d be consistent. In terms of political issues, right at that particular moment in time, I don’t remember any political issues that were particularly urgent. It was sort of a period of quiescence at the national level and at the local level the strident criticisms of forestry that have developed over the last, say, half a dozen years had really not begun yet. SY - So it was mostly organizational issues for the SAF itself. When did the more strident criticism come in? AC - Well, I would say that it’s mostly since 1990. Probably since 1992 or 1993 that they’ve become more, that the environmental organizations have become more outspoken. SY - Well, since we were talking about some of the organizational issues, when you first got in, maybe I’ll get into some of the questions about the organization. What was the general structure like when you joined? You don’t have to get very detailed, but was there anything particularly important about the way things were structured and changes in the structure? AC - Well, I think the changes that were being made...I can’t recall what the driving force behind the structural changes was, but I believe that among other things it was concerned with getting a better grass roots involvement within SAF, but it was more than that. I did not have enough contact with national governance, really, to be familiar with the issues in governance at the national level. Things that were driving those changes. I was simply responding to the instructions that came down from national. The things that we had to do. There’s one thing that I didn’t mention about my involvement with SAF that probably is important. I was involved in several SAF task forces that dealt with the Resources Planning Act. At least one of them produced an SAF publication. I ended up chairing the second one. I’d have to go back and refresh my memory on whether it was two separate task forces or whether it was simply a task force that continued. But I remember that I was involved in a number of conferences that dealt with the ‘80, ‘85, ‘90 RPA programs. And as I say, I think the SAF put out a critique of at least one of them. I think it was 1985 program. So a lot of my involvement with the national was issue-oriented rather than organization-structure oriented, if you get the distinction. SY - Right, and then the local would be structural and more involved with the departments needs?
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AC - More involved with the organization of the local. We had to rewrite our bylaws or charter completely. SY - That seemed to happen every time the national changed anything, everybody had to go back and rewrite everything again. AC - Yes. And the changes that were made around 1990 were pretty substantive changes. We had to change our method of appointing people and our bylaws under which we operated. SY - The task force, what issues were they involved in? AC - You mean the RPA? Well, there were questions about the adequacy and nature of the Forest Service RPA program and the process that they used to develop that program. It was essentially a review and critique of the process. The easiest way for you to get a sense of what was involved would be to get a hold of the report. SY - Yes. Were you involved at the time the red-cockaded woodpecker thing came up? AC - [laughs] SY - That would be a yes? AC - [laughing] I don’t want to talk about it. SY - You don’t want to talk about it? You don’t ever want to hear about it ever again? [laughs] AC - No, that was a tragedy. In many respects. There was an elderly gentleman, whose name completely escapes me at this stage of the game. Which is very unfortunate. I’m sure my name will escape some people when I’ve been dead four or five years. But this gentleman was bound and determined to try and resolve the red cockaded woodpecker issue. He got the Appalachian SAF involved through me, and one of our other officers in trying to become a party to developing a process by which forestry and the Rare and Endangered Species Act could cohabit. Looking back on it now, it simply was one of a long series of efforts to develop a way to achieve that objective, cohabitation between or a modus vivendi between forestry and the Rare and Endangered Species Act. That has been more or less achieved, and I think those efforts back in the early 90s were simply a part of that long process that led to where we are now. SY - So that process would have started much earlier than the red-cockaded woodpecker? AC - Oh yes. It focused on the red-cockaded woodpecker because the issues raised by the red-cockaded woodpecker were so pervasive to southern forestry that, at least perceived to be that way, that it was perceived that there had to be a resolution of those issues. SY - From people involved with industry, I get pretty much total opposition to working around endangered species, at least on private property. AC - Yes. That’s one of this gentleman’s objectives, I want to say his name was Thompson. SY - Did he write one of the main reports or co-author one of the main reports? AC - Not for the SAF that I recall. SY - There was one report that the SAF did that was extremely controversial. AC - Probably some of his stuff would have gone into that. This is really embarrassing that I can’t remember that man’s name because for a period of a couple of years I probably talked to him once or twice a quarter. SY - Well, I can run into somebody I’ve known all of my life and blank out on their name, so I’m sympathetic.
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AC - He subsequently died. But as I said, at the time it was a very chaotic and very difficult to deal with because he was a difficult personality to deal with. He was elderly and very set in his ways and simply believed that he had the answer to resolving these problems, and he was trying to drag everybody else along to try to get them to do things his way. And he wanted the SAF to be a part of that. And the SAF, to put it bluntly, didn’t really want to be a part of it, yet it couldn’t; I didn’t feel like we could just tell the guy to take a hike, because he was so persistent that we would lose significantly if we were not involved with him. It turned out, I don’t think we gained much from being involved with him. SY - Was it his work that brought a lot of controversy? AC - Yes. He was trying to develop ways in which you could rationalize the habitat requirements of the redcockaded woodpecker with industrial forestry. SY - So he wasn’t actually hostile to industrial forestry? AC - No, not at all. His problem was that he was elderly and somewhat disorganized, very garrulous. A telephone call from him, I mean you could pick up the telephone and put it like that [lays handset on its side] and say “yeah” every ten minutes. He’d just go on and on and on. You’d finally just have to say, “I’m sorry, I’ve got an appointment that I have to meet.” He expected other people to simply drop everything that they were doing and at their own expense to become involved in his effort to deal with the red-cockaded woodpecker problem. That included not only university people, but government agency representatives and everybody else that might be involved in it. He was trying to orchestrate people who didn’t want to be orchestrated, to put it bluntly. Sometimes, if you’re in a government agency, you’ve got a hook that you can orchestrate people with. But he didn’t have any hook. He had all of the best intentions, but it was just translating them into reality. It was not one of our shining moments, let me just put it that way. [laughs] SY - So it was a personality and communication gap there that made the controversy worse? AC - Yes. I don’t know that it made it any worse, but it didn’t make it any better. It did not achieve the objective that was sought. Given the circumstances at that time, I’m not sure that it would have been possible to achieve the objective that was sought. SY - Well, Kenney Funderburke wouldn’t agree to... AC - No, he probably wouldn’t agree to the resolutions that have been worked out now. SY - I doubt it. AC - That’s ok, that’s Kenney’s generation. SY - Sure. I’m sorry, I interrupted you. AC - I was just saying, I view that when you’re working toward the long term solution of a problem it’s relatively rare that you start from one point and go “bam” right to a result. This represented one of a series of efforts that were begun. Those efforts did lead to rationalization of the problem. Whether this man’s efforts were ever a major part of the resolution of this problem is something that the red-cockaded woodpecker experts would have to answer. SY - Are those management issues fairly well resolved now, or is that still an active issue? AC - Well, I get the impression that they are much better resolved now than they were ten years ago. On the the provisions that have been worked out between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the forestry community, my impression is that there’s resolution that both parties can live with. Safe Harbor provision and the other provisions that have been put into practice administratively, which the Fish and Wildlife Service went to Congress and tried to implement legislatively and failed. My judgment is based more on the fact that I don’t hear the same degree of screaming and wringing of hands that I heard five years ago.
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SY - Does that make a big difference, whether it’s a federal law or a state regulation? Are people more comfortable with state regulation? AC - Probably. I don’t think that the resolution of the problem has been a state resolution. It’s been largely mediated by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. Of course the state wildlife commission has been involved in it, but I think this has been a federally mediated resolution. SY - But the process of working more face to face as a regulatory commission with the people who are actually managing the forests—is that more effective than trying to legislate at the federal level, do you think? AC - The difficulty with legislation at the federal level is that there are too many groups with conflicting objectives, and the net effect of their efforts is that they’re self-canceling. At the local level, you have the same basic issues but there’s a greater tendency for people to be able to sit down face to face and try to work out some accommodation because they have to. Necessity dictates it. At this stage of the game necessity doesn’t dictate that the Endangered and Threatened Species Act be amended. There are some people who think that necessity would dictate that but there hasn’t been sufficient pressure developed at the national level to do that. So that every effort to change it has met with the impacts of these self-canceling pressure groups. Now the National Forest Management Act is a good example of a piece of legislation that had to be passed because of the consequences of the Monongahela decision. One of the interesting things about the Forest Management Act is that there was a coalition of environmental and industry groups in Washington working behind the scenes trying to come to some accommodation that the pressure groups could accept. And that was one of the things that led to the successful passage of NFMA. And believe me, there is no such coalition at this time. And there’s no pressure to create one. Because there’s nothing the passage of which seems that urgent. SY - Yes, I get a definite feeling of a lack of a cooperative spirit in the environmental movement at this point. AC - I’d just as soon not get started on it, because I am so frustrated with the situation at the national level. I’m frustrated with Congress, which seems to me to be ineffective, with little statesman-like leadership with the possible exception of Larry [Craig?] I can’t think of anybody in Congress right now that I would even put in the same sentence with the word leader. The environmental groups clearly stand to gain more from Congressional inaction than they stand to gain from Congressional action. SY - At this point certainly. AC - Yes. And until it’s clear that the environmental groups have more to gain from Congress doing something, than from Congress not doing something, then they’re not going participate constructively in any resolution to the problem. And you got the total obsession of the Republican leadership in Congress with Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton’s legacy, they’re obsessed by it. It colors everything they do. There’s no way that’s good for the country or good for natural resource management. SY - A personal opinion, but I haven’t been struck with Clinton and Gore’s environmental knowledge or activity particularly. AC - It’s very, very opportunistic. SY - It’s one of the reasons that I voted for him, and he hasn’t done much of anything. [laughs] AC - Yes. So that leaves you with a dilemma, what are you going to do in November? SY - Flip a coin. AC - Voting for Ralph Nader is a nice statement but it doesn’t accomplish anything. SY - No. AC - You’ve got to fish or cut bait between Gore or Bush.
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SY - Yes. Is there any private cooperation? I know that there’s some like The Nature Conservancy agreements with a paper company down east to save some land. AC - I think it’s IP. SY - Yes. I think it is. AC - Well, GP too. SY - Yes, I think they’ve both had some dealings with The Nature Conservancy. AC - Well, The Nature Conservancy, they are an environmental organization, but they are different because they have one objective and that’s land preservation and the preservation of biological diversity. And they concentrate solely on that and they’re very good at working out arrangements that are in both parties both interests. And that’s the kind of problem solving that’s attractive to me. SY - Whereas a lot the other environmental organizations view any kind of dealings with industry as betrayal of the cause or something like that? AC - Yes. They’re antagonistic and they’re not interested in any sort of accommodation. Period. End of sentence. SY - That seems to be a general feeling, that they are more about ideology than they are about actually accomplishing concrete goals. AC - Some useful objective. Yes, that’s why I say that the Conservation Council probably would have disowned me, is that I think that they have slipped off into that mold. Whereas the North Carolina Nature Conservancy has stayed true to its objective, which is land preservation. SY - Yes. I’ve heard The Nature Conservancy criticized for dealings with corporations. I’m not sure how else you’re supposed to accomplish it, if they own the land. AC - They’ve got the land, and if you want to try to preserve it...like somebody said, it was Frank Sherrill, the guy who owned Bald Head Island for so many years, I remember talking to him when he ran the S&W Cafeteria chain. Talking to him in his offices in Charlotte in the mid-1960s. It was like going back into the twenties; mahogany, dark shellacked wood. No air-conditioning, ceiling fans. Old women, all of the people working in there were old women. There were no young perky secretaries, they were all over 50. And we asked Sherrill if he would consider donating the island to conservation. He just looked at me and said, “I’ve tithed 10 per cent my whole life, and I don’t owe the Lord a thing.” He said, “If you want Bald Head Island saved, get up your money and buy it.” SY - At least you know exactly what you’re dealing with. AC - Pretty straight forward. Yes. SY - One thing that some of the people that I’ve interviewed have given me the impression—I don’t know whether as members of the Appalachian Section or if this is just their personal attitude, but they support basic private property rights, so that if you want regulation on private property, you have to give something back to the owner in order to justify that. Is that pretty much the standard viewpoint, or does that vary a great deal? AC - Well, it’s not my viewpoint. Which one is standard or not, I don’t know. It certainly is an article of faith with most people in the forestry business. I mean the sanctity of private property and private property rights is an article of faith with most people in forestry. I don’t believe it’s as simple as they make it, and that’s what I teach my students. I don’t try to teach them about the sanctity of private property rights, and on the other hand I don’t try to lead them to believe that the government ought to play fast and loose with private property rights. Both views are equally reprehensible. I do tell them that nowhere in the Constitution or in any of the interpretations of the Constitution is there a statement that a person can do with his property absolutely as he wishes.
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SY - No, there isn’t. AC - That’s simply not there. So the issue is far more complex than a lot of people paint it to be. SY - The little bit of research I’ve done, looking at private property rights, basically suggest that property rights are a constant negotiation. AC - Yes, absolutely. There’s the traditional example used that there’s the bundle of rights that you acquire when you acquire a piece of property and the question is: how many of the sticks in that bundle can the government take away or constrain the use of before it has taken your property. And there are some people who would argue that if you take one stick or constrain one stick, you owe me something. You’ve taken something from me. And there are others who would say, well...you can take more than that and even, under certain circumstances, you can take almost all of them. It simply depends upon balancing the reasons for which the government has constrained the use of those property rights and the benefits that would accrue to the public generally. I think a lot of the argument is probably unproductive, because if there are major public purposes to be served, for example - recreation, that sort of thing, or wilderness protection, or biodiversity for that matter, then clearly the best approach is public acquisition. Not that that’s going to absolutely ensure the protection of those values, but it probably comes closer than blanket private ownership. When you’re dealing with issues like protection of water quality, protection of air quality and that sort of thing, sedimentation, that’s when you get into the business of how many of those property rights the government can legitimately constrain in order to, (as Theodore Roosevelt said when he signed the Clean Food and Drug Act in 1905 or 1908 or something), you have to constrain the rights of the few to protect the rights of the many. That’s pretty simply stated, that’s it. That’s the problem. SY - Would there be more support among foresters for the idea that you, to restrict property rights where it affected the property of others, as in watersheds, so that if you damaged the watershed you would damage property downstream? AC - There probably would be more acceptance of that, but even the acceptance of that would not be widespread among many foresters. There are many foresters who believe that, for example, if the government believes that it’s necessary to set aside buffer strips in order to protect water courses, then the government should reimburse the property owner for those values that the property owner loses. In other words, the property owner is not constrained in the use of that property in order to protect public values... SY - Nor to protect the private property of someone else? If their activities on that land damages somebody else’s property value? AC - That’s somebody else’s problem. SY - Unless it’s in a golf course community. AC - A lot of people, there are a lot of foresters who would take that view— that unfettered use of private property is one of the rights guaranteed by our Constitution and you constrain that right only under the most extreme of situations. You could get that if you talked to Bob Slocum who is executive director of North Carolina Forestry Association. You’d get the clearest, cleanest articulation of that view. SY - Another major, relatively recent controversy that I’ve noticed was the ecosystem management report? AC - [laughs] Good old Logan Norris’ report. Logan Norris, was my counterpart at Oregon State. Head of the department of forestry out there and he was the poor guy who got saddled with the chairmanship of that task force. I sat in the meeting in Indianapolis and listened to Logan get his lunch eaten. [laughs] I thought, mmm, I feel sorry for you, but I’m sure glad it’s you and not me! [laughs] SY - Was that reflective of a difference in perspective between academic forestry and ecologists who are foresters and others?
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AC - Yes, to some extent. And to some extent it’s also a communication problem. The whole business of ecosystem management is a dilemma that I hardly know how to get into. It’s a concept, that on the one hand, is very difficult to argue against because, what responsible forester would espouse the management practices that would destroy the essential properties of an ecosystem? But, on the other hand, how do you rationalize that with the management practices that are required in order to harvest forest products? The difficulty, as it seems to me, is that many people see ecosystem management as just a subtle form of preservationism. In other words, if you espouse ecosystem management, what you’re really espousing is that you don’t want to do anything to the woods. And that’s not really true. But the difficulty has been trying to translate the high-blown statements about what ecosystem management represents into actual on-the-ground practices that people can accept. This is a real good analogy with sustainability. The Forest Service’s new planning regulations establish ecological sustainability as the touchstone for national forest management. Now, can you think of a responsible forester who would argue that your management practices ought not be ecologically sustainable? No forester would argue that, and yet foresters and the forestry community have come down like a load of bricks on top of those management planning guidelines because of their focus on ecological sustainability. Their argument is that what it’s done is put ecological sustainability first and then all other considerations are secondary. My feeling is that that’s not true. But the difficulty is one of credibility, because the Forest Service has put forward this ecological sustainability objective, and the forestry community sees this as an agency that wants to set aside—wants to de facto create 40 to 60 million acres of more wilderness. They want to stop building roads. They’ve reduced the annual allowable cut from 12 billion board feet to 3 billion board feet. Case after case after case. They make this leap from ecological sustainability through all of the actions that the Forest Service has taken to no commercial management of the National Forests. And that’s not what ecological sustainability says to me. But the difficulty is that an agency that has done what the Forest Service has done, or an administration that has made the Forest Service do what it’s done, simply leads to that sort of leap from one extreme to the other. And I think that’s why so many foresters have spoken out against ecological sustainability as that cornerstone for management of the National Forests, when in reality, ecological sustainability is the cornerstone of forestry. SY - I did get that impression, that some foresters at least felt insulted and attacked by some of these newer terms, the implication was that they had failed to do these things when they had felt all along that this was their goal. AC - Yes. That’s correct; that’s correct. They feel it’s an assault on their professional integrity. I think that’s a legitimate feeling on their part. I don’t think it ever was intended that way, but I think that’s the way that it’s come out. SY - My impression, again, is that part of the experience with environmental groups that are so attack-oriented has made people much more jumpy about this sort of thing. That people who might have supported some of these ideas otherwise are less likely to now. Is that too extreme? AC - No, I think that’s a fair statement. It’s like one of the wheel-horse Democrats said when we were trying to pass the Coastal Areas Management Act. That was when I was working for the Holshouser administration. The Secretary and I went over to him with a proposal to break one of the legislative logjams. And we explained it to him. It was perfectly reasonable proposal. It represented a huge compromise on the Republicans’ part. He listened to us real patiently, then the Secretary says, “well, what do you think Phil?” And Godwin says, “well, Jim, I can’t see a damn thing wrong with that, but if you’re in favor of it, I’m against it.”[laughs] Because there’s got to be something wrong with it. He just couldn’t bring himself to espouse anything that a Republican brought over to him. SY - So there’s a lot of that going on? AC - Yes, sure. There’s a lot of that in this particular issue. On the face of it, I can’t see anything wrong with it, but if you’re in favor of it, there’s got to be something wrong with it. SY - Right. I know you don’t have unlimited time, so I’ll just ask more generally — are there any particularly important events or issues that we haven’t talked about that you see as important, either in general or specifically with the SAF and the Appalachian SAF?
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AC - Well, I haven’t been very deeply involved with the Appalachian SAF over the last three or four years. So I think we’ve probably touched on the main things that they’ve been involved in, at least to my knowledge. I think one of the things that has always been a issue with SAF, or problem with SAF, is the extent to which SAF speaks as a representative of the forestry community in the political situations in which it is located. SAF has traditionally not been good at that in North Carolina. Now, the extent to which they’re good at it in South Carolina and Virginia is a question that I really can’t answer, but that’s something that you might explore. If you said, “Who speaks for forestry in North Carolina?” It would be the North Carolina Forestry Association. The North Carolina Forestry Association has a very biased, very clear, very biased agenda. It is biased towards production forestry. I’m a member of the board of the North Carolina Forestry Association and I say that not in a critical way. It simply is a statement of fact. SAF, if you asked a legislator who speaks for forestry and you said what about the Society of American Foresters, he would say, “Who?” I never heard of them. The chances are pretty good that they would be a non-register on their scale. SY - That actually does ring a bell in terms of the attempt to split the Appalachian Section up into three state societies. I got the impression from talking to Harold Olinger and Rhett Bickley that Rhett and others in his position were for the split to try to make the SAF more of a state-level voice in politics. Whereas Olinger and others wanted the SAF to be different from the state organizations and to represent bringing foresters together from different points of view and from different states. AC - Yes, I think that’s the advantage that SAF has, that it includes foresters from a wide assortment of backgrounds. It includes academic foresters research foresters, industrial foresters, government foresters, you know, the full gamut. North Carolina Forestry Association does not include that same gamut of people. It’s primarily industrial people, consultants, and private landowners. And there’s a smattering of university people involved. SAF’s diversity is on the one hand its strength, and on the other hand its Achilles heel, because that diversity prevents it from speaking, or makes it difficult for it to speak with a unified voice. And that’s one of the reasons why it’s no more effective, it hasn’t been able to carry out this role at the local level of being a lobbyist or spokesperson for forestry. At the national level, it has surmounted that obstacle and it’s become a reasonably effective spokesperson in Congress on forestry issues. Bill Banzhaf testifies fairly regularly, and Mike Gurgun, the policy guy and previous policy people have worked closely with the staff members down there. So, oddly enough, they are a much more influential player at the national level than they are at the local level, at least here in the Appalachian region. Now, whether breaking the society apart into three separate state societies would change that or not, I don’t know. I’m inclined to think that it wouldn’t have much effect on it. Because there’s nothing in the world to keep us from operating at the division level now. In other words, the North Carolina Division could become as vocal as it wished. SY - But it would still be the same situation where diversity would prevent a single political goal? AC - That’s right. You’ve got to have something to say and you can’t go up there and talk out of all sides of your mouth at the same time, because that doesn’t impress anybody [laughs]. The national organization has figured out a way to avoid doing that. To make statements. And that’s one of the reasons why there’s a lot of people who are critical of SAF at the national level. Because SAF has taken positions that they can’t support, or have a difficult time supporting. SY - So does SAF mostly rely on majority referendum, or is there some consensus? AC - No, they have a policy process by which they develop policies. For example, Doug Liskin? And “Forests of Discord,” I’ll just use that as an example. That’s a task force, that’s the last SAF task force that I served on. We started in probably 1996 maybe 1997. We were set up to critique the legislation that’s being brought forward to revise public land management laws. What that task force did was put together this report, which is an analysis of the issues that are inherent in public land management at the present time. We dismembered the multiple use concept in here. There are a lot of foresters who would regard that as absolute heresy. Multiple use is the Holy Grail of forestry. Our view that we presented in here [the report] and that the SAF has presented to Congress is that multiple use is untenable. END
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3. Stephen G. Boyce Oral History Interview, April 19, 2000 Susan Yarnell - Let's begin with personal information. Where you went to university, things like that. SB - Can I go a little bit before university to give you my interests in forestry? SY - Absolutely. SB - In 1937, in the high school that I attended, we had an area of agriculture. The agriculture teacher was well educated in agriculture, and forestry was one of his areas of strong interest. I grew up on a large farm in Anson county, NC. My father worked for the railroad. This was a time that farm prices had been low for quite a while during the recession years, and he could not see much coming out of it. The agriculture teacher assisted me in taking some of the lands on the farm and planting trees on them. Those trees have matured and been harvested and another stand planted and then harvested again, since then. The other thing was that I was also in charge of the farm because my father was busy at this time with the various military actions that were taking place in the South. These were the maneuvers prior to World War II, and he was involved very heavily in railroad activities to keep those people supplied with food, clothing and whatever. So I managed the farm for two years. During that time, the highest price I received for ginned and baled cotton was 9 cents a pound, and the average price was between 7 and 8 cents per pound sold on the platform. The price of pulpwood was $1.24 to $1.28 a cord on the stump. SY - Much better! SB - So after those two years, in 1939—late 1939-—my father put everything on the market and sold the mules, and all of the equipment. At that time there were six families on the farm, and they were reduced down to two families because there was no opportunity to make the farm function. When I finished high school later in Albemarle, NC, I went to Davidson College with the idea that medicine and law would be the better opportunities for me rather than agriculture. After one year of ROTC, the army, the military, offered the students in ROTC with a year of college what they called specialized training program in which they would send us to another university for another year or two and hopefully give us commissions in the military. I was sent to Texas A&M University where I spent one year and then after D Day, we were taken out of the university and formed the 13th Army Division. When I returned to the states [emotional] 1945, I became interested in forestry and I worked with a man named Bill Wheeler, who was a forestry consultant, to purchase forest lands for pulp and paper companies. These are farms that went out of business after and during the war. These farms were being planted by the pulp and paper industry in the South. In the summer of 1946, I visited (with Bill Wheeler) NC State University with J.V. Hofmann and before that I had become acquainted with Richard McArdle, who was then the director of the Southeastern Forestry Experiment Station in Asheville. And also with the dean of the School of Forestry at Duke University. J.V. Hofmann offered me an opportunity to enter school and get credit for all my past college work at the university, so I spent the time there, plus the summer at the Hill Forest and I graduated in 1949 from NC State. Then I did a master's degree under a man named Clemence Koffmann. I was asked during the time I was earning the master's degree to teach biology at Meredith College in Raleigh. Following that, I was asked if I would be willing to accept a teaching assistantship at NC State in physiology, which I accepted to work on a PhD in the sand dunes and the salt spray in the coastal plain. Let me back up a little bit. In the summers of 1947 and 1948, under the Pittman-Robinson Wildlife Habitat activity, I did the first wildlife habitat study for Union County, NC and Anson County, NC for the NC Wildlife Resources Commission. We mapped all of the forest landscape. We estimated habitat relationships. We estimated the hunting take. We estimated the kinds of habitat improvements that could be conducted on the lands. During this period of time, there were tremendous rates of change in land use. There are many documents that trace the fact that many veterans came back from the military, and rather than using mules, they could purchase a tractor for less than $1000. Many of them did. They went back to the farms but after one or two years, they could not make it, they were going broke. This was the big urban movement into Atlanta, to Raleigh, to Charlotte, and to Wilmington—big city movement. SY - Like my husband's folks.
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SB - There are several USDA publications outlining these movements and also the economics of it very well. In the summer of 1953, the NC Wildlife Resources Commission asked me to map the forest conditions and to make recommendations for forest management, primarily for habitat management on some land use exchanges that were taking place, by the state of North Carolina. NC still aided, helped people move out of the mountains and find jobs. To find homes that were better than where they were living back in the mountain valleys. The area that I worked on was about 6000 acres, just to the southeast of Dalton Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway. That is still today a wildlife management area where many people go to hunt, and it has brought lots of money into Wilkes County. SY - Is it a state game land? SB - It is a state game refuge. I've forgotten the name of it, because it was named many years after I left the state. In the fall of 1953, my wife and I went to Ohio University where I was appointed an assistant professor on the staff in the botany department with the idea that they wanted to initiate a department of forestry, and I remained there for about five years. During that time, my contacts were with Ohio State University, with Miami University, which you possibly know has a pulp and paper institute, over near Cincinnati. Also with the Worcester experiment station, plus the Soil Conservation research area just south of Worcester in Ohio, with the no-till cultivation that was being developed at that time, and also there was a great deal of concern with reforestation and shelterbelts continuing in Ohio. It became apparent to me, not from technical or from interest, but from a political point of view from the state, there was absolutely no way we could ever develop a department of forestry at Ohio University. Because the political strength at Worcester, Ohio and also at Ohio State University plus the state forestry group and the Ohio Forestry Association, that it was not possible. So eventually the department was moved back from Worcester to Ohio State where it exists today and where the state forester continues to be the head of the department of forestry at Ohio State University. During the summers when I was at Ohio University, I worked part-time with the old Central States Forestry Experiment Station; it was conducting research on a piece of land called the Venton Furnace Experimental Forest that was owned by one of the steel companies. One of the people was a man named Frampton, whom we worked with. The idea was to do research on clearcutting, versus partial cutting, versus group selection. They were putting in five acre plots of those various control, and well-planned areas. My concern was to determine the vegetation after the harvest and to continue to follow the vegetational changes that took place afterwards. The one area that is most interesting is the one that was clearcut in 1952 and then I did the initial vegetative sampling in the summers of 1953 and '54. 25 years later I was able to encourage a graduate student at Ohio University to do the 25 year study. And all of these data and the results are reported in my 1995 book on landscape forestry; to my knowledge this is the only publication that gives the full 25-year changes. Those changes have been repeated at some other locations which I will mention later. The director of the experimental center in Athens, Ohio was a man named Robert Merz and another man I worked with there was Willard Carmain (?) who was a graduate student of Ted Coile's at Duke University in Soils. Willard and I worked together very closely. In 1958, I guess it was in the fall of 1957, the chief of the Forest Service was Richard McArdle, who had been the director of the Southeastern Station when I was in high school and college. He was followed by I.T. Haig in the Southeast Station. But McArdle was Chief of the Forest Service. The Assistant Chief, I forget what his name was, but they met at the ranger's station, and the ranger invited us out to the Athen's ranger station to meet with these people, and during the discussions, McArdle and Deputy Chief Art Greely asked me if there was any opportunity for me to come to work for the Forest Service, because they wanted someone with a background in ecology, and also education in forestry as well as experience in forestry and ecology. They did not tell me precisely why they wanted a person with this background, and I kind of forgot it and didn't think much about it until later on I said, well I now have tenure at Ohio University and I don't really want to give up tenure. About a year or so later, Bob Merz came around and said he had been contacted, and they wanted me to come with the Forest Service. So they made it possible to offer me a sizable GS position in the Forest Service to serve as a source of information for environmental activities, ecology, and forestry. The position they had open at that time was in Carbondale, Illinois. Bob Merz was in the process of moving to Carbondale, so in the spring of 1958, my family and I moved to Carbondale to do research on the Caskaskia Experimental Forest, to continue the kind of research I had been doing, but primarily to serve as a source of information relative to forest changes that would take place with kinds of timber harvest. Especially clearcutting was the primary concern. So I put in some plots on the Caskaskia Experimental Forest to examine clearcutting. Those plots came out to do what essentially later on we know was taking place on the Venton Furnace Experimental Forest in Ohio; much of that information is published in a technical publication.
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From Carbondale, Dick Lane, director of the old Central States Station, asked me if I would come to Columbus, Ohio as assistant director for the station. H.E. Chapmann was the person who was responsible for timber management and various management activities, soil science and whatever, so we moved to Columbus. Dick Lane was then sent to Turkey as a consultant. While Dick was in Turkey, I received a telephone call from Washington DC; there were two of us, George Grewshow was the general manager of the station, and we were informed that Congress and the Forest Service had already agreed that the station would be terminated in December of that year, 1964. Neither of us was to make this known until December, when someone from the Washington office would come and inform the employees of their rights and the political parties would be informed. So George and I for the next few months attended every coffee break, listening. To our knowledge it never really leaked out. In December of 1964, the station was shut down, closed, and then was broken up between the Lake States and the Northeastern Stations. Then the following January I received a call from Les Harper, the deputy chief of research, who said the only place available to me was in the Washington office in his shop. But then he called back and said, we want you over with Carl Ostrom first, to be in charge of the genetics program. I went into the Washington office in the spring of 1965, and spent six years there. I was branch chief in charge of the genetics program nationally then for about two years. Then Les Harper asked me to come across into his office, which I did, and worked reviewing various things, and providing information and publications and materials for the chief and for Les and some of the others for testimony up on the hill. That's a long story. I won't go through all of that. Most of that's in Senate documents or House documents on Interior related affairs. Keith Arnold was the next deputy chief, in 1969, then Tom McClintock was the director of the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station. Tom was moved into the Washington office and Keith Arnold asked me if I would go down to the Southeastern Station and do some things for him relative to reorienting some of the programs. Especially he wanted the Southeastern Station to become more concerned with environmental matters, because he felt that there was too much criticism of some of the work since it was primarily timber oriented. That was my responsibility. What Keith did not tell me at the time was that the Southeastern Station was scheduled for closure. I had already closed one station and I was not about to close another one. I resisted this and those people in the Washington office, Keith and the others know very well my resistance and at the various meetings; I made known that this was not a good move on the part of the Forest Service, that we would lose tremendous support from the pulp and paper industry, the furniture industry and the timber industries and the numerous universities with schools of forestry in the Southeast, some 12 or 13 at that time. The South was rapidly becoming a primary source of fiber for Europe and possibly within the next 20 years after 1970 would become a primary source of wood fiber for the world. Keith felt that I had not fulfilled his responsibility, that I was still concerned with wood fiber. But wood fiber is the key to environmental management, so in 1973 Keith said he and the Chief (John McGuire) had decided that they would like to appoint me into a special position, and they wanted me to write my position description, but in the turmoil that took place in Congress over the closing of the Southeastern Station, and it did become a political issue, was that Steve Boyce could not be moved out of Asheville, NC, period. They had to keep me in Asheville. I stayed there until 1979. There were some changes in the faculty at Yale University, and Bob Buckman had become deputy chief for research, plus some other changes in the chief's office. Max Petersen was then Chief of the Forest Service. I went up and interviewed at the School of Forestry at Yale. I had the opportunity on the exchange program to spend two years at Yale University, which was fine by me. It gave me an opportunity to continue to develop some programs which I call the DYNASST: Dynamic Analytic Silviculture System for computers that would tie wildlife habitats both to the timber parts along with visual aspects, wildlife behavior, regrowth of vegetation, herbaceous plants, both game and non-game animal change, into the harvest of timber. This was the common denominator that I used while I was at Yale to put this together. Prior to this, in 1971, I was director of the Southeastern Station. I went over to Highlands, NC to the Highlands Biological Station and became acquainted with the director; I knew about Highlands from my contacts at Duke University and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and also at NC State. What I proposed to Highlands was that I could bring some money from the Forest Service to support some professional people from the universities who were highly qualified in certain organisms, for example insects, salamanders, snakes, rodents, whatever. We had already done the work in Ohio and also the work in Illinois, on herbaceous plants, and from my background and knowledge of herbaceous plants in the Appalachian mountains, and from Professor Oosting's work at Highlands and also at Duke University I was reasonably sure that the herbaceous plant situations following clearcutting were essentially what I wrote in my 1995 book on landscape forestry. What I needed was the organisms. The grants lasted beyond the time that I was at the station. They lasted up until 1980 or so, after which the new directors of the Southeast Station decided not to continue those. I think that's very unfortunate. One of the studies that was done was on salamanders. We found out that clearcutting, of course the first year, clearcutting really creates problems, but in years 2, 3, 4, and 5 there are really more salamanders in those clearcut areas because there's a greater variety of food and herbaceous plants for the insects and food organisms to feed on.
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The problem is, in the daytime, you cannot find salamanders under the logs and under the leaves, because they're dried out. Professor Ashe, now on the biology faculty at Pembroke University in Lumberton, NC was one of the early beneficiaries of the grants. He has now been studying salamanders in the Appalachians, both on clearcut, partial cut and uncut stands for almost 30 years. The information basically is, from a landscape point of view, if you create and organize the landscape with different age and area classes of stands of different age and forest types then you can create the greatest variety of habitats for all organisms, including plants, animals, insects, whatever, and you increase the biological diversity. This is the story that we really worked out at the Highland Station. One of the other workers was Professor Ted Coile at Western Carolina University, who studied the spider population. In the first year after the clearcut, as you would guess, the spider population drops drastically. We really wipe out the spider population that is characteristic of the older stands, especially the web builders and those that live up in the crowns of the older trees. But in the second, third, fourth, and fifth year age classes, new species of spiders move in, so the total biological diversity of a clearcut stand, of let's say ten acres, versus an adjacent uncut stand of about ten acres, the total biological diversity is almost doubled. By maintaining the two different habitats in relationship you have greater diversity. Now if you extend that to a much larger area where you have not just two different age classes, but you have five or six different adjacent age classes over a geographical area, which I call a landscape, then you have a tremendous increase in biological diversity. Not only of spiders and salamanders, but also ground beetles, which were studied by one of Professor Hare's students from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The ground beetle situation is the same story. We had a professor from the University of Illinois who was a specialist in the Daddy Long Legs group of which there are four species in the Appalachians. All four of these species are there where you have the diversity of habitats, whereas if you don't have that, you have only the one species in the old stand. So if you don't cut timber, you are discriminating against more species than if you let the stands grow into the old age classes. That is the story, over and over again. Everything we touched, both in the herbaceous plants, the tree populations, and the animal populations said the diversity of habitats created by scheduled harvest of stands in clearcutting, where you take everything off so that you get a tremendous rapid, increase in invasion of herbaceous plants and woody plants, and then over time as the stand develops in both physical structure and biological structure, and changes because of mortality of various plants along the way, your populations change, as new organisms invade. The white-footed mouse populations are another one. Snake populations increase, the box turtle populations increase. The skunk populations increase, the raccoon populations increase. It's a matter of organizing the landscape, that is the story that I tell in the 1995 book on landscape forestry. I had this worked out so I could do this with a very simple program that could be run on tabletop machines, computers. While I was in my second year at Yale, Ben Jayne, who was then dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Duke, came to visit with me. He had been in contact with Bob Buckman in the Washington office, Buckman suggested that Ben talk to me about spending two years at Duke University, again under cooperative work. The two years eventually turned into fifteen years. After a couple of years I retired from the Forest Service, then I lived up in the mountains near Brevard, North Carolina. Again working with the National Forest and with the Highlands Biological Station, doing some publications that I wanted to do, and also teaching part time at Duke University for part of a year. But my courses were primarily forest management oriented very much around the book Landscape Forestry and how to use the simple, elementary programs that could analyze habitat in relation to timber harvest, economics, cash flow, the whole smear of situations. In 1987, I was invited by Queensland, Australia to spend some time with a group of world foresters to examine the rainforest in Queensland. Which is quite a large area. We spent about four weeks in Australia. We had time to fly helicopters all over most of the rainforest in Queensland. We landed and visited most of the research locations in the rainforest. There are areas where there were permanent plots put in the late 1920s and also in the mid-1930s, when the state of Queensland was being criticized for selling the tree at that time called red cedar...it's not really a conifer, and it's not a cedar, but it brings very high prices for paneling because in slice veneer it looks like walnut. SY - So it's very different from the southern juniper, too. SB - Oh yes. The permanent plots were showing they could grow red cedar after an essentially clearcut area. They were clearcutting areas not much larger than about two acres, sometimes up to five or ten acres. Because they wanted to reduce the criticism of the clearcut areas. But within those areas in the permanent plots, they could grow red cedar up to 50 centimeters in diameter in about 35 years. Beautiful trees. By the time I was there, they were selling not only red cedar, but also the other trees. The Queensland Forest Service was growing these trees as individual, single trees. The bids would be let on the main bole of the tree, up to a minimum diameter primarily for sliced veneer. There was a bid for the upper part of the main bole, to the tip of the main bole, and there was another bid for all the
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branch wood on the tree. The branch wood and the main crowns usually went into carving, for the aborigines who did a lot of woodcarving. They made a lot of wooden salad forks and spoons, salad bowls. You can purchase these in most stores in this country. Also in Japan and other countries were buying this wood. SY - I hear Japan goes through a lot of chopsticks. SB - Yes. The combination of the little salad forks and spoons and such—most of those were made out of the branches. The Japanese were doing most of the bids on the main bole. For sliced veneer, and these veneers were sliced to about 1/64th of an inch. Used for paneling, one of those boles would panel the entire lobby of a hotel, a bank, or whatever. They were bringing very high prices, and the state of Queensland was benefitting greatly from the sale of this woody material, and it was really one of the best forestry operations I had seen in a long time. I had spent time both for the Department of Agriculture and for the Forest Service in eight other countries at that time. This was my last country except for a visit that Dave Smith from Yale and I made to Mexico to make some recommendations to the Forestry Division there. In total, I spent time in about nine different countries, as consultant or working with the forestry people. I still think the Queensland operation in the tropical rainforest is one of the most intensive forestry operations than I had seen in any of my visits to anywhere in the United States and Canada. The real debate, there was a lawsuit brought by Queensland against the state of Australia, because the state of Australia had been working with the United Nations in Paris and they wanted to lock up the rainforest in Queensland. They claimed it was a prestigious area, that it had worldwide use and value and it was essential to the entire world, not just to Queensland or to Australia. Consequently, they wanted to lock it up. This was the lawsuit, to be in 1988. Unfortunately, for me, in the spring of 1988, I learned that I had a tumor in my right ear, and I had to have this removed. So I then informed the Australians that I could not be at the trial unless it were delayed. They were trying to get the trial delayed, I was to be one of their expert witnesses. In the fall, while I was in the hospital, just before I went into the operating room, I learned from the state of Queensland that the new prime minister, who had been elected that year, in the fall of 1988, had been in office less than two weeks, when he declared by edict that the entire tropical rainforest in Queensland would be become a state park. SY - He didn't wait too long to get information. SB - Well no. Of course he was put in by the environmental groups at the time. The Queensland Forest Service was in essence terminated. The Queensland Forest Service, which had done much more to create and manage the rainforest. They had enormous plantations of hoop pine. And was bringing lots of money in by selling fiber and timber, to the pulp and paper industry. They had also planted many pines, and other species on retired farm lands and cattle lands and sheep lands, and it was doing very well, bringing wood. The remnants of the Queensland Forest service were moved in under the transportation department. Today the Queensland Forest Service is just a little tiny organization that's not very strong. It was in essence put down and destroyed, unfortunately. Many of the professional foresters are doing something different today. They're not working for the Queensland government. Coming back to Duke University, the 15 years at Duke, I had a number of students who obtained Master of Forestry degrees and these students, quite a number of them are now lawyers, in environmental law, defending professional forestry in terms of producing fiber and woody material for what I call environments for living. In other words, it's food, fiber, shelter and amenities, the whole thing. In 1995, because I had lost one ear, and it was very difficult for me to deal in groups, because of the background noise. It was becoming very difficult for me to work with a class of students because of my hearing disabilities. I retired from Duke and spent my time totally in the mountains. Let me go back a minute to the 1930s. One of the interesting things that I can put together from my past history, the land that my father was managing, the farmland, goes back into my grandfather's ownership down through my mother's side of the family to my father, etc. I knew the management of that land from somewhere right around 1800 up into the 1930s. Much of it was land that had been cleared, cultivated, planted to crops, mostly cotton. My grandfather had actually constructed a large wooden gin. It was a wooden part that compresses. He operated a big gin for all of the farmers around. Much of the land had been cleared, cultivated for ten or fifteen years, then retired to natural growth in loblolly pine. The straw was removed off of the ground and put into the stalls with horses and cows. Then it was hauled out and distributed on the land as manure for fertilizer. As you possibly know, there was no commercial, chemical fertilizer available to farmers in the United States until after the Schlieden(?) Process was discovered in 1927. Commercial fertilizers were not available for agriculture in the United States in large amounts until in the mid-1930s. It was not until after 1934 under the Roosevelt administration and the various acts that were passed, the 100 days acts that were passed, which were then struck down by the Supreme Court beginning
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with 1936 - 38. I won't go into the details. I remember seeing quite a large number of pigs hit in the head, their throats cut, shot, and buried in a ditch by my father and his farm workers because they violated the AAA program. My father plowed up about a hundred acres of cotton which he had planted before the AAA program went into being. The AAA program said that you could not sell your pigs unless you limit the number and the limited number were stated and determined by the county agent. SY - They were trying to keep the price up by limiting the supply? SB - Yes. Supply and demand, of course. This was actually proposed under the Hoover administration and implemented by the AAA program in the 100 days. You can get this in the history books; some of the sources are in my 1995 book, and will be detailed in a later book that I'm working on now. My older brother got a part-time job when he was in high school, going out with the county surveyed, surveying land that people had to plow up. This is why in 1936 a farmer from Texas challenged the AAA program and it reached the Supreme Court in 1936 and it was the first farm program that the Supreme Court struck down. As violating the Constitution, which it did, because it invaded private property. SY - So this wasn't an optional program, you had to do it. SB - No. No. That was why, after 1936, it was the beginning of the Soil Conservation Service. SY - They started using subsidies after that. SB - That's right. Whenever I was in the Washington office later on, you had to talk about options. You could not write anything to go to the Congress or anything about incentive programs, which we worked on in the Washington office. You could not work on those at all, unless you said "incentives," and they were a voluntary program. Hugh Bennett grew up near my home. I did not know him personally. I knew the family very well. Most Sundays I saw Hugh Bennett's father and mother and some of his brothers. They owned a large farm down the Pee Dee river below us. The Brown's Creek Soil Conservation District covered much of my uncle's property on Brown's Creek and was the first Soil Conservation demonstration area put in after 1936 by Hugh Bennett who was a chemist, so I'm very familiar with that. It was also part of what stimulated me to get into forestry after I came back from the Second World War. The other part that's interesting from a forestry point of view, not just the beef cattle and the tobacco and cotton, but from a forestry point of view, is that it is very apparent to me in going back and reading the history of forestry in this country was the development of the Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture in 1876. Then the first professional forester was appointed to the Division, Bernard Fernow in 1886, and since there were no professional foresters that Fernow could use to do research, he trained about ten botanists, and some of those botanists became the first professors of forestry at Yale, University of Michigan, University of Georgia, and at Cornell. Prior to, and this is documented in the documents that Fernow submitted to the Congress in 1888, more than 20 universities in this country had forestry courses. Most of them were taught in departments of horticulture and in botany. Forestry was not really new, but there were no real schools of forestry. SY - They were part of botany and horticulture rather than independent. SB - Correct. Most of what they taught dealt with how to grow pine seedlings. How to harvest pine cones, how to grow them in your garden, and how to plant the seedlings on retired crop land. It goes back to what I was saying about my grandfather's farm and the succession, the clearing and farming without fertilizers, no chemical fertilizers, Once the soil organic matter was lost, oxidized, then you had almost no nutrients because all of the nutrients were in that organic matter. Once that stuff is oxidized, it's gone. SY - Actually, in that climate, that's pretty quick. SB - That's right, so then your pines come in, first broomsedge and then pines in succession which Professor Wells at NC State and Professor Oosting at Duke did in the South was to actually characterize these successional patterns. This ties back into how do you manage the forest land? And how you produce timber. In 1916, the SAF invited the new ecological society to meet with it at the AAAS program in New York City in 1916. That began cooperation between professional foresters and professional ecologists. Which resulted in the development of silviculture and the publication of excellent silviculture books by Clarence Korstian at Duke University and by the professors at Yale
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University. This evolved eventually into the 8 or 9 volumes on silviculture of which Dave Smith is quite well known as one of the authors. That knowledge of forestry was never really applied until we had a Depression and after 1934. This came about by the CCC program. Again, as a young kid, both elementary and high school, I saw lines of CCC people planting seedlings with sticks. Broom handles. They did not have the Council Planting Tool to plant and they did not use a hoe or shovel at the time. They simply took these little tiny pine seedlings which were grown in our state nurseries and they were not very large. We had not learned how to use chemical fertilizers in our nurseries. We had not learned how to use fungicides and pesticides to control insects and diseases and leaf needle diseases on the little seedlings, so these things were very tiny. They would go along and jab this sharpened stick in the ground, and then poke a little seedling in. They had another little stick they would push the roots down with. And then take their foot and close the hole. In my master's thesis, which is now in the library at NC State University, part of it was done in plantations where I had seen this happen. So I knew the age of the plantations. Interestingly enough, the plantations had succeeded. The pine seedlings grew and they developed into a full pine stand on these old fields. I was able to go back into those stands and look at the herbaceous plant changes in different pine stands, with thinning and without thinning. I knew the ages of the stands, and I knew the people who owned the lands, and I knew the thinning regimes, so it was possible for me to analyze that part. Wahlenburg mentioned some of this in his book on loblolly pine. Published sometime in the late 1940s. SY - I have a copy of it, but I don't remember when it was published. SB - Professional forestry in the South did not really come about until after 1934 and the CCC program and a little bit the WPA, but mostly the CCC should be given credit for educating 1000s of people in how to plant and how to grow pine seedlings in a nursery. Although it was done without really good nursery practices, which we did not learn until the 1940s, they were really successful in creating pine plantations. This coincides with the Herty Foundation's development of the pulp and paper process for southern pine in the 1930s, maybe 1935-36. The actual chemical analyses and the alternatives for that were developed at the Forest Products Laboratory as early as 1914, and in 1915 it was reported on. It was not practical. SY - There was actually a kraft paper mill using southern pine in 1891. SB - You're right. SY - I was very surprised that there was one that early. SB - And how to take the resin out. Now of course, we know the paraquat story. Maybe I should tell the paraquat story, because that ties into this in a little bit. The important point is that it was not until after the Second World War, 1946, that the pulp and paper industry knowledge and technology had been brought together, united into a force that really created what we know today as southern forestry. The professional production of timber began at that time and the pulp and paper industries began to buy up large acreages of retired farm land. By that time, the Southeastern and Southern Stations were doing tremendous work on nursery practices and nursery operations. We were producing nitrogen fertilizers, not only by the Schlieden process, but also with natural gas, tremendous volumes of nitrous fertilizer. We learned about phosphorus. We knew that phosphorus was essential to grow pine on many soils, so we had to replace the phosphorus, increase the availability of phosphorus. Control pH values to control the availability of phosphorus. This was learned during the 1940s and today, in the Forest Service future production of timber, they look upon the South as a future source of chips and fiber and pine lumber. It all came together about 1946. The economics, the demand of the public, the international demand, the technologies developed by Fernow way back before 1890 and published in his 1898 report to the Congress. Many of those technologies are the technologies we are using today. But they weren't implemented until the economics and the consumer demand took place. All of this wrapped together into what I call environments for living, food, fiber, shelter, and aesthetics. That's my new effort right now, to put all of this together into a summary. Back to the paraquat story. Paraquat was a chemical that was made available, I've forgotten the industry now that produced this, at Oluftee, Florida in the late 1950s—early 1960s to the research people at the Southeast Station for the purpose of killing hardwoods after pine was planted in plantations. Paraquat we knew, we were told and the industry said so, we don't know how toxic it is to people and that had not been worked out. We know if you get it on your hands, it will turn your fingernails dark-colored. If you spill it on your shoes, it will turn your toenails dark. You have to handle it very very carefully, so later on it was restricted and still is restricted today. But paraquat
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was used by the people in turpentine studies at Olustee, where Keith Dorman was doing his genetics work on genetics of turpentine gum production, gum yields. Also they had in the 1950s they had identified if you used sulfuric acid, about a 5% solution of sulfuric acid, whenever you cut the bark off of the tree, then you would spray a 5% solution of sulfuric acid on the wood or the cambium. It then increases gum production. They also were spraying lots of other chemicals. Paraquat and arsenic and a whole bunch of things that were used to kill trees. They were spraying these on the needles and the leaves of these trees. The bark and so forth. But in 1971, when I was director of the Southeastern Station, I had a telephone call from Olustee. One of the technicians there had been told to cut down and remove some of the experimental trees because they were going to destroy that area and put in some new additional experimental areas. In the process of cutting these trees down, he recognized that some of these trees were completely packed full of gum resin. Pine resin. It looked just like a socalled fat knot of southern pine. It was just crammed with rosin. When he told some of the scientists, and they went back to find out what was the past history, they found out these were the ones that had been treated with paraquat. Every one of the experimental areas in which they put paraquat the pines was full of gum resin. The scientists at Olustee and I also recognized that we had something very important. I called the Washington office immediately after I hung the phone up from Olustee. And I said, "How do I make a public patent as fast as I can?" Because the pulp and paper industries had been cooperating with us, and they knew what we were doing. Sure enough, within a day or so, they were there, they knew what was happening. And I did not want this to become a private patent. I was told that if you write this up and publish it, as soon as it is published, it is a public patent. So I called Robert Pfisterfelt who is now retired living in Asheville, who was our station editor. I'd known Bob for a long time and we'd done some things together before. I said, "what we want is a one page sheet," and we still had the printing press in the station. The Congress had not eliminated our printing press. "We want a one page station note that describes this and we want it printed today and we want it in the mail tonight." (laughs) So, Bob did it. We got it out, and it was a public patent. Union Camp, International Paper, the Hercules Powder and Buckeye Cellulose could all use this without any problems and without paying each other. They immediately put scientists to work on it. Hercules Powder came up with the idea of a little tractor with the front end thing to inject needles into the base of the tree and to squirt the paraquat into the pine trees and then to come back after about six months and take the trees down and take them into their plant. Then the research began in the pulp and paper industry to remove the pine rosin before they made paper out of it. Today, it is very likely that every human in the United States does not go out of their house until they've used a product of resin, organic acids that came from pine resins from the South. Sizing of clothing, cosmetics, toothpaste, you name it. Even the printing on the cereal boxes. If you pour cereal out of a cereal box, some of the printing on the box is made from organic acids from pine resins that are extracted, and a lot of that is produced with paraquat. No one's been able to show that there's any human toxic effects, because the paraquat is destroyed in the physiology of the pine tree. It's not present in the extracted material, so this is an interesting story, except that what it did, I kind of got beat on the head about this one time. I was invited down to the Turpentine Producers' Association in Georgia to see the crowning of Miss Turpentine. Every year the Turpentine Association, going way back into the 1930s, had a crowned a Miss Turpentine. They were not really knowledgeable about the paraquat story at that time. This was 1975 - 76, I guess, and the full impact of the paraquat story had not really gotten to the turpentine people. The Department of Agriculture was still subsidizing gum resin production at a very high price. Of course, what paraquat did was bring the price down to a vey low level. The pulp and paper companies could export organic acids for drying in paints. If you paint something now, the drynore comes from turpentine. I made the mistake of talking with some of the people in the Turpentine Association, some of these ladies, and I mentioned that paraquat had been discovered at Olustee and that it was being used now to increase production of pine resin. They said something to the effect of "Well, we heard about that, but we understand that it's just going to create more problems for us, because we've got all kinds of drums of pine resin stored, paid for by the federal government, but the prices are too high. Then I knew I'd said too much (laughs). I never heard the end of that the whole rest of the time that I was down there, though I did sit through to see Miss Turpentine crowned. (laugh) SY - That is a good story. SB - Now where do you want to go? SY - When you were in elementary school and high school and were first noticing some of the new forestry practices and planting, you said that they were also teaching forestry in the school at the time? That was in high school?
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SB - Yes. This high school had a situation in which some of the local people had made donations to the county and to the school to develop a technology for high school students. Both for the men and for the women. They had one of the first home economics courses set for women in the high school. Also they had a place where various mechanical equipment and machinery was used to teach repairs of tractors, automobiles, mechanical types of things that one would find on a farm. And a place where students were taught how to use a smithery, a blacksmith forge to sharpen plows, to heat and bend iron and steel and to put holes through them for bolts and to actually repair farm equipment. They also did woodworking. They taught those who were interested to make furniture, beds, chairs, chests, all kinds of things. SY - That was really a broad program. SB - Yes. Of course this was a rural area and you couldn't get on a telephone and call up a carpenter. You couldn't call a roofing company to repair your roof. SY - You needed to be able to do it yourself. SB - If you didn't do it yourself, it didn't get done. Along with that, the agriculture teacher taught full time. And he taught, at this time, just when the beginning of the publications out of the Department of Agriculture concerning the use of chemical fertilizers. And the formation of the Mangum terrace; we were taught how to survey using a level and to lay out the terrace. Are you familiar with the Mangum terrace? SY - I know about terracing but... SB - It's a typical terrace where you contour. You could put these things with a turn plow and two mules. SY - They're still all over the hills around this area. SB - Yes. They're still here. You can see them all over the countryside. SY - Where ever there's a pasture, that's still ringed with those. SB - Yes. And all you need is a level, which at that time you could borrow from the county agent. You don't need a bulldozer or a big tractor. You can do it with two mules and a turn plow that you used to plow with. SY - So that's when all of those were put in. SB - Yes. There were lots of things like that. For example, how to lay out and estimate the height and width and so forth for a farm pond, for the dam for a farm pond. Amounts of water, rates of stream flow, how big to build the spillway. Along with this was a forestry program in which they had, at that time you could buy seedlings from the state. The industries were not producing seedlings, they were buying from state nurseries. Or we were also taught how to grow oak and pine seedlings in our gardens. Just take a row in our gardens, and plant the seeds, and how to dry the cones and strike the seeds. It was really very fundamental, very basic type of rural agriculture. The teacher recognized the fact that not everyone was going to be able to make the investments to purchase chemical fertilizers, not everyone was going to have the money to buy lime to raise the pH of the soils, which are mostly acid. So he recognized the fact that it was much better to teach these students, how to, whenever you retire a piece of farmland, instead of letting it go through broomsedge and pine seedlings naturally, as soon as you retire it, go ahead and plow a furrow and plant the seedlings in the furrow, and then come back just like you would with small cotton plants, use a side harrow to close the trenches. So you don't have to use the old broom stick method and you don't have to use the council planting tool, SY - You don't have to literally heel them in. SB - No, but you've got a clean area to start your seedlings in, and you just plow the row. In the 1960s I saw a number of plantations that had been done this way. The farmers, of course, were used to having corn plants close together, they put the seedlings too close together, so some were only a foot to two apart. The rows were about the width of cotton rows, three or four feet.
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SY - You couldn't walk through it. SB - So the whole thing was too thick. Nevertheless, it was a much better method of getting pine on the ground than waiting for natural regeneration. SY - Did other high schools have these kinds of programs at that time? SB - I do not know how extensive these programs were in the state. The money for these parts had been donated by some local, relatively, at that time, wealthy people. Upper middle class, wealthy people, who recognized the fact that if the local merchandise stores, which were not very big, just a country store, ten cent stores, and the little local gas station (there was only one) were going to thrive, somebody had to have money. The only source of money is agriculture, and these small farmers. It was a good investment on their part to improve and enhance the opportunities of these small farmers to produce cotton. Mostly cotton was a big crop and tobacco was down in the eastern part of the area, in the sandy soils. In the clay soils it was mostly cotton. SY - This is more along my interest than the SAF stuff, but was anyone using burning or ash to deal with acidic soils at that point? It's something that people did in the South earlier. I know they burned regularly and used ash since they couldn't afford lime. But I know they were also trying to get people to stop burning. SB - No, because the forests were burned. At that time I was told that the equivalent of one third of the coastal plain burned every year. Whenever we traveled with my father sometimes with the car, we carried a bucket of water and towels in the rear seat. If we drove through smoke, you had to put a wet towel over your face. SY - I was in Florida a couple of years ago, that was something. SB - It was typical to carry a bucket with water in it and towels in case we came across a forest fire, they were common. They were. SY - Were they mostly low burns or were they also crown fires? SB - They were ground fires, but the smoke would be quite dense. And very acrid. Most people burned their farm land, and once the pine plantations got up to the point where they could be burned, they burned them to thin them out and also to remove the little hardwood seedlings so they could go in with pitch forks to scrape up the pine straw to put in mule and cow stalls. SY - And the foresters at that time were still against burning? SB - This was late enough in the 1930s that Chapman at Yale and B.W. Wells at NC State were recommending the use of fire. SY - So they were starting to moderate. SB - Those two people had published. Wells' and Schenck papers had been published mostly on longleaf pine in 1928, and 1932. Chapman at Yale had published on the work he had done at Arkansas, sometime in the mid-1930s. This was very controversial. The schools of forestry, I believe, and this is a pure guess on my part, still taught fire control and fire protection. This was still the part of the Forest Service. This brings up another point, there was no organized fire protection, anywhere in the South to speak of until actually after 1946. Charles Flory, who was state forester of South Carolina, was one of the pushers to get a bill through the US Congress for the state forestry organizations to develop fire control. Whenever that act went through, I believe in 1936 or 1937, that was really the increase in the state forestry organization. We had almost no state forestry organization to speak of except maybe a person or... SY - One or two people, at the most.
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SB – Yes. So we didn't really have extension service who really contacted people out in the...this all took place after 1946. So the publications of fire control by the Department of Agriculture, which you can now find in, I think there's a chart in The Fourth Forest, and the other USDA publications, the downturn in burning was not really apparent until 1952. It was not until 1952 that we began to drop the...well really it was up close to 1960, before we dropped the percentage of burned protected land. Not all land was protected. Protected land dropped to 2% per year. Before that it was up around 30-40%. The unprotected land was up sometimes around 50 and 60%. The archaeological work with the American Indians, which I call Amerindians, at the Cradle of Forestry in the mountains you can find charcoal going back 5000 years tied in with Folsom arrowheads, in the coastal plain possibly, the recent publication from Chapel Hill, Time Before History, do you know that book? SY - Yes. That's a newer one. SB - It goes back about 10-12,000 years and on the Uwharrie National Forest, the Indian relics there. SY - Yes, at least 12,000. They're certain of 12,000; it's probably even earlier. SB - But quite a long time. But the Indians had no way to stop a fire, so once it got started... SY - But the Indians who had agriculture, well, 12,000 years ago there were much smaller populations, but later they had farming landscapes with areas of different aged growth and cleared agricultural fields much like the Europeans created later . . . and they burned. SB - Yes. It was common for the farmers when I grew up to burn because most of them liked to fox hunt and deer hunt. SY - Not to mention keep the ticks and the chiggers down a little bit. SB - Right. SY - There have been years when I'd have liked to burn around my house. (laughter). Were there any SAF-produced materials that you were aware of? SB - I was not aware of the SAF until after I went to NC State in 1946-47. We had what was called a forestry club. The SAF was not really as strong among the students as the forestry club was. SY - They didn't have student chapters at that point. SB - No. I believe my first attendance at the, and I believe that this is correct. And I quite often went to meetings of foresters to try to learn things. My first attendance of a state SAF meeting was in the Sir Walter Hotel in Raleigh in 1949, I think. You can check the dates on that. It was an annual meeting of the SAF Southeastern...I don't remember, they called it section or something. The names are different. SY - Yes. It started out as the Southern Appalachian SAF and now it's the Appalachian, but I don't remember when they dropped the "Southern" from the name. SB - Right. This is where I first met I.T. Haig, who was still director of the Southeast Station. Clarence Korstian, of course, I had known for a long time. Some of the other people I had known off and on for a long time. But most of the forestry faculty. . . SB - My senior year I was taking both graduate courses and senior courses. SY - So you were starting to get prepared for graduate work. SB - Yes, because I was taking both graduate courses and the senior courses to finish up the degree there, so I wouldn't finish up the degree in a part time...But also there were not many jobs for foresters, because after the war, there were a number of people who had three and almost four years, they were close to graduating, had come back
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from the military. They only finished up one semester or two semesters. There were large numbers of these people, and the industry was not hiring very many foresters. The only real opportunity was with the USDA Forest Service or with the states. They pretty much filled up the opportunities. By 1949-1951 there was a surplus of professional foresters for those few years until the industry began to open up. SY - And you had already met quite a few prominent people in forestry before you ever got involved in the SAF, through other means. SB - Yes. SY - Was that mostly through ecology? Because a lot of the people you mentioned were ecologists as well as foresters. SB - Yes. I met Clarence Korstian at the North Carolina Academy of Science meetings when I was in high school. The North Carolina Academy of Science, they still have the science fairs, where the students do things. My father was somewhat of an electrical type person, because he was involved in the early telegraphy, telegraphic communications, both in the Navy as well as with...whenever this was new to the Navy. He made one ship trip and then got out of it! He quit his job with the Navy. No more. SY - He didn't like the ships, huh? SB - So he worked for the railroad. I learned a lot of electrical things from him. Electricity and radio and stuff. One of the things I did in the science fair was to take tin cans and cut them up with a pair of tin snips, and take those pieces and turn them into a telegraph outfit. One of the men came around asking me all kinds of questions. I later found out that was Clarence Korstian, and then I found out he was a forester and didn't know anything about electricity to begin with, or very little. SY - That's why he was asking you questions. SB - Maybe he knew more than I thought he did. That was my first contact with Clarence Korstian. SY - That's interesting. I have just recently read in 1926, their first meeting outside of Asheville was in Richmond. They discussed teaching forestry in secondary schools. But I don't think a whole lot came of it, other than discussion. SB - I don't know. There were agriculture teachers in many of the rural schools. And that was true in many states, I don't know the background of that program and I don't know how frequent it was. The teachers that I had, two of them, a man named Bridges who later became a member of the extension service and the faculty at NC State. The two people that I knew were well educated and well trained, and they did a nice job. Along with this, the home demonstration agents in the counties did a tremendous job. Part of this, in the high school area—this was a county— type area, during the WPA days, they used the WPA along with the money donated by the people who could donate money, to develop a cannery. A steam driven cannery, with large containers in which you could cook your cans of food. People would haul their vegetables and fruits and peaches and would come in with wagons and stay all day. Someone there would teach them. Before they were permitted to use the equipment. they had to go through a class session, they would be trained in how to can their fruits. It was really a tremendous… (emotional) contribution to these rural people. We had people starving. You know. SY - It was very bad. SB - Yes. My father grew a garden of about five acres, and it was open to anyone who wanted to come collect vegetables. It was open to them. SY - That's great. More people should do that now. There are people who could use it. SB - Right. But it was just as easy. If the mules are plowing cotton, why not have them go plow their garden while they are at it? Of course, when he sold all of the farm equipment, that was the end of that.
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SY - When you went to college and started studying, was it first botany, or ecology, or horticulture? What was the first? SB - No. J.V. Hofmann at NC State was dean of forestry, he was the first dean. He came down from Mount Alto with his faculty, J.V. Hofmann; I spent quite a bit of time with him in my early interviews. Also with Tim Koffmann, who was later dean of forestry at Florida. Those two people and George Slocum, who was the wood technologist. I spent quite a bit of time with George Slocum. All three of those came down from Mount Alto. When the school was first set up. W.D. Miller was the silviculturalist. I spent quite a bit of time with Miller. Every opportunity that I could visit with those people I would sit down and talk to them about various things. I kept trying to figure out: what is the future of this arena? Where is it going? This is the time when Gene Odum, whom I had known from Chapel Hill, had finished his work at the University of Illinois. Ken Day, the ornithologist and Gene were looking for a way, and this is my interpretation, but I think Gene would agree with me, were looking for a way to really make the science of ecology stand out from plant anatomy, plant physiology, and wildlife management. From his work with Ken Day? and also with his older brother Tom Odum at Yale, Tom was at Yale at that time, they came up with the ecosystem concept of Tansley, which Tansley had proposed in '35. Tansley really never gave a discrete definition, and the word ecosystem still does not have a discrete definition. As far as I'm concerned, it's any system containing an organism. And you can measure it or whatever. The Hubble Space telescope, when there's no astronaut up there, is a mechanical system. When an astronaut appears, it's an ecosystem. It has all of the qualifications that Gene Odum described as an ecosystem. On the moon, as far as we know we didn't leave any organisms up there, so it's still a mechanical system, but at one time it was an ecosystem. When we had people up there. SY - It could be turned into one, given enough energy. SB - Yes. The atomic bomb scare, which frightened most of our people, and stimulated the creation of fear in the public, not only in this country, but worldwide. It was this fear that the environmentalists rode upon to create the enormous numbers of environmental organizations which John Hendy? and his student Pitstick? at the University of Idaho not too long ago published a paper on the listings of all of the environmental organizations, and almost every single one of them formed after 1946. SY - Except for the Sierra Club. SB - The Sierra Club is a rare one. SY - And a couple that were more outdoor and hunting kinds of societies. SB - And the Audubon Society. SY - The Audubon is more of an ecological sort of thing, too. SB - Right. Most of those feed upon fear. Save the Environment is a fear metaphor. That designates, it implies that if you don't subscribe to our magazine, or donate to use or work with us, you're going to lose your environment. Well, I don't know what my environment is. Because I can't define the environment. It's a human concept. SY - It's changed a great deal since you were a kid, anyway. SB - Well, yeah. And it's changing all the time. SY - I guess fear could be good or bad depending on how it's used. SB - Well, to get back to the SAF. The research organization in the USDA Forest Service was not very big until 1958. 1956 is about the time I joined it as an employee. Lester Harper is to be given credit for that. Lester Harper and McArdle—those are the two people who worked together on that. Congress made the first major appropriations for Forest Service research about, I'm not certain of my date, 1956. By '58 the research organization was beginning to grow. By the 1970 the research organization had reached its peak from that period of growth, then it began to decline. It has come back now in some other arenas, just in the last few years or so. I'm not up to date on the latest numbers relative to numbers and so forth of employees. The Southeast Forest Experiment Station had a small
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number of employees. Elwood Demmon told me that when they were doing the Southern Pine Bulletin MP50, He and their whole staff, secretaries and everything, went out and measured pine trees. There were only about eight of them. During the 1930s there were only a very few people—less than ten or fifteen people in the research program. After 1946 the station grew until about '58. George Jamison was there for a bit on Bent Creek (in western NC) , he and Clarence Korstian worked together on Bent Creek. They were the only ones there. The hydrologist who later on... began the hydrological work on Bent Creek in a knife edge, V-shaped method of measuring the velocity of water was developed there at Bent Creek. I can't tell you the name of the hydrologist now. Before they moved over to Coweeta. SY - I don't remember off the top of my head. The only names I have really down are Demmon and Frothingham and Korstian. SB - Right. There were really very few people involved in the research program until after 1956 -57, when they began to expand. When I was director of the station, we had about 120 scientists. There were more than that, probably 150-160, supporting staff of technicians, secretaries, clerical, or hired workers of various sorts throughout the station. One of the problems was the appropriations had begun to decline a little bit, and with the number of employees and declining appropriations, in one year—when I first took over the station, 96% of the appropriated dollars went to salary. So you've got 4% to repair the roof on the Research Triangle Laboratory, to buy paper, to pay for copies, to buy new typewriters. That was one of my problems, to find a way to reduce the employment, or else get more money. I worked on it both ways. SY - When the research portion of the Forest Service did expand in the mid-1950s, what was the cause of that expansion? Why then? SB - It was really two people—McArdle and Les Harper, who really put together the program. The Laboratory at the Research Triangle, I believe, was the first laboratory actually constructed. SY - That is very early for the Triangle, the late 1950s or so? SB - Yes. That was a special appropriation, because the Research Triangle Foundation donated the 17 acres to the Forest Service, the understanding was that money would be appropriated, so the congressmen in North Carolina were encouraged by the people at the Triangle, and also by the three universities to do this to get the Triangle started. To get laboratories established there. That came about, not because of Les Harper and McArdle but what it did was to stimulate those two people to recognize that here were tremendous opportunities to move from a research program that traditionally had been to learn how to plant trees, learn how to thin trees, teach farmers how to go out and use an ax on weekends, which they wouldn't do anyway, they'd go find a bottle of white lightning rather than go out and use an ax to thin the pine stems, or go fox hunting. Nevertheless, they saw the opportunity then to move forestry research into a new era of fundamental, basic biology. Then a little bit later on, they saw the opportunity to expand this into economics, into soil work and into a whole bunch of other activities. The Triangle laboratory, and especially the old garage there, was designed to use radioactive material, P32, phosphorus. It was never really used for that because there were other ways of doing the work and later on they decided it was simply too dangerous to bring it in anyway. Along with this was a pedestal that was buried deep in the ground and was hooked onto some of the underlying rocks so we could have a very sensitive scale on that pedestal that would not be influenced by trains passing through the city of Raleigh. Trains going through Durham and Raleigh would vibrate the ground. This was a very sensitive scale that was placed on that pedestal for detailed chemical work and physiology. Les Harper's background was plant physiology under Paul Kramer at Duke, so Les perceived this opportunity, and McArdle had come through the research arena, so he understood this, too. Those two people really expanded the Forest Service research laboratories all across the country. There's a whole group of them. Olustee, Florida goes back much earlier. Because Olustee was built around, the Department of Agriculture received appropriations from some congressmen in Florida who set up a research program to learn how to use pine rosin. That was actually operated by the Department of Agriculture, not the Forest Service. But at Olustee, the research group of the forestry lab was set up primarily to investigate how to produce pine trees, pine plantations. It was an outdoor-type research activity. It was not devoted toward biochemistry, which later on Olustee was moved into. Those are the two people who had the insights to move in that direction. The schools of forestry did not have anyone doing research, to my knowledge, in biochemistry. They depended on the schools of botany or zoology to provide the physiology work. The schools of forestry did not move into the biochemical and
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genetics work until after these laboratories got started. Bruce Zobel's work in genetics didn't really begin to take off until after the mid-1950s. Bruce had been very much interested in genetics. He and John Barbour? (John was a classmate of mine) and I both - the only genetics available to us was human genetics, so John and I both took human genetics [laughs]. When they asked me to be branch chief of the genetics office in the 1960s, I had a course in human genetics - that was pretty much what genetics was. We had a little work being done out in California, then some work being done down at Olustee. There was not much genetics work underway. A little bit at Rheinlander, Wisconsin. SY - There seemed to be a major difference between forest service and university foresters, and industry foresters. Is this something that developed as the research expanded and shifted away from more technical issues? SB - You put you finger on a very interesting thing, I guess you would call it social attitudes, I don't want to call it discrimination. Faculty members in the universities, it does not matter whether it's forestry, agriculture, English, mathematics, history, or whatever. Faculty in the universities, going all the way back to the first universities in Italy in the 1500s, and then France in the late 1500s, they set themselves up as the great peaks of knowledge. SY - mmm hmmm. yes. SB - They know more knowledge than anyone else, period. So when the French government began to set up agricultural research in France, the universities were against it, because they were not receiving any subsidies from the federal government. Although their students were the people doing the research, they considered their students as incapable. The same thing is true in Britain, the same thing's true in this country. After the American Revolution, in the very few universities. But there were members of Congress who recognized the fact that it was necessary to develop what the called the mechanical arts, engineering primarily. The mechanical arts became very important because we were in the beginning of the rapid development of the Industrial Revolution. The steam engine was just beginning to be used as a real power source. Most of our sawmills were pulled by water or by hand up until after the Civil War, which stimulated the engineering to develop the portable steam engines. Then we had portable steam engines that pulled our portable sawmills. The harvest of most of our virgin timber took place in the late 1870s and 1880s because we had the portable steam engine. Going back, members of Congress recognized the necessity of developing the mechanical arts. They put through Congress a bill, which was signed the first year that Abe Lincoln was elected President, and the Congressional representatives from the state of South Carolina resigned from Congress and went home. In that same month, Abraham Lincoln signed the bill for the land grant institutions and for the Department of Agriculture. Later on the the acts for the land grant institutions were updated in 1880 or something. It was a more effective bill which actually gave federal money to the states or else it gave land to the states to develop these colleges. There's a long history to that one. When that took place, it was a stimulant to the development of the universities. Of course, Chapel Hill was developed in 178... SY - Five or seven? It was the first public university in the United States. SB - Right. The stimulus for the act that Congress passed was because the professionally trained people who recognized that we had to have universities if we were going to be a country, recognized that they had to have money. Well where were they going to get the money? It has to come from the government someplace, or else from donations. Who had money at that time to donate? We did not have Rockefellers at that time. That was what brought about that act. The Department of Agriculture, which except for the State Department, and there was really no State Department, just a State representative in the federal government. Agriculture and State were all created at about that time. Then later Commerce, and the others. Agriculture is one of our very oldest. Out of that came colleges and universities of mechanical arts which later became the cow colleges and now almost all of them are universities with liberal arts courses and whatever. There are many fine studies published as USFS pamphlets, but university professors called them throw-away stuff; the editors edited the pamphlets in such a way that the public could understand it, and so members of Congress who received the pamphlets would not be stymied by the style of writing. SY - What was the relation between public foresters and private industry foresters in research? SB - With the industrial group, beginning in the 1940s, we've had excellent cooperation, but they tended to overdo it. We would suggest they put in 5 or 10 acres (the way we suggested); the next time we showed up, they'd have 100 acres. If we made a mistake, there would be 100 acres of mistake! My personal experience has been excellent with
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Champion Papers, International Paper, Buckeye Cellulose, etc. The cooperative programs developed between the universities and the industries have worked out very well most of the time, and the universities could do things that the federal government was constrained from doing. But unfortunately, he cut the hickory trees, and that was the lawsuit in West Virginia. That took place right after that meeting. And at Pisgah National Forest. They all went back home, and clearcutting went through the whole Region 8 in the southeast. We told them that we did not have any knowledge beyond five acres. We said, "Don't cut anything bigger than ten acres," over and over again. Make ten acre units. Then I fly over Washington state here's 300 acres, and southeastern Oklahoma, and there's 150 acres. And there's the one in West Virginia and over on the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee, 300 acres, and the contractor, Meade Corporation, really took it down, because the people at Meade from Chillocanthe, Ohio had seen our plots right from the beginning. They followed our recommendations right down to the letter, except they put in 300 acres. I kept saying, "I hope the people doing the lawsuit don't find this other 300 acres." They didn't, but later on I was able to take Max Peterson and a whole bunch of other people in and show them the 300 acres. It's a beautiful stand of forest, doing very well, and it's been protected from fire the whole time. It grew up quickly from faster regeneration and release of the understory, "seedlings" that were 50, 60, 70 years old. Bob (Mende?) and I published this research in the Journal of Forestry in 1954 or ‘55. And I knew this before I went to Ohio. But when I showed it to Bob, he just couldn't believe it. Oak seedlings germinate and grow and die back, and grow again, and die back. After many years, they are only one foot or so in height, but what is happening (I had slides made) is that the root is like a tuber, loaded with starches. When you take the overstory off, by the next year you've got a sprout that's three or four feet high. These things accumulate, so by the time you have a tornado come through, these things sprout up. What you have then is a diversity of genetic forms. Many have been eliminated, if they couldn't compete in the shade, or with root competition. The ones that survive are the strongest individuals, and this is what you want. When they all get a chance to go at one time, they compete with each other. You may start out with 20-30,000 per acre, which is what we were counting. By the time you make the next harvest, at 70 years of age, there's 120 or so dominant. So you've really imposed selective pressure, and this is what I kept telling the supervisors. They went home and told that to their rangers, and that's when they began to clearcut. That's when they really began to manage forests in the South, after 1964. SY - But such a drastic change so quickly shocked people? SB - Yes. And then what really got the environmentalists upset was when the people from the West saw this, and it was carried forward through the Forest Service in the Washington office. Then they began to cut the big areas in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, along Interstate Highway 5 in Oregon and Washington. I went out there and I said, "You know, you should have known better than that." People are driving down the road, and just over here is this big 300 acre clearcut. And with Douglasfir, more stuff stays on the ground than in eastern hardwood, so it's a jumble that people don't like. So now we still have clearcutting as a bad word. SY - Most of the industrial foresters who had gotten started in their careers after World War II seem to have done a lot of surveying and procurement rather than forest land management. It seems that forest land management came later in their careers. Is that accurate? SB - In this area, in the East ...When I was a kid, the Uwharrie National Forest was one of the places where we went fox hunting. We went to Uwharrie because it was all completely cut over and a lot of it was burned; it was all young growth, full of rodents, so it was full of foxes, reds and greys. No ranger station. It was still a purchase unit of Pisgah. Before people sold their land under the Weeks Act of 1911, they cut everything that was merchantable. Even Mrs. Vanderbilt, in the 1920s . . . the Italian lumberman came into Brevard. The mill was where the Acusta Paper Mill is now. They built the railroad through the forest and lumbered until World War II. They shut down in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Getting back to SAF, one of the things that I think, over the years, the major contribution of the SAF has been to coordinate and pull together the diversity of activities in forestry like wildlife and water and timber and recreation, to bring people in these various professions into a common area to interrelate their activities. I think that this is an organization that unites a diversity of training and education...Along with that unity in the SAF have been many differences of opinion. The Journal is a platform; people can write letters and they have. If you you go back and look in the Journal, not everyone agrees with some common philosophy. The SAF has been open and free enough to encourage this, rather than suppress it. This has been one of the SAF's great contributions. Even today in the current controversy, I'd rather call it differences of opinion, as to how the Forest Service should manage the public
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forest, and the reports prepared by the members of the SAF are different than the reports prepared by the Secretary of Agriculture. That all goes to the members of Congress, that foresters have different opinions, yet it is not a civil war. It ends up somehow with a compromise, which has taken place down the years. The faculty of Yale disagrees with the faculty of Texas A&M, which disagrees with the faculty at Berkeley, and that's all right. Management in the eastern United States was to reduce fire, remove old dead and rotten trees and to hold the forest until World War II, when they harvested hardwood for the military. It was not until 1964 [I was personally involved] the year that I went to Columbus, Ohio as Assistant Director of the Central States Station. I had the largest, most extensive research on clearcutting as a way to regenerate and manage forests. Many people before me had done work, for example, on the hardwood forest which was owned by the military and leased to Harvard and used to train the students at West Point. Harvard had done considerable work. Fernow did work in New York state before his school was shut down by the government due to complaints by "environmentalists" [recreationists] on the Finger Lakes. His clearcut stands were investigated by his former students who had gone off around 1918. They commented on how excellent the stands were. Then in 1927 or 1928, the first director of the School of Forestry at the University of Illinois at Champaign did his PhD dissertation on those clearcut stands, a beautiful analysis of the tremendous growth of these hardwood forests after clearcutting. It was published by Cornell as a bulletin. In 1954, or 1955, the Athens research group of the Central States Station was doing research on clearcutting, individual tree selection, group selection, and putting in five acre plots. At that time, Ray Fermes? was doing the charcoal analysis of nitrogen absorption and content of soil, one of the early studies of nitrogen in forests, especially related to clearcutting and harvesting. Will Carmine was doing the soils work and erosion. Bob Mears did regeneration. I did the herbaceous plants plus regeneration with Bob Mears. One of my students did moss and became moss curator of the Smithsonian and retired from the Smithsonian. Another did lichen work. If you create a diversity of environments, you get a diversity of mosses and lichens. The publications of these students’ theses was in 1955 -1957. Will Carmine attended an SAF meeting of West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky. We talked about what he was going to talk about. He'd been asked to talk about the effects of clearcutting on erosion, but we hadn't found any erosion except in the wagon trails where you didn't put water bars in. This is what he was going to tell. Will said, "The other thing I am going to say, is that clearcutting, after five years or so, is the best way to regenerate hardwoods in the state of Ohio and West Virginia and the eastern United States. Bob Mears says, "The station director is not going to like you." (William McGinnis, who did the desert work in the Southwest and ponderosa pine). McGinnis and the Washington office had made it known earlier that clearcutting was not to be recommended by any Forest Service employee, regardless of the situation. But Will Carmine was a little like Les Harper. Will was a Duke graduate under T.S. Coile. Will made the presentation and McGinnis told him, "You can't say that anymore, you can't publish this." In 1964, the original forester from Atlanta, called me in Columbus, Ohio and said, "I want to come up and look at your clearcut plots." We had some in Kentucky and in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Ohio were the oldest. I said okay, so he rented buses and brought up every supervisor from Region 8, Arkansas, Texas, you name it. Along with that, we had supervisors from West Virginia, and Region 9 sent some. We took them out and showed them these clearcuts areas that were now 10, 12, 13 years old. We showed them the partial cuts, and the little stuff on them, and here's this big stuff (on the clearcuts) growing like everything. And we told them about the mosses, the lichens, the plants. We didn't have much then on the animal populations, that was our missing link. They went back home, and that was when the man in West Virginia cut the stand [in Monongahela]. END
4. Horace J. (Boe) Green Oral History Interview, June 1, 2000 Susan Yarnell - When did you say you worked with Art Cooper? BG - I’m not very good with dates but it was when he took leave from NC State and worked for the Department of Natural Resources. During that time, I guess it must have been 20 years ago. He wasn’t my direct supervisor, but he was in the chain of command above me. SY - This is a fairly informal kind of interview. Basically I’m interested in your personal history in forestry and your experience, your knowledge of the history of
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forestry during your career. And about people that you’ve worked with, about your experience in the SAF and the Appalachian Section. If I’m not asking the questions that you feel are important, feel free to interject what you do think is important. BG - All right. SY - Let’s start with personal information, where you’re from, how you got into forestry, that kind of thing. BG - I was born right near here, in Morrisville, NC and went to Cary public schools here. And I came of age during World War II. I turned 18 in 1942. I went into service and stayed in the Air Corps until 1946. I was discharged in March and enrolled at NC State for the coming September. SY - So you were one of the waves of people going to college right after the war. BG - Yes. We were the largest class that had ever been in forestry at NC State at that time. I believe about 80 members in the professional class. That was the largest class for several years later, maybe even of all time, I’m not sure. Then I got my degree in forest management and finished the requirements for the degree at Christmas of ‘49. I actually was considered to be a graduate of the class of ‘50, but I finished a little earlier. Wilma and I were married at the time. In fact, I lived in Durham while I went to school at NC State. I commuted back and forth. Wilma had a good job in Durham so we couldn’t afford to leave. Then I got a job with the NC Division of Forestry and moved to Whiteville as Assistant District Forester. This was hot fire country, I mean we had bad forest fires in those days. One county might have 2-300 fires in a year. Like Columbus, Bladen, Brunswick. I stayed there as Assistant District Forester until the middle of March or April of 1953. I was promoted and given a job as District Forester at New Bern. The State of North Carolina’s Division is divided into districts comprising certain counties around the state. The District Forester is in charge of administering the program in a number of counties. At that time, the New Bern District had 8 counties in it. Each county has people there, primarily people to fight forest fires in those days. But they did do some forest management work, upon request. This was a real bad fire period, the two or three years that I stayed there until the end of 1955 as District Forester. We went into a lot of new things during that period in fire fighting. We started using aircraft, which was one of the significant things in forestry history, I think in North Carolina. I did a lot of the early flying and trying to determine the best way to attack fires. You could see much better from the air in the back country. SY - Did you use them mostly for spotting or for water bombing? BG - In those days, it was mostly for determining how to best go about suppressing the fire. To find out where it was and what natural breaks there might be available to you such as streams or roads. Power lines. Whatever. This was the beginning, really, of the use of aircraft probably in the South. SY - That would have been the early 1950s. BG - Yes. That year, 1955, was a record year in terms of fire losses. I know one county, Jones County, lost 25% of its total forestland to fire in one year. If that had happened 4 years in a row, it would have completely burned the county. Also during that year, we had the largest fire, I think, ever on record in North Carolina. In modern times, maybe there was one earlier that started in South Carolina and came up near Raleigh. SY - Early on. BG - The one in 1957 burned 157,000 acres. It started in Tyrrell County and burned in Washington County and Hyde County. It even jumped the Inland Waterway. SY - Wow, that’s big. BG - I was glad to get out of fire control by that time! Three years at Whiteville and three years at New Bern. I came to Raleigh then to head up the pest control branch of the Division, which was just getting started. I think the pest control law in North Carolina was enacted two years earlier in 1953, then I went into it in 1955. But we hadn’t done much, per se. I worked for about ten years with the pest control work. When I first went into it, I was the only
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person. Finally we got a pest control forester in the west and one in the east and some crews. Most of the crews were temporary people who reacted to whatever the problem might be. I remember one particular time, we had a southern pine beetle outbreak in Cherokee County, which is the westernmost county in the state. SY - Is that usual, to have southern pine beetles in that area? BG - There aren’t too many pines there, but Cherokee is one of the lower mountain counties, where it goes down against Georgia and Tennessee. So we did have a lot of problems there, with the yellow pine. At the same time, while the Cherokee County problem existed, we had another severe outbreak in Dare County. SY - All the way across! BG - All the way across. One week I would go to Cherokee County and the next week to Dare County. A lot of driving. I enjoyed working in the mountains, though. It was one thing that I learned. I’ve worked in much of the mountains on white pine blister rust control and the oak wilt also started during this time. We started a program to try to control the oak wilt. We had surveys every summer with a two man crew that would check out every oak tree that we could find dying in the mountains. SY - A lot of walking for a couple of people. Was there any specific event that led to the insect control law being passed in ‘53? BG - I think probably more than anything else it was the continuous loss from southern pine beetle. We had an epidemic show up all over. When it happens in someone’s backyard, they get pretty excited about it. I know Fred Claridge, who was State Forester at that time, said that he could always expect somebody in the legislature to ask him about the bark beetles killing trees. It was very dramatic to see a group of trees die, particularly if they were yours! [Laughs] SY - That would get your attention. BG - One kind of interesting thing about the pest control was that it gave the agency people the right to go on anyone else’s land. Free of trespass. Also it gave the right to require someone to take control action. If they wouldn’t take control action, it allowed the state to do it and claim reimbursement from the landowner. That was a very nasty part of the law and never was used. We tried a little bit at first but it was so ill-taken by the public, that finally I made the decision that we just wouldn’t try to require anybody to do anything that we couldn’t talk them into. And that turned out well, I guess there were only a very few cases where people would not do what they should do, if you talked to them and encouraged them and helped them. SY - So cooperation worked out better than force. BG - Yes, much better than forcing people to take some action. It’s kind of interesting, I know we still have southern pine beetle outbreaks now. With all of the damage that the insects have done over the years, it still has not had a very good control measure designed against it. SY - It hasn’t quite been figured out? BG - Well, they’ve figured out the life history, but there’s no economical way to control it. About all you can do is try to salvage the trees that are infested as quickly as possible and save the loss and destroy the beetle in the process. There has been some information that’s been learned over the years that has been helpful. That is, if the stands are managed and aren’t allowed to get too dense, where you have too much competition from tree to tree, it makes the stands more resistant. SY - So you want to reduce stress on the trees, and thinning does that? BG - Yes. I guess that’s the main thing that’s been learned even as long as we’ve been aware of the southern pine beetle.
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SY - That’s not the kind of thing you can spray for, you can’t really spray for beetles. BG - You have to cut the tree down and spray, because you can’t effectively get to the top of the tree to kill them all, and that’s very costly. It probably costs 3 to 4 dollars per tree to do that. You’ve got a lot of trees and it’s just too expensive and too hard to do. SY - How about some of the other things like oak wilt and... BG - White pine blister rust. Oak wilt has never quite developed into the problem that it was thought that it might cause, in the beginning. Of course, I haven’t been keeping up with it in the last few years, but up until 10 or 12 years ago we still were trying to control the spots. There you did, since the disease was spread by insects, when trees were found they were cut down and sprayed to keep insects from taking the fungus from the diseased trees to others. It’s also spread locally by root grafting, from one tree to another. SY - But it never became widespread. BG - It’s never become a real disaster like it could have been. It’s never been quite as bad in North Carolina as it was in some of the states further north. Wisconsin, Michigan, some of those states might have had more serious problems with it than North Carolina did. SY - I guess people were sensitive to that kind of thing considering what had happened with the chestnut. BG - The chestnut, yes. SY - The other one was white pine rust? BG - White pine blister rust. That of course is a disease that’s spread from alternate hosts, the gooseberry in the case of white pine blister rust. To control those, you get rid of the gooseberries. Since they don’t grow too much in North Carolina, that was a fairly easy thing to do. SY - I don’t remember ever seeing any gooseberries around here. BG - No, they’re in the mountains. White pine doesn’t grow around here either. SY - Except for that one little spot on the Rocky River in Chatham County. BG - Blister rust wasn’t a serious economic threat to the state. A lot of work was done by the federal government, on that program. The program was more important in the states north of North Carolina where there are more gooseberries and also white pine is more of a major species. SY - Were those the only really major pests that you had to deal with? The blister rust, the southern pine beetles, and the oak wilt were the major things? BG - Well, no, there were some other major ones. Pales weevil was, as the type of forest management evolved. We would cut and plant right back immediately. Pales weevil became quite a pest in terms of destroying the newlyplanted seedlings. SY - If you planted right back the same species, pine back onto pine plantation lands, you would build up a population that you wouldn’t have had otherwise? BG - Yes. Right. They breed in the stumps, so they were right there. They’d come out and the seedlings were the only things that they liked to eat. SY - So if you had a clearcut to regenerate pine, then you’d have a problem.
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BG - Yes, in some of the early years we did a lot of research to develop control for that, and that’s fairly successful. The seedlings are dipped in a insecticide. SY - That way you don’t have to spray and you can keep it concentrated where you need it. BG - Of course, it complicates planting a little bit and you have to be a little careful in handling the seedlings that have been dipped. SY - You’d want to keep yourself gloved? BG - Yes. But it has been fairly effective and enabled us to save a year in planting. That one year itself is not so important except it lets the competition get established and it makes the trees harder to survive. SY - Does prescribed burning come in at all for controlling insects? BG - It controls competitive plants more than anything, as relates to tree planting. It’s also very important for fire prevention, hazard reduction, which a lot of that has been done, and more, in my opinion, ought to be done. In fact, to me, that is really the only way to fireproof your forest, is to burn it. SY - Years ago, I noticed people in Florida living along the interstate in those stands of pines full of palmetto, where you couldn’t even walk, it was so dense. I remember thinking they’re going to be in trouble some day. BG - Of course, they’re having trouble out in Arizona! And that came from prescribed burning. SY - I think they did it at the wrong time. BG - That’s the interesting thing about fire control. It’s not as simple as most people think. It’s very complicated. The fact is there are so many things that go into controlling a fire, things like drought, and the wind. SY - And they had both high winds and drought out there. BG - Right. And these people, of course I’m not second guessing them, and I really don’t know that much about it, but I gather that the Park Service was doing this. And they just haven’t had that kind of experience. SY - It sounds like somebody made a very bad decision there. BG - Yes. I know that over the years we have had prescribed burning schools for our people. You learn a lot by doing it, too. Of course, you learn a lot by fighting wildfires as to what fire behavior is like. It’s something that inexperienced people shouldn’t be doing. SY - Did you have any experience with any traditional woods burning practices around Whiteville or elsewhere? Or had that been pretty much wiped out? BG - Well, in the early days, people burned the woods for many reasons. Every year. From some points of view, too, that wasn’t all that bad, since the debris hadn’t built up and the fire didn’t actually kill everything. In some cases now I think probably you could do very well to burn every acre in eastern North Carolina once every four years if it were done under the right conditions. Everybody’d be better off except maybe some of the small insects or something that we don’t see too well. SY - Was anybody still doing that, were any of the local people still burning the woods? BG - Yes. And they were doing it for several different reasons. One is some grasses and herbs that people would dig and sell the roots of, they would burn the woods in the winter time and those herbs would come up early in the spring and they could find them easier. And then a lot of people did it for easy access to the woods for deer hunting and in those early days, too, a lot of people did it to make better grazing for their cattle which were running into the woods more than they do now. One of the big things in those days was the people had to clear the plant beds for raising
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tobacco plants. They did it in new ground every year so they wouldn’t have weed seeds there that they would have to contend with, so they’d go to new ground. SY - Would that reduce tobacco pests as well like fungus or worms? BG - It was for pests mainly in the form of grass and weeds. Regular agricultural land had all the seeds in it and in those days they didn’t have the chemicals to kill the seeds before they came up so they would go to an area that hadn’t been cultivated before and clean it up and then they always had to burn the debris. Then they’d go to lunch and the fire would go beyond the tobacco area. It was kind of funny, too, we don’t think about this these days, but a lot of fires started from wash pot fires. Heating water out in the yard. We’ve passed a lot of those things now. SY - There was more domestic use of fire then than there is now. Before I forget, I wanted to ask about the use of the planes for scouting fires, that came in during the late 1940s or in the early 1950s? BG - The early 1950s. About 1952 was the first plane that the Division actually purchased. SY - So that would not have been related to the war in any way. BG - After the war, a lot of military planes were made available, which in turn, were used for forestry work then. SY - So the war provided a little more supply of planes. BG - Yes. That was in the 1950s and 60s, and some of the planes being used today still are World War II vintage. That was a real leap ahead in fire control in that you could see what you were doing and not have to guess about so many factors. SY - I would think that would help with safety as well. BG - For people, yes. For the men on the ground. SY - You’d know if things were getting out of control near them. BG - Sometimes you could direct them. All of the fires in the east at that time were in the bad areas. They had a tractor and plow making a fire break. Sometimes you could actually lead the tractor out of harm’s way. By a change of direction. Of course, the two-way radio was a big improvement in those days in being able to communicate with the people on the ground from the plane. SY - And that came in after World War II as well, I guess. BG - Yes. SY - In the 1930s, they were trying to string telephone lines all over the place. BG - Yes, the CCC did that. I know that in that district at Whiteville, where I first went to work, I was surprised to find so much telephone line that was owned by the Forest Service and had to be kept up—over a thousand miles of telephone line in that district. Part of the ranger’s job was to keep those telephones working. SY - Had there been a lot of CCC activity in the Whiteville area? BG - Yes, a lot of the roads through the big wooded areas had been made and all of these telephone lines constructed. In fact, all of the fire towers were built during that era, too. Built by the CCC. SY - Is that pretty typical for the rest of the state?
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BG - Yes. More so for the mountains and the coast than for the Piedmont. But even, I suspect, some towers right here in Wake County, Bayleaf may have been made during that time. Another thing, I do know too that one of those first plant nurseries by the state out at Clayton was done by the CCC. SY - That was important. Were you at all aware of that kind of thing when you were younger? BG - Not at that time. That was in the 1930s. SY - So you would not have seen any of that when you were a kid? BG - Well, my father belonged to the CCC. So I knew, but I was just a youngster then. I knew about how important it was in the Depression. That money that he was able to send home, I think $21 a month, or something like that. SY - My father-in-law went into the CCC when he was 13 years old. His parents signed a paper that he was 16. He helped build the lake and bathing house at Hanging Rock State Park. He talks about that a lot. What was it that got you interested in forestry? BG - I always wanted to work outside. I just liked the outside better than the inside, but when I all of a sudden realized that I could go to college, I didn’t think about it really until I got out of the service. Then the GI Bill was available and Wilma was willing to work while I went, so I decided to go. I actually enrolled in engineering at NC State. After one year of drafting I realized it wasn’t what I wanted to do. SY - You’d had enough of that. BG - It wasn’t one year; it was one semester. So I went to the psychology department there at State and took a battery of tests to see what I was inclined to want to do. SY - So you got some help from counselors? Career-type counseling? BG - Yes, from the testing that I did there, I found that I was inclined to forestry or social work, so I decided that I would go into forestry. Really, because of the lack of knowledge about forestry then, I wasn’t even aware of what forestry was about at that time. SY - I guess because you came from this area there wouldn’t have been as much for you to see. Stephen Boyce said he saw, when he was a kid, CCC teams and was exposed to foresters, but that would depend a lot on what part you were from. BG - My daddy was a minister and a school teacher, but during the Depression he was not able to get any returns economically from that. Actually, he was farming and just a bare existence in terms of what you needed in those days. So I was raised on a farm. We raised vegetables and carried them to Durham to sell, which was the main source of income. SY - Hard now to make any money, it was even harder then. When you were in school, and had started working on forestry, who all did you work with? DO you remember anybody important or especially significant in your education? BG - Not who did I work with but who was I taught by? SY - Yes. BG - Doctor Hofmann was the dean of the school at that time. I suppose you’re familiar with his coming to NC State and starting the forestry school. SY - There were forestry classes before that, but he organized the school itself.
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BG - At that time it was just a division, but he brought 30-some students from Penn State and started the forestry program. Up until that time, you couldn’t get a degree in forestry. It was just classes that were integrated with some of the other work. Horticulture or wildlife or something. Dr. Miller was one of the main teachers in silviculture and forest management. He died just last year. He retired here to this new retirement center in Cary. One interesting thing happened one time while I was in school. As I mentioned, I lived in Durham and commuted. Usually I would catch the city bus out Glenwood Avenue then I would thumb to Durham. SY - It’s not that easy to get back and forth now, it must have been a lot harder then. BG - Yes. I was standing there at the bus stop at NC State one day and this car stopped and said, “Hey boy, you want a ride downtown?” And pulls out to go to Hillsborough Street in order to go to Glenwood Avenue, the main route to Durham then. So we were driving along, I think it was in a Ford car, I bet it was a ‘48 Ford, something like that. Anyway, then he said, “Well, boy, are you willing to vote for me?” I said, “I don’t know, who are you?” He said, “Well, I’m Kerr Scott.” That was when he first started running for governor. It turned out that he was a real friend of forestry, too. Right much progress was made from his influence, as time developed, and later on his son Bob as well. They were knowledgeable about forestry and did a lot of forestry work on their farm in Alamance County. In fact, our Division helped them with it a great deal in terms of how best to do it and this sort of thing, so that was one interesting thing politically. They were knowledgeable about forestry. SY - Was there any particular reason that you decided to go to work for the NC State Division of Forestry or was it a matter of what was available? BG - Well, yes, it was available. That was one thing. As I mentioned earlier, I graduated a little bit off-season. I also applied for a job with the Extension Service. Since I didn’t have an advanced degree, the guy who got that job did. I was glad later on that I worked with the Division. I always felt a little bit of a problem. Most of the jobs in industrial forestry involved buying timber. And producing forest products. I didn’t particularly like that phase of forestry. I’d rather be in the public sector where I was not involved with trying to buy products and that sort of thing. SY - You prefer taking care of forests and doing things like fire control and insect control. BG - And forest management. SY - Forest management and thinning, that sort of thing? BG - It was an interesting time as far as forest management, was making a lot of progress during this time. In the way of tree planting. About that time, the soil bank program was in effect and that really jumped up the number of trees that were planted. I think that finally the nurseries in our system were producing around 100 million trees a year. SY - Wow. BG - I don’t know whether they are even growing that many now or not. SY - I’d be surprised. BG - That program, of course, was to help get the excess agricultural land into trees rather than still being in crop production. It was a federal program. That kind of leads, too, to - I’m jumping historically or time-wise, the program that Ralph Winkworth started when he was State Forester in North Carolina, one of the programs. Although, it’s kind of interesting, he was mainly known for his fire control knowledge and efforts, but we started a forest development program then. I was on his staff and helped do the legwork and whatnot to get this program under way. It ended up to be the first program of any state in the nation where money was made available through the legislature to help people with preparing sites and planting trees, using state money. The idea behind that was, because forestry is such a long-term investment that landowners are reluctant to put much money out of pocket that they don’t expect to get any return on for thirty or forty years. But that really was a big thing and a lot of people utilized the program. To begin with the payment was 50-50. The state would pay 50 percent of it. In fact, I believe in the beginning the program could pay even more than that, but that’s what we started with. Eventually we got down to where the
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landowners were willing to pay their share even more than 50-50, so you could use what money was available and get more work done with it. SY - Did it partly help by getting people used to seeing that done? BG - To some extent. But even though you know it’s done still, as I said in the beginning, it’s very hard to convince a person to lay out much money per acre and tie up the land without any return for a good many years. SY - Did any of the federal soil conservation measures come into that? BG - Well, the soil bank, which I mentioned was there. Not only did they help to pay for planting, but they also gave the landowner an annual rental per year. SY - So they would keep it in trees? BG - Yes. And there’s still, to this day, federal money available to help with cost sharing in site preparing and in planting. And the state program is still in existence, as far as I know. SY - Were some of these programs held over from the 30s or were these all new? BG - They were new. The thirties was the CCC, and they did it all on a fairly large scale for a short period of time. SY - So there was less in the 30s of payments to individual farmers to have things done. BG - To my knowledge, the CCC was just going out and planting somebody’s land—they’d furnish the trees and the labor and everything. SY - So instead of a financial subsidy, they originally provided the labor and the trees, and then later, is this in the early 50's they started subsidizing? BG - Yes, it started the soil bank program and then I think it was it was in the middle 60s when the forest development program was started in North Carolina, by the state government here. There’s one other person I’d like to mention who was really a leader in forest management in North Carolina. That was Fred Claridge. He was the third State Forester of North Carolina. SY - I’ve seen his name. BG - He was my direct boss when I was in pest control. He was a fine individual, very knowledgeable and capable. Anyway, early on when I came to state forestry in the early 1950s, at that time the Forest Service was primarily a fire control organization. At least 90 percent. I think that in 1948 the Extension Service had previously been offering some forest management help to landowners, but the federal law was changed. And so all the extension forestry work was redirected to the Division of Forestry in North Carolina. SY - The two were separate offices and then they combined? BG - Well, the Extension Service is affiliated with land grant universities like NC State. SY - The agricultural extension program. BG - North Carolina always had a very leading forestry part of the extension. They still do. Now, of course, they are primarily for education. In those days, they were actually offering service work. In other words, they’d go out and mark trees for a landowner and show them which ones to cut. Help them plant trees and whatnot. In 1948, the federal money that had supported that program was redirected, and they said they think the state forest services can do this job better than the extension services because they have programs out in the counties, whereas the extension service mainly had a program at the university. Of course, the county agent is out in each county too, but their main service has been educating and training. So the service work ought to be done by the state forestry service. When
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that happened, two employees of the Extension Service were transferred in body to the State Division of Forestry. They continued on and they were called service foresters. When I first started work, that was in 1948 and I started in 1950, there was usually a service forester in each district office. We had ten districts, so we had ten people around the state who were providing service work to landowners in forest management. They worked full time in forest management. Getting back to Mr. Claridge, he saw that those ten people could barely scratch the surface of what needed to be done, so he said, we have all of these fire control people in every county—except there were five counties that still didn’t have a fire control agency. We went into a long time after then into actually training these rangers, who had not been to school in forestry to be competent and we developed what we called the ranger training series. In fact, I personally did much of that in the beginning, setting that up as to what these people needed to learn in order to be able to do this. SY - Did you come up with the standards? BG - Texts and testing and so on. SY - So kind of a curriculum and testing program? BG - Right. And set time for the training in classrooms and in the field performance. That went a long way. And like I said, North Carolina was one of the first states in the South that did that. And that was done primarily because of Mr. Claridge’s desire and effort to get more activity in the forest management area. SY - North Carolina is one of the first states, certainly in the South, to do any kind of forestry at all, surveys or anything. BG - Way back, yes. SY - When did you first get involved with SAF? BG - Since I was commuting from Durham to Raleigh, I didn’t join as a student. But I joined the very first year when I graduated in 1950. SY - They had a student chapter when you were in school? BG - I’m really not sure. They may not, I just assumed they had. They had one here years later. SY - I’m not sure when the first official chapters were, but a lot of the schools had forestry clubs that had some contact with the SAF early on. BG - Actually, the chapters in the state evolved later, and they made quite a bit of difference in the SAF activity. In Whiteville, in the early 50s we had something called the Bush and Bog Club which was not connected with the SAF. But the foresters just got together occasionally and headed down to socialize. Then when I went to New Bern, we called it a cussin’ Club. Then, you probably know better than I do, in the mid to late 50s, early 60s... SY - I think the mid-50s is when... BG - When the chapters came in and these two clubs became then chapters and performing the same need for contact between foresters that the clubs had originally. SY - So the chapters grew out of local activity? BG - In those two cases, they did. I don’t know about everywhere. I don’t think there was any such club in the Raleigh area at that time. Since I didn’t live here, I don’t know. I don’t think there were clubs in every corner of the state. SY - But a number of the early chapters grew out of local clubs.
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BG - Yes. SY - I got the impression that led to some problems in terms of SAF’s membership rules. That people, for instance, who didn’t have a forestry degree but had been trained by the state forestry service might not be given full membership? BG - Well, there’s always these things. Some of the technicians wanted to become members and some of the foresters didn’t think they should, and others thought it was all right. I know we have associate members now, do we have technician members? SY - I don’t think so. BG - I don’t believe so, either. SY - I think technicians and associates were merged into one category. BG - When those clubs became chapters, then the chapters started to take on a little higher level of technical expertise. They had speakers to come in so it was a step up from what was going on at those meetings [laughs]. SY - So before it was mostly social. BG - Yes. But that was really important from the standpoint of getting to know the people you were fighting fire with. Because you can work a lot better with somebody that you know than with somebody you just know works for a certain company. SY - So those early clubs would bring together state people and company employees? BG - Yes. SY - So that didn’t start with the SAF chapters, that started with the local clubs having state, federal, and industry people all get together? BG - Yes. It was mainly the people who were fighting fires in the area. SY - So they worked together in fire-fighting situations. BG - Yes. That’s another thing that should be said from the standpoint of the state appreciation. In those early days, the companies offered as much in fire fighting activity as the state did. Many of the companies had very good organizations. These clubs made the cooperation a lot better. SY - That makes sense. Before those clubs became chapters, what kind of contact did you have with the SAF? BG - Mainly the summer meeting and the annual meeting. SY - Did that attract most of the people from the local clubs or was that... BG - Not most of them, because many of them in those local clubs were not members, were not even foresters. SY - Did it attract most of the people who were foresters with degrees? In a local area, would they mostly all be SAF members or would there be a variety? BG - I guess mostly, but certainly not all of them, even a lot of people in the state organization who were foresters were not members. That was another thing that I remember that Mr. Claridge used to always encourage the people to join, the crew members, the Society. I always personally felt that I owed it to the profession to be a member and I still am. I’m considered a golden member now.
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SY - What purpose did the SAF serve at that time? Was it something like you said, where you were giving back to the profession and trying to build up the profession? Or was it more doing things... BG - Most of the time the meetings were always very interesting and helpful in learning the new ideas and the new ways of doing things. SY - So education, continuing education, was important? BG - Probably that was the most important thing. Of course, the Journal was helpful in that regard. SY - Was there more enthusiasm for that kind of thing amongst public sector foresters, or were the private industrial foresters interested in that kind of thing as well? BG - I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think so. Usually it was the more dedicated foresters, regardless of who they worked for. Some people were just more interested. SY - It didn’t split up so much according to who your employer was, but according to the individual? BG - Yes. I know in the early years even a lot of consultants were leaders in the Society and many industry people were and university. I think the Society over the years has really made the profession of forestry much stronger and better than it would have been without it. SY - Mostly from education or also from other activities? BG - Mostly, probably, from the education, but also it’s a sense of doing what you ought to do and what’s good for forestry and what’s good for me, and the state had a bearing on it. SY - I guess it would also be useful for having a group identity as foresters? BG - Yes. SY - When did you first get personally involved in working with the SAF other than attending meetings? What kind of things were you doing? BG - I was one time in both the fire control and pest control work groups. SY - When was that, the 1950s? BG - I believe it started later than that, I’d say more in the sixties, but I’m not sure. I guess you can look back in the history for that. SY - Yes, I can look that up in the minutes. BG - But with the fire program that we had in the state, which was one of the leading programs, we were able to provide some of the leadership there. I and some of the other people who worked for the state of North Carolina. And then, I believe in 1981, I was nominated to be the chairman, which I was before. I served as chairman in 1981. SY - Did you hold any offices before that or were you mostly involved in technical groups? BG - Technical groups mainly. SY - What about at the local level after the chapters were formed, were you involved locally? BG - Actually, I attended the ones...well, they weren’t chapters at that time. After I moved to Raleigh in pest control, as I told you a while ago how much traveling I did.
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SY - That would make local participation a little difficult. BG - Yes, and you know, that’s kind of strange, particularly in the early days, the local chapter in Raleigh was not very functional. I think it’s been more functional in the last decade than before that. SY - Was everybody in Raleigh too much involved in regional... BG - Had too much going on, too many meetings and a lot of them were traveling as I was. So they were out of town a lot when the meetings were happening. Maybe because you’re more or less keeping up with the heartbeat of forestry, you didn’t feel the need quite as much as you did in some of the outlying areas. I’m just guessing at that, but I would think that was true. SY - I think that would make sense. BG - I know over the years, well I’d better not say that. SY - Well, you can say it and have me not quote you. BG - OK, and not quote me . . . [this deleted part refers to those who felt the SAF was not needed or necessary.] BG - Well, they might feel that they needed it worse. Anyway, for some reason the local chapter here in Raleigh never did blossom as much as some of outlying chapters did. SY - Were there any major issues that the SAF chapters or region were dealing with? BG - The only one that I really remember, the heated one, was whether or not technicians ought to be members or not. SY - So how to define the profession was a major issue? Whether you would include people without degrees as foresters or not? BG - Yes. SY - What was your feeling about that? BG - Not strong one way or another. I know that when the law was changed about registered foresters, a lot of the non-forestry graduates became registered foresters, I personally was against the whole idea of registered foresters. I thought that the Society ought to provide the leadership rather than having the state law. Even to this day I’m kind of mad now [laughs]. The new law says that if I’m not a registered forester, I can not call myself a forester. SY - What would be your argument against state registration of foresters? BG - Just bureaucracy that you have to go through that doesn’t accomplish anything. And that to me being a member of the Society is much more meaningful than being registered. SY - So you think people would be better off making sure a forester they hired was an SAF member than making sure they were registered? BG - Right. SY - Promoting SAF membership as a distinguishing mark of being a competent forester? BG - Right.
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SY - That makes sense. Was there any controversy about some of the forestry practices that you remember from the 50s and 60s, things like prescribed burning? BG - There’s always been controversy about that. As I stated earlier, I think it could be one of the most important tools that we have, and get the best results with that. But it’s so hard to do and time consuming that they probably never will amount to as much as I would like to see it. SY - What was the general position that most foresters took on prescribed burning when you first started? BG - Well, fire was such a scourge in the beginning that everybody said, “No fire.” But then you had to start thinking about the real scientific involvement before you come to say it’s not bad at all. SY - When did prescribed fire start getting a little more acceptance? BG - Sometime, probably, in the 1960s, the late 60s. And 70s. SY - So it took a while. BG - Yes. I believe that program that the state started, in the forest development program, we started offering services to people and we started offering prescribed burning for a fee. SY - And that was late 60s, early 70s? BG - Yes. I believe it started about 1967, somewhere around there. SY - Before that it would have mostly been fire suppression? BG - Yes. But again, most of the prescribed burning that we had to do was for fire prevention or for forest management, site preparation. It had to be done at night, so you have to have your crew out at night. They’re working day and night and they don’t like it. [laughs] It’s hard to do, really. SY - Why is it done at night? BG - The heat factor. SY - If you’re doing it in warm weather, it would be too hot during the day? BG - Yes. And at night you can control the fire, too. Temperature is lower and you’ve got a little dew on the ground. SY - I’ve read that you want the lower layer to be slightly damp but the upper layer to be fairly dry? BG - Yes. SY - Does that come from burning at night? BG - Well, that comes from so many days after a rain, with the lower level being wetter than the top level. The main thing at night is that the air is more humid and you’re less likely to have erratic winds; the air is more stable. There’s not wind blowing this way and that way. You can control the fire a lot easier. The overall total temperature, and there are certain things that you don’t want to hurt. So, the lower the temperature is, the less likely you’re causing problems for the trees you don’t want to hurt. SY - Was there much controversy about bringing prescribed burning in? BG - Not so much, it was fairly well accepted by foresters, anyway. Probably the general public had been brainwashed so much by the Smokey Bear-type approach that they were taught that fire is bad. I remember that at
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Duke, in the beginning when they tried to do some burning there, they got into real trouble with local people there in the forest. SY - In Duke Forest? BG - Yes. Fred White tried to start some there. Fred finally went to work with the division. SY - Fred White was employed by Duke Forest? BG - Yes, for many, many years. One of the best forest management people, brains, that you could come across. The students just loved him, but he didn’t quite get his doctorate degree. SY - How about pest control, were there any issues involved with that or with pesticides? BG - One, not directly related to insects or disease, the big thing came with excluding 2,4,5-T from the marketplace. That was one of the biggest controversies there ever was. OF course, it got its bad rep from use in Vietnam. At the time, I felt that it was lost when it shouldn’t have been ...dioxin is the problem. The 2,4,5-T being manufactured then did not contain the dioxin, whereas it did in Vietnam. Dioxin is a very bad cancer-causing agent. SY - Very toxic. But the Agent Orange rep kind of... BG - Yes, it just killed the possibility of using it. Dow fought it pretty hard, trying to keep manufacturing 2,4,5-T. SY - That was an herbicide, right? So that was used to suppress unwanted weeds and vegetation. BG - Hardwoods, mainly, and it didn’t hurt pine. SY - When that was taken off the market, did that give you more of a reason for burning? BG - Right. SY - Did that have any effect, did people put more emphasis on prescribed burning? BG - Not really. Burning because of the immensity of the job, has always been very limited. SY - Herbicides are just more economically... BG - It’s so much easier. You can put it out of a helicopter or you can cover a 100 acres in an hour, whereas prescribed burning it can take ten men all night. To my knowledge, there still hasn’t been another good selective herbicide developed to replace 2,4,5-T. It killed the hardwoods and didn’t kill the pines. SY - There’s still a lot of controversy about spreading herbicides. People get nervous, or occasionally you’ll get drift on somebody’s land where it’s not supposed to go and people get upset. So you didn’t have any problems earlier on when things like DDT were coming under fire? BG - DDT never was used that much in forestry pest control. In the early days, we used benzene hexachloride which was one of the isomers of Lindane, or vice versa. Anyway, it had a very pungent, bad odor to it, which Lindane doesn’t. Lindane is more refined. But that’s what we used in the early days on bark beetles. SY - But that was fairly limited spraying, so you didn’t have to do much widespread spraying? BG - About the only kind of widespread, aerial spraying to do for insects, I guess, would be for some of the defoliators. We had a program in the mountains one time for elm spanworm. Sprayed a good many acres. That was mostly on federal land. Maybe one day the gypsy moth is going to require something. SY - It could.
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BG - It’s starting here now, a little bit. SY - So really the controversies over pesticides didn’t really affect you too much. BG - No, not really. Herbicides much more so than insecticides. SY - Did the SAF get involved in any of those controversies? BG - Yes, especially in the 2,4,5-T controversy. SY - What kind of involvement did they have? BG - I don’t know for sure, but I would guess it would be letters to Congress, that sort of thing. SY - So there wasn’t a lot of local activity or regional activity about it, it was more of a national level issue? BG - Right. SY - I guess the other big issues that got a lot of public play, things like the anti-clearcutting and wilderness movement, that sort of thing, did that have much effect on state forestry or is that still mostly a federal issue? BG - I’d say there wasn’t much effect on state forestry. First of all, the forestry on state and private lands, that’s where the state forest service was working. There’s very little state-owned lands, Bladen Lakes State Forest is about 35,000 acres. So practically all of our effort was working with the landowner with the landowner paying for at least part of it, sometimes all of it. SY - So you didn’t get embroiled in some of the same kinds of controversies? BG - Well the thing about it is, we never could serve the full need. Never had the means to do it, so you could always find the people who wanted to do what we were able to do. And they were convinced that was the thing to do, so there wasn’t any controversy between that landowner and us. Most of the controversy came from the public media, the newspapers in the cities and towns, people who weren’t directly involved. SY - Were there any major changes in law that on how to handle forestry issues that affected you at the state level? BG - I don’t know of anything other than it might have been written into the laws that were to enable the programs to be in existence. Like the pest control law, I mentioned, did allow for requiring certain things, but since it was so impractical it never has been. SY - It never happened. BG - It never happened. SY - So basically, well, the only other thing I could imagine affecting you was if federal matching funds were contingent on following any kind of federal guidelines. BG - Well, they were. In the beginning there was a very comprehensive reporting that had to be made annually to justify the federal funds that were spent. In fact, that was one thing that I did personally through the National Association of State Foresters, was to try to get some of that bookkeeping...well first we tried to get some of it on computer, then minimize it so it’d make it a lot simpler. You know, it’s kind of interesting that over the years that’s disappeared so that they don’t require it anymore. SY - Things that get to be too much trouble eventually go by the wayside anyway, huh?
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BG - Yes. It’s kind of interesting, I’ve actually been away from forestry, well not been away from forestry, but I’ve been away from state agencies for 15 years, so there have been a lot of changes since then that I haven’t been completely up on. I have heard about some of them and talked about some of them. One thing that I’d like to speak a little to, is politics in state government. SY - That’s important. BG - North Carolina has always been known to be rather politics-free in the job that was done. The state foresters had always been appointed from a professional standpoint rather than a political standpoint. I was actually the first one who felt the ax from political fallout. I was the fourth state forester in North Carolina. They had Holmes, then Claridge, then Winkworth, and then me. I was the fifth. I had worked from the very bottom to the top, through the North Carolina organization. Ironically, the year before I was fired, I got an outstanding service award for the job I was doing as state forester. SY - Which let’s you know for sure that it was political. BG - Yes. And not only that, the next year after I was fired I got, from the Society, the Fellow. It just happened that after a long Democratic regime that a Republican came in and I was given a choice to retire or be fired. That was by one of your fellow Chapel Hillians, Ernie Carl, have you heard of him? SY - Ernie Carl? No. BG - Well, anyway, he was the assistant, he was on instructions. SY - I don’t remember anything about him at all. BG - Anyway, it came all the way down from the governor’s office of course. I said, well let me think about it, whether I’d rather be fired or resign. Then I said, no, I don’t need to think any more, I want you to fire me. I think that the forestry community needs to know it. And so he said, ok, you can leave. [laughs]. And that was after 35 years. SY - Most of the controversy that I’ve seen in the records over that kind of thing was Tennessee and Kentucky, particularly during the New Deal. BG - Yes. Some of those changed every time the governor changed. But we’d never done that until then. SY - Has that gotten to be more of a pattern since then? BG - No, not necessarily. The man who replaced me actually was fired two years later because he didn’t, couldn’t do the job. Then a retired US Forest Service man came in who’d still there and the elections in the state, like I said earlier, it went from Democrat to Republican, then I was fired. And then it went back to the Democrats, and this guy was not fired. He stayed in office, so hopefully it will be a one-time experience. SY - How did you work up to state forester from your earlier work? BG - Hard work. I think that probably the ten years that I worked in Pest Control enabled me to do a lot of reading on technical aspects. I’m not bragging, but I got to be considered the one you could go to with a technical question and get an answer. I remember one interesting thing that happened back during...with the nursery being out at Clayton, we had a nurseryman there who went to work for the CCC. Then he actually bought some land near there and had his own farm and stayed over from the CCC into the state nursery program. An excellent nurseryman, Moody Clemmons that Clemmons State Forest is named after. Moody was actually raised down at Holden Beach. From his early childhood, he knew where there were some beautiful cedar trees there. And in the early days, and even now to some extent, cedars are used for forestry purposes or collected from wild trees. Moody knew where all these trees were and went down every year and collected the red cedar that was used for Christmas tree planting. Of course, there weren’t all that many, but some. For some reason, we had a hard time getting the cedar trees to do very good as Christmas trees. They weren’t very full, and the shape wasn’t like you wanted, but anyway, when I was
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talking about what I learned while I was in pest control, technically, I was reading this book that the US Forest Service printed on the distribution of the different conifer species. You may have seen it, it has a map with the legend... SY - Yes, I don’t remember the title...Forest Cover Types? BG - Yes, something like that, anyway, it has this hemlock stand here in Cary on it. So I knew it must be very specific and I was looking at the red cedar range and it stopped about two counties from the coast. I said, what’s this? We’ve been collecting our cedar seed from Brunswick County. SY - Brunswick County, yeah, that’s closer. BG - So I looked, and really in Brunswick County we have silicicola (?) Rather than virginianus, so it’s a different species. SY - Oh okay, a different species. BG - It’s southern red cedar rather than eastern red cedar. SY - Oh, I didn’t even realize that there were two. BG - Well, no one else did either. So, I found the reason that our Christmas tree plantations were doing so poorly. SY - Because it wasn’t the right species. BG - It wasn’t the right species, but from the looks nobody could tell the difference. SY - Yeah, I never knew - I always call them junipers to distinguish them from white cedars. So you were promoted from the pest control to be state forester? BG - No, this is another thing that is interesting. Ralph Winkworth, when he became state forester after Claridge, reorganized the whole operation of the central office. Rather than having a fire control branch and a pest control branch and a management branch, and in those days we also had something called the nursery branch, he reorganized in kind of a military style, where you had operations that got the work done and you had administration that provided the background for the operations to do it. And then the field organization that did the work. So, I went into the job as head of the operations section. I didn’t have any line control over the field, but I had the responsibility to see that what went on in the field was done the best way possible. From a training standpoint to an inspection standpoint. I guess those were the two main functions. I worked in that job for about 10 years too. When Winkworth died, then I became state forester. SY - From being head of operations. BG - Yes. SY - What kind of duties did the state forester have? BG - Mainly to have ultimate responsibility for all the work that’s done throughout the state in fire control and forest management and pest control. Also to keep the nurseries producing the seedlings that you need. SY - So it was primarily administration? BG - It’s that plus keeping track of the organization, and that may be considered administration, I don’t know, but I always thought of administration, you were mainly doing it behind a desk. I always made it a policy to be in the field half the time. SY - So you would know what was going on?
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BG - In fact, making the people appreciative of what they were doing. So that they knew that somebody knew what they were doing and appreciated it. In fact, Joe Grimsley, who is the Secretary of Natural Resources, when I was state forester, he once told me...and our division was the largest division in the department, we had about 1000 people working...he always spoke well of the job I was doing in that regard. He always appreciated that. SY - Did you have to get involved much in politics in that job, or could you pretty much stick to forestry? BG - You had to get involved in politics; of course politics is a dirty word. My involvement, and I didn’t consider it so. Mainly, in order to get needed funding, you have to let the legislature know what you’re doing. SY - So mostly communicating what your purpose was, what you were doing, what your needs were? BG - Yes, why you needed certain laws or money. There’s one other thing. We had a forestry advisory committee and they were political. Each governor would appoint those and I think it was kind of a payoff to them to let them be on an official board of the state. But they were very helpful if you used them right. You could show them a need, then they were in a position where they could go somewhere and tell somebody that could be helpful to you. SY - So they’d be a political resource. BG - Yes. END
5. Scott Wallinger Oral History Interview, January 27, 2000, Roanoke, VA Susan Yarnell - What were your interests and activities related to forestry, and what has your professional role been within forestry? SW -Within the company (Westvaco) right now, or up until a couple of months ago, I have had three areas of responsibility, two of which involve forestry to one degree or another. One is the responsibility for all of the company's export sales around the world. My only relationship to forestry there was in talking to customers about forest practices and where our wood came from to supply the mills. The Forest Resources Division of Westvaco reports to me, so of course, that was a direct involvement in forestry. In addition, our Brazilian subsidiary reports to me, and that is an integrated company with operations in forest plantations and paper mills, and corrugated container folding carton plants. The context for my forestry for the last ten years has been through those three reporting organizations. SY - Mostly business administration sorts of things? SW - Overall management activities, but really, because our forest resources division has very large, very diverse up-to-date programs, and with our research arguably the largest and most diverse industrial forestry research operation in the world, we're doing a lot of things that are right on the cutting edge of forestry. So that has kept my hand in directly, but also the past two years I have become increasingly involved in global activities, part of the ad hoc chief executive officers' dialogue process that was convened by James Wolfenson (?) the President of the World Bank. SY - How did you become active? SW - It was expected within Westvaco. I was in wood procurement, and buying and selling wood is a contact business. Going to chapter meetings, I got to know Forest Service people handling timber sales on National Forests,
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and consulting foresters whom we were trying to buy wood from, and the owners they represented. I started work for Westvaco in January. In February, my boss said, "Edisto Chapter meets tonight. Let's go!" SY -So the company was supportive. SW - It was. I feel fortunate that our company has always supported our people's participation, for as long as I'm aware, in the SAF and the state associations. The company reimburses dues as long as the employee is actively involved, serving on a committee, holding office, not just attending monthly meetings. Westvaco values the professional education and company relationships that result from active participation, so a large number of Westvaco foresters are represented in the APSAF. SY - What kinds of roles did you take? SW - I don't remember the first project. I became a chapter officer, then chairman. Later I was chair of the state division and the APSAF. In 1974, I was elected to the national council for three years. SY - What kinds of issues were important to foresters? SW - There is always a thread of core issues related to forest management, especially how to reach the huge, diverse population of private forest owners and encourage or help them manage their forests. Probably prior to 1970, and back into forestry school, there weren't huge issues that we were fighting. Industry focus was on its own plantations, not public controversy. The issues were more technical and economic trying to find better ways to do things. SY - Was that a focus in the APSAF? SW - It was common throughout the APSAF. With the formation of the EPA and the beginning of regulatory issues on a national level, the APSAF began to get involved in those issues: Monongahela in the early 1970s, and furor over clearcutting, although it was originally confined to the National Forests. The issues related to the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and the big debate regarding land use planning were important, too. Later, wetlands became an issue and also the Endangered Species Act. Whether there should be state forest practice acts was a recurring question over the years. It would become dormant, then something would provoke it again. There was a big debate in the1970s as environmental issues arose over whether west coast-type forest practice acts (Oregon, Washington State, and California were very regulatory) whether to implement those in the South to settle issues and remove public confrontation. But people in the South were not ready for regulatory acts, and the issue died down. Another issue in the 1970s, which continues to flare up is the property taxes on forest land. I was very much involved in South Carolina's legislation to assess forest land on the basis of use as timberland rather than potential use. Tax assessors were projecting use of land for shopping centers or housing developments and subdivisions in a broad ring around any town. Foresters were very much involved in changing that. If you tax property as forestland with valuation as forest land appropriate relative to revenues from reasonably managed forest, the owner can pay the tax. Taxing land for development value creates a self-fulfilling promise. The owner must sell the land to developers to pay his taxes. Bill Milliken, a consulting forester in South Carolina who owns Milliken Consulting Forestry and probably one of the most powerful people in that whole area, was key in South Carolina as a recognized expert on forest land taxation. SY - What actions did APSAF take to encourage fair taxation? SW - First of all, the APSAF took a formal position supporting tax reform legislation. Individuals lobbied with county representatives and delegations. Legislators rely on constituents to for feedback on bills; foresters were very active on those issues. SY - How did the APSAF make sure there was a consensus on the issue
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Riding in the Gila Wilderness in the 1980s, when president of the American Forestry Association.
SW - We got it into the local newspapers and the larger newspapers, talked to civic organization and government clubs. SY - How far back do the position papers go? SW - Just before 1974, around 1970 to 1972. The SAF adopted a formal procedure; before that it was ad hoc. If an issue generated enough comment, then the state division or the APSAF or national level came up with a policy. Then the SAF developed a framework charting a forest policy which was a standing, core position used as a point a reference to develop specific positions on issues as they arose. So specific positions are judged as to whether they are consistent with the broader policy statement which the membership of SAF had developed. If the policy is silent on an issue, that doesn't mean don't take a position, but you need to think very carefully about committing the whole SAF to a position. SY - Was that a result of the political climate of the 1970s? SW - Yes. There were more issues coming along and there was a concern that umpteen chapters and all of the state societies taking positions, if you weren't careful, you'd have them taking conflicting positions, if not North Carolina and South Carolina, then Delaware or Oregon, on fundamental policy. As a profession, we ran the risk of people saying, "Yes, but that's not what foresters in another area have said." We had to find a way that we as professionals could speak with a consistent voice. SY - Communicate with each other first? SW - Yes. And we needed to develop positions more quickly. SY - Was it generally easy to get a consensus or did it vary? SW - It's hard to generalize, in the 1970s and 1980s. At least consensus on a state-wide basis. Normally, there weren't strong divisions among foresters in one state. Not on the clearcutting issue, or the endangered species issue, or taxation. On the other hand, in the SAF over the years and with the differences in forestry objectives and working conditions, North to South, East and West, federal, state, lumber industry, paper industry, consulting, what have you, sometimes you throw your hands up in bewilderment and wonder how 20,000 people could have as much diversity of vision and positions. Sometimes you feel lucky if you had something that 70% agreed to. Generally, we did not have that much division within the APSAF or the state level, for the most part. Year by year, we've had to work harder because of the diversity of professionals and their backgrounds. END
6. Kenney P. Funderburke, Jr., Oral History Interview, January 28, 2000, Roanoke, VA Susan Yarnell - We don’t need to do a lot of background, since I have various bios and directories, but if there’s any additional information you’d like to add, or materials you’d like to send me, that would be fine. KF - OK, I can send you certain information. Puffery. SY - We’ll start with where you went to school and what your interests were in forestry when you started out? KF - Courtesy of the Navy during World War II, I was a student at the University of North Carolina, in an officer candidate situation. They further sent me to Murray State University, Murray State Teacher’s College at that time, and to the University of Georgia in pre-flight school when I became a naval aviation cadet. After the war, I went back to Georgia, changed my major to forestry and did the bachelor’s work in 36 consecutive
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months. Enough is enough. I had enough GI time to do a Masters. I was 23 years old, married, and I wouldn’t have stayed two days more for two more degrees. I left there. My first job as a professional was Assistant District Forester at Walterboro, South Carolina with the South Carolina State Forestry Commission. I was the ADF for Forest Management. I was with them for nearly 13 months. Then through a friendship with a particular individual at Westvaco, who, when a vacancy occurred, asked me if I might have interest. He encouraged me and arranged an interview, which I did in Charleston and I was selected. Beginning a 40 year career, I joined Westvaco on January 20, 1951 and I retired May 1, 1991, which is a lifetime. I entered as a field forester in wood procurement for the Charleston mill. Which was one of the three largest in the world at the time and still is massive, between two other massive mills. Four of us logged the mill. I would leave home most times 5 o’clock in the morning on Monday and I got home 1 o’clock in the morning Saturday morning if not 1 o’clock in the evening, the afternoon on Saturdays. My territory ran down south to Starke, Florida. West to Americus, Georgia. Back up to Toccoa, Georgia in northeast Georgia and then in a line back along the Santee and Edisto rivers. I serviced about 25 wood dealers, some of whom shipped 50 cars of wood a week to us. I did most of their timber cruising, and lived happily ever after. SY – Boy, you were busy! KF - I was very busy. I jokingly say I was 6 feet tall when I started. One of my dealers, out of Waycross, Mr. A.V. Kennedy, had a field man named Marvin Strickland, and Marvin thought that I routinely could cruise three different parcels of timber in a day. A couple of 490 acre lots down in south Georgia, and by the way, on your way back to McRae, which was 75 miles away where I lived, I have this little piece of 55 acres I’d like you to stop and take a look at, too. But things worked out well. The opportunity then came to move to Waycross from McRae, where I lived at the time, or come back to South Carolina. Move into land acquisition and work for the man who had originally been my boss. There wasn’t much advantage in moving 80 miles and selling a house that I had lived in for 18 months, the first house that I had bought. So if you have to make the move, you might as well make the advantageous move as you view it. So I came back to South Carolina. The man for whom I had worked sort of took me under his wing. He gave me advice and opportunities insofar as other situations within the company were concerned. He was quite willing to let me go but six months to a year later, he brought me back. SY - Who was that? KF - James H. Graham. The icon in southern paper manufacturing. He was well known. I then moved from that to land acquisition in North Carolina. By this time, Westvaco had bought 300-aught thousand acres between the sounds, floating swamp. My job was to add good land to that we had already purchased and as my boss at the time when I reported to the interview for the job said, “I want you to make sure that we don’t buy any more of this stuff.” That’s hard to do, to run an acquisition program and not buy any more of this junk. Let’s be candid, it was a floating swamp, as I said. You could pick it up and throw it and be hit in the eye with a chunk of swamp tundra. As things occurred, I was then assigned to western North Carolina. I put together an application package at the opposite end of the spectrum. Instead of floating swamp, this was at the foot of the mountain. Piedmont stuff. That went along for a while until it became obvious that there was not going to be a successful land acquisition program there. You could buy the timber, but you could not buy the land. This is small farm country. Everybody works in town in the factories, but they live on the farm. They want to keep it. It is traditional, passed down through the family. So at that time my boss asked me where we should go, and I told him, to northeast Georgia. I moved back to Athens, this being the third time that I lived in that town. During the war as an aviation cadet, as a student after the war, then as a resident of the city. I put together a package there, got it started. We ultimately bought about 55,000 acres in that general area from Elberton to Athens down to Macon and back over to Augusta. At this time, in 1953, the company bought a little company in Brazil. It had at the time no plans for enlargement. By 1955, it was obvious that we needed to do something, and desired to do something, in Brazil, which was to build a new kraft mill somewhere down in the Paraná pine region of southern Brazil. Incidentally, Paraná pine is not a true pine. It’s a conifer, but it’s not of the genus pinus. The unique, beautiful, hard to reproduce, and marvelous tree. I picked up my boss one night at the Norfolk airport and we were driving down to Manteo, which was where our headquarters in eastern North Carolina was. I inquired what the future was for Brazil, what the prospects for
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forestry were within the company. He looked at me rather sharply and said, why? I said that I didn’t mean to inquire about things that were none of my affair, but I wanted to get my name at the head of the list. He said ok, and we then continued to talk about business affairs of the moment. About a year later, he called me and asked if I were serious? Are you still interested in the Brazil situation? I said yes and he said, I’ll call you back in a minute. This was on Saturday, and he had had some trouble finding me, because I was over in west Georgia looking at a piece of dirt over there. I waited, he called back and said Dave [Luke] wants to talk to you at 8 o’clock Monday morning in his office. Go to New York. “Sir?” [laughs]. So thirteen trips to New York later, I was the manager of forestry for Rigesa, the sub of Westaco in Brazil. SY - That’s quite a move. KF - Lengthy. The mill site that I chose was at Tres Barras in Santa Catarina, Brazil. We lived on the mill site which was 2500 acres. Built a house which was due in 6 months, it took a year and week for that house to be completed. My wife stayed in a hotel in Campenas in the state of Sao Paolo for 6 months while I commuted every week, two weeks, three weeks. We were 100 miles and more from the pavement, that being in Curitiba, the capital of the adjoining state of Paraná. We were 200 miles, in effect, from the nearest English-speaking people in the westerly direction. We were 450 miles from the end of the paved road, really. SY - When was this, that you went down there? KF - 1956, in February. I remained there as manager, hired staff, ran the whole program, everything from the accounting to the acquisition to the research to property management, repair and maintenance. Break it today and stay up all night fixing it. Break it again tomorrow, stay up again all night and fix it. I got off a Braniff DC-6 on a Sunday evening about 7 o’clock in Sao Paolo, and was met by the guy who was then the president, Bud Collette (?), who later became chairman of the board for Coleman-Matheson. I had known Bud previously and knew that I would enjoy working for him. In my multiple trips back and forth getting ready to make the household move, I came back down to Brazil, walked into Bud’s office, and he said, “Sit down, I hate to tell you this, but I’m leaving the company and going back to the States. Going to work for Travis McClendon in Louisiana. The production manager, John Wheeler is going to become the Director President of the company.” OK. Makes no difference. And it didn’t, really. The program was successful. But to go back, I got off that plane not knowing more than three words of Portuguese, which I had picked up while reading magazines, adventure stories. Monday was spent in orientation around the office, the headquarters of the mill, the little mill that we had in the little city of Valinhos. On Tuesday, I boarded a DC-3 along with the Brazilian director, who spoke English. This aircraft a Varig, probably the best airline in Latin America. We promptly lost the left engine on take off. A real introduction to South American aviation! A couple of hours later, after the pilot had finally crammed it back down on the concrete, we got another Varig DC-3 and made the trip down to Curitiba. Hired a taxi, established a long-lasting friendship with the taxi driver. Used him frequently, and hit the red dirt trail for Tres Barras. I was then dumped in the Hotel Sholtze (?), which was a wooden hotel, and we’d better put quote marks around hotel. It was reminiscent of a Swiss or German challet, and I had an introduction to the fleas that infest humans. When the dots in the rice at dinner began to move, I began to lose weight. A fortunate situation developed—on the next corner of the same block, there was a snooker parlor, pool hall, sorbetería or ice cream parlor, and beer hall all combined. The proprietor was named Arlindo Cordero, and Arlindo kept a massive dictionary under the counter of that place. He called that dictionary his mensa burro, the jackass tamer. He knew that when I was quasi-mute, as far as the language was concerned, and trying to learn it by reading all the signs as I walked down the street and mimicking everyone. He made sure that I was careful to mimic those who spoke correctly. So I learned Portuguese. My first assignment was to survey with a Bronton pocket compass and a cloth 25 meter tape, that 2500 acres. So I hired 2 guys, with lots of arm-waving and shouting and pointing. They taught me Portuguese of a sort, and I taught them how to swear lustily in English within two weeks. Things worked out well. I remained there as manager for five years. Was succeeded by Walter Penny and came back to the States as Assistant Manager of the Timber Sales Department of the company. I toiled in that until the death of my boss in a traffic accident. Then certain political moves were made and there was a reshuffling of the department. I handed over that department, which was split in two, and moved to Appomattox, Virginia, better known as Happy Valley. And tried to change all the signs from Lee and Grant to Lee, Grant, and Funderburke. To a degree I was successful, a limited degree. At that time, I was responsible for the timber production on five woodlands, North Carolina woodlands, 300,000 acres. Plateau woodlands in Pennsylvania, 55,000 acres. West Virginia woodlands,
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which at that time was 112,000 acres. The budding Central woodlands, which was in early stages of acquisition, and Virginia woodlands which had about 150,000 to 170,00 acres at that time. I kept Piedmont Airlines solvent. I wore out many suits in the back seats of their birds. I’ll stop now, and get just a sip of water. SY – OK KF - There are certain things that stand out. When I lived in McRae, Georgia, and for 6 months that I was with the company, I remained in Walterboro, then was transferred down to McRae where I bought the house. My first house. And therein was a lesson learned. I lived in it 13 months, lacking three days, and swore I would never buy another house. I made 19 major moves with Westvaco, when I finally bought a house, the company’s stock collapsed! (Laughs) No, not quite, but several people fainted. That was in 1978. From 1953 to 1978, I did not own a house. But I worked with a number of characters, some of whose names you’ve heard. But the one that stood out the most was a guy with a competing company, Charlie Williams with Gair Woodlands, Southern Paperboard Corporation, Con Alcan, as it later worked out. He worked out of Port Wentworth, Georgia. Charlie and I would cruise the same pieces of timber, we saw each other at least once every two weeks because we were cruising the same tract of timber, be it near Starke, Florida or be it near Toccoa, Georgia or be it elsewhere. And we would probably have dinner in the house, the home of a wood dealer in McRae at least once a month. We’d have scrambled eggs, a dozen or so, and a pound or two of bacon with this particular wood dealer who was married to a beautiful girl who had once been a New York fashion model. A native of McRae, Georgia. Charlie and I would sit down when we met running the same cruise lines in opposite directions through the woods, discuss the number of rattlesnakes we’d met that day. Smoke a pipe of tobacco, tell a few lies, and get up and go on our separate ways. He’d tell me that his outfit was going to buy the land or the timber, and I’d tell him the same. There were occasions when I had an option in my shirt pocket which I didn’t mention to him when he would tell me that they were going to buy that piece of land. But having the option in my shirt, I knew that that was not the case. I did the same thing to a friend, a classmate named Aubrecht(?) Whitfield up in North Carolina. He was with IP and we had met one day in the woods, had a marvelous reunion, and I didn’t mention the fact that I had just picked up that morning the option for that piece of property. In Brazil...I had a friend named Bob Fast who said, “Life in the raw is seldom mild.” There are gory stories of Brazil. I carried a 38 on my hip. All of my khakis had a slick spot on the right side from my holster rubbing and all of the suits that I had made for me down there, when I came back to the States were just a little loose in the left breast, because my dress gun went there. My wife’s little 38 special with a 2 inch barrel. I was a member of the Rotary Club there and we met at night. On one occasion I came down off the mountains where we had armed bands of horseback riders, this was wild west country. Death was not far away at any time. I came down off the hill wearing field clothes and boots. There was a traveling salesman in the bar, a Rotarian from the metropole, where ever that was. We sat from 6 o’clock to 7 or so, 3 or 4 of us in the bar as the Rotary members began to assemble prior to the meeting. And when the meeting called and we had to leave and go into the dining room, I got up and headed for the dining room with the other members and this stranger. He was startled that I was a member and that I wasn’t wearing a suit and was going into a meeting of “leading lights.” The Rotarian among us, one of the three, was a major sawmiller and he explained that only a fool walked in the mountains unarmed. The guy learned a little bit about his country then. A little background - there is a saying among the service clubs: Rotary owns the town, Kiwanis runs the town, Lions enjoy the town. In my 39 years as a Rotarian, I was vice-president of the club in Brazil and asked to accept nomination for the presidency, but the wisdom of a good older friend, who counseled me not to, for a number of reasons. Political, social, so as not to offend anyone who had not held office, et cetera. It was a wise move, and declined to accept the nomination. But I was vice-president there and I have been president twice of one club in West Virginia, vice-president and president twice. And I have twice been a member and am currently a member of the Rotary Club of Summerville, South Carolina. It totals up to almost 40 years and I am an active Rotarian. Back to Brazil, the button, the Rotary pin, has gotten me into more places where I could not otherwise have gone than any other thing that I could have possibly worn, carried, bought, or given. To get to the governor’s office, the Rotary button, Rotary badge, gets me into the governor’s office. And into all of the places where I have had to go. It’s gotten me into the same offices in Brazil, in the various states where I did see the governor for whatever reason. So, there’s a great social consciousness in Brazil; it is changing, but there’s a thin veneer of the ultra-rich at the top, then there’s a very narrow band of the so-called middle class. Then there’s the vast remainder, with the major exception of the subdivision of the very bottom of the economic and social strata. The Rotarians are generally found in the top two. The professionals, business owners, industrialists, medicos, et cetera, administrative types in the universities. Not altogether dissimilar from here in the States, but a marked difference in the cut-off based on the
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level, and subtle discrimination on the basis of race, on the basis of economics. Not so subtle on the basis of economics. After five years down there, we had grown from 2500 acres to about 25,000 with options on another 30,000 or so, about 55,000 acres. Ready to be closed. I came back to the States. I had taken an assignment for 3 to 5 years and then took a look at it. I did my 5 years. We were childless when we went to Brazil, had been told that my wife could not have children. One day I took her 425 miles over two rut-roads that were supposed to be highways to Joinville(?) to get the necessary exit papers from Brazil to come back to the States on vacation. And back to Tres Barras. The roads were so bad, that my undershirt, and I was wearing a khaki shirt, the jouncing up and down behind the steering wheel rolled my undershirt up between my armpits, across my back just like a window shade. Within a month, my wife became pregnant, and I swear to this day that the 425 miles in the pickup over those roads opened up the plumbing. This is personal, but we had done all the tests, she had been xrayed, filled with oil - you can’t photograph air, so I think that’s the Reuben test when they pump you full of oil and x-ray you. There were no fallopian tubes visible, no connection from the ovaries. So I say that ride opened up the plumbing. Anyway, I didn’t believe her, but it turned out that she was. Things didn’t work out on that one, but a few months later, I came in one day and she says “Hey, I think I’m pregnant.” I said, you’ve got to be kidding. We’ll go out to Curitiba and do the frog test, so we went out to the capital of the adjoining state, Curitiba, and did the necessary test. A couple of weeks later by mail came the news that the frog had died. Well that’s great, but let’s go back and do the rabbit test, just to make sure. A little second opinion. Went back, did the same thing, in the mail the letter came that the rabbit died. So she was pregnant. We had two sons born down there, both of whom, incidentally are foresters and both of whom are employed by Westvaco, and both have identical jobs in two different regions! At the end of the five years, the second child was two months old, and the older boy was two. To re-up would have brought about problems of education. There were problems, not of health, we were healthy as pigs, but of medical care. It was a long way to adequate facilities, and so forth. So I elected not to remain, and told the company. They brought down a guy and we had about a five month overlap so that he could become acclimated. And I could transfer over all the accumulated knowledge and wisdom. We came back and I resumed my career, as I was talking about, in sales. In due time, certain things happened. A company came to use and wanted to sell a rather substantial land holding in West Virginia, which was and is tributary to the Covington, Virginia mill. I made the appraisal on that Gauley Coal Company land and at the same time I made an appraisal on the Meadow River Lumber Company’s holdings. That was around 41,000 acres of bank, railroad, a complete town, and so on. The 160,000 acres - about 125,000 acres of fee and 40,000 acres of mineral-only ownership that Gauley had—was offered to us at a price. The Meadow River 41,000 acres, which was intermingled much like a checkerboard with the Gauley lands, was priced so that I couldn’t reduce the per acre price of the land net down to the competitive level of Gauley’s land. So, we bought the Gauley Coal Company’s holdings and declined to but Meadow River, which Georgia Pacific promptly acquired. Having appraised and acquired the land, negotiated the purchase, I was summoned to South Carolina and told, OK you bought it, now you run it. I was named manager and told to obtain the documents and register them and get off the hill and not come back to that operation until Monday the 4th of January, 1971, which I did. With 30 inches of snow on the ground, there having been no snow on the 19th of December when I registered those deeds. My boss sent me up there and said, “Kenney, you go to West Virginia and you let them know when you come in the door that you came to run it.” And he gave me some other instructions: you become spokesman for forestry of Westvaco in West Virginia and you become spokesman for the industry in West Virginia, and don’t offend anyone, so you don’t really let them know that that’s what you’re going to do. Do it subtly. And there were some other things. I survived there for 17 years, and we prospered. A marvelous, marvelous operation. We had improvement, management, sales. We had coal, we were the lessors; we had a number of major coal operations mining on us. We had oil and gas operations upon us; they didn’t teach me these things in forestry school. When you’re a mile down in the bowels of the earth, in 30 inch high coal seam, down on your hands and knees. Or when you’re standing there with a mechanized miner roaring in your ear as it scratches and claws the coal out from the face of the seam, you wonder – bluntly, what the hell am I doing here? But, as my boss said, you don’t have to go underground. And I said, if I don’t know what the conditions are, haven’t seen them myself, how will I know what my man is telling me and how I should react to what he tells me? So we had a learning experience. West Virginia is peculiar in that it is a populist state. It’s a yellow dog democrat state; you do know what a yellow dog democrat is? One that will vote for a yellow dog before he will vote for a Republican. All corporations that are not “native” to West Virginia are “furriners.” They have come to rape the land, steal from the people, take their heritage. They conveniently forget that they didn’t have any money to develop anything in West Virginia when it was formed, and thus they had to rely upon “furrin” capital. They never failed to let you know, when they cite your employer’s name, that it’s a New York-based corporation. It’s not a West Virginia entity, no matter how much it
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contributes. I love West Virginia, absolutely love it. It’s the best kept secret east of the Mississippi River, as far as I know. I enjoyed living there. It’s far different from the image that most people in the United States hold. It has its problems and there are regions in the state that are not particularly desirable as a place to live. But the Green Briar Valley of West Virginia is as a great a place to live as anyone could ever want. It’s socially a detached part of Virginia, politically a part of West Virginia. In 1987, my boss came to me...well in Christmas of ‘86, we were talking and I said to him, I’m going to go at 65, and I’m going to retire where there is no snow, after 17 West Virginia, read Siberian, winters. If there’s anything down south that you think I might be interested in, that I might fit in, then I would like to be considered for one of those situations. In April, I guess it was, he called me and explained that there were some things that the management wanted done. If I were interested, as he recalled our conversation at Christmas, this is what he would do, so far as classifying and grading the job, adjusting my salary, giving me latitude, setting the parameters and so forth. Incidentally, in my career, I probably had more freedom, more independent working conditions, than anyone that I know. Certainly, anyone within the corporation. I was given an assignment, and my theory about work is: you tell me what you want then you get the hell out of my way and I’ll go get it for you. Just that. And pay me. That’s the name of the game. They were kind in all those respects. In 1987, I moved back to South Carolina. We created a situation; I was a one-man department and manager of new business ventures for the division. And we investigated, or I investigated non-traditional forestry and land use. Looking for acquisitions, we investigated biotechnology, the acquisition of certain biotech start-up companies. Re-manufacturing plants. Lumber mills. We had our own lumber mills, primary breakdown stuff. But these were other companies that were specialty operations. There were odd things that entered into this. I bought a seed orchard from a large company that was divesting itself of land. That seed orchard happened to have the clones that Westvaco wanted and used, a primary source of seed and type of seed. The piece of property had great potential; both for industry and land development. That’s just one of many things. I continued to wear out suits in the back of airplanes all this time. In 1991, April 3rd came along and I had said that I would retire after becoming 65 and reaching a double goal: one was to retire at the age of 65. I was not going to die in harness. Going to begin another life. The second goal was, when I came with the company, I was 24 years old, in fact I was 23 and had to wait 3 or 4 months to get into the retirement plan at that time because I wasn’t of age. But it gave me an opportunity to do 40 years with the company. I had many opportunities to leave. I was interviewed for vice-presidency by two major companies. It didn’t take very long for us to come to an understanding that we were not going to be blissful jointly, and I declined. I declined the one offer and the offer was not made by the other. Which we understood that the door was closed and there was no point in discussing it further. So on May 1, I didn’t go back to work. May 1, 1991. And I have lived happily ever after doing all this good stuff. That was my career. SY - When did you join the SAF for the first time? KF - 1950. I am half as old as the Society is. It was formed in December of 1900. I joined it in January of 1950 and it’s now January of 2000. In the SAF, I have been everything except the president. Vice-president. I ran twice for that, the only time in the history of the organization that there were four candidates. I finished second and lost to a very good man. The following year, I re-upped, didn’t learn very much. I ran second by 14 votes. Eight votes would have swung the election. In a discussion with some friends over a small libation later, we were talking. One of them said, eight votes would have swung it, Kenney. I said I guess I needed to know eight more people. One of my dear friends and fierce competitors said, hell no, Kenney, the problem is eight too many people knew you! SY - Friends like that! KF - He’s dead now. I didn’t kill him, though there were many times I would have. SY - Was there any presence of SAF when you were in school? KF - I don’t recall; we had a forestry club and we had Xi Sigma Pi, the honorary forestry fraternity. I don’t recall at that time there having been a student chapter of SAF. SY - They hadn’t started that at that point.
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KF - That school was founded in 1906, the oldest forestry school in the South; this is Georgia. It was the George Foster Peabody School of Forestry, Peabody being a philanthropist. Things change, and it’s now the Warnell School of Forest Resources because there was a million dollars slapped down for the privilege of buying the name. Which not a negative. SY - No, a million dollars can buy a lot. You joined SAF... KF - Right out of school. SY - When you joined Westvaco? KF - When I started with the state. SY - What kind of a role did SAF play in your early career, or did you play in SAF during your early career? KF - I was an active chapter member. The membership in the SAF exposed me to a great number of prominent foresters. I worked for Charlie Flory, the long-time State Forester of South Carolina, who was a fine gentleman. Probably the first real professional, possibly, in the job as State Forester of South Carolina. And Charlie would have a drink with you, and he would play poker with you. He’s taken my money more than once. A number of prominent foresters. END [Editor’s note: We sadly report Kenney’s death March 9, 2019 in Summerville, SC at age 92. If you knew him you knew he was bigger than life. If you didn’t know him you wished you had. We carried a brief one page tribute in the Spring 2019 Trail Blazer.]
7. Rhett Bickley Oral History Interview, Roanoke, Virginia, January 28, 2000 Susan Yarnell - To start out, let me get a little personal information. Where did you start out, as far as your forestry education went? RB - I went to Clemson, 1960, graduated in four and a half years, which was de rigueur back then. It was a very heavy weeding process. I graduated in January of 1965. Spent six months in the Army Reserves and spent a year with Bartley Tree Experts in Atlanta. Doing urban forestry, horticultural kinds of things, arboricultural. Then I came with the Forestry Commission in 1966, SY - When you were at Clemson, was the SAF involved with students? RB - Yes, I think that I was probably a student member, back then in that post-World War II environment, everything was very structured and very orderly. Very German! SAF was a good part of our lives, no more so than as students. You are involved peripherally, if there is a meeting close at hand you might go to it. Then when I became involved with the Commission sometime about 1966, or ‘67, I became a member and I’ve been a member since. SY - So the SAF was present, but not a very major part of the school experience at the time? RB - Well, I think more so then, although we’ve worked very hard to make it that in recent years. But it was a presence. It’s hard to put on a scale. You know, students much prefer to do things that are more contemporary. There was a student club where students cut firewood and sold firewood and put up exhibits. That was where everyone went, but the SAF did have a presence. SY - So you first joined SAF?
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RB - I became an active member in 1966 or ‘67 when I came to work for the South Carolina Forestry Commission. SY - What kind of role did SAF play in your early career? RB - Well, it’s very interesting, or interesting to me. Back then, in the Forestry Commission, in that 40-year-old white male environment, there was a law, a policy that you had be a member of SAF. We became members of SAF. There was leadership involvement, so we were involved. I think, within the first two years that I was a member of SAF, we had meetings over at Florence, SC, and very shortly I was elected secretary because I was secretarytreasurer one year. I either rose to vice-chairman the next year but I was moved to Walterboro, so I did not finish out my rotation. I spent three years on the state forest and I was an officer in the Peedee Chapter, then I moved to Walterboro. I continued to be involved. A couple of years later, I was elected secretary-treasurer. Before I made it through that rotation, I came to Columbia! Then I was involved in the Central Carolina Chapter of the SAF. So the SAF’s been a little part of what I’ve done with my life. SY - What kinds of concerns and activities have been important in the chapters? RB - [chuckles] I think two things—there’s always the concern that the SAF doesn’t do enough, or it’s expensive for what we get. I know I was asked to speak in 1973 at a Society meeting and I was ready to come blasting out that the magazine is not as good as we need, and there’s all these other things. After I’d agreed to speak, Davis MacGregor, who was the Society chair putting the program together that year said, “OK, Rhett, now be positive.” [laughs] So I had to research on our membership, and on how much money of our membership was spent on active programs. How large a population we had to draw from. The salaries of foresters compared to others. And I came up with some positive comments about why we needed the Society of American Foresters. Why it was a good deal and why it was a reasonable price. Those have always been reoccurring questions—what we needed was a good $5 professional organization; that’s what we needed. The other thing, if you go back through the literature, I’ve seen the literature back as early as the 1930s, and you’re talking about planting trees and fighting forest fires. Those are the recurring themes until the last 30 years. SY - I was talking last night with Scott Wallinger and Kenney Funderburke and a couple of other Westvaco people... RB - Wonderful views of the world! SY - They were solving the problems of the world. RB - Kenney’s going to do that! What you listen to from Scott is from real authoritative substance. Kenny has so much knowledge, and he has such a broad . . . you really need to talk with Kenney a lot of hours. And then you’re going to have to synthesize, because you’re going to get English quotations, you’re going to get ribald poetry from bars, you’re going to get world experiences, it’s a wonderful experience...I would say two hours, let him go, and you will get a lot of unique stuff. SY - Was getting people involved in the SAF a big part of your activities or trying to communicate... RB - My activities or the SAF’s activities? SY - Either or both. RB - I don’t recall more than 20 years ago much time devoted on membership. I’m sure there was some, but there was probably that thing that Gifford Pinchot created in that military German forester tradition, there was an elitism. You were there because you were the best of the best of the best. In the last twenty years, somewhere between 1965 and ‘75 and all of the things that happened in the world, economic pressures, social and organizational pressures, plus my own involvement at a higher level. I was involved at the local chapter level 20 years ago, about 20 years ago I ran for division chair, was not successful. Some work took me out of active forestry about ten years ago, and then I got involved again at the national level, served on the Mission Possible task force. Then these last ten to twenty years you see a lot of organizational struggles, to serve membership’s needs and to grow your population, and to represent forestry, and to get people involved in the profession and in the organization. There’s been almost a transition or shift to this time.
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SY - What do you think caused that shift? RB - Social, population, economics. I read a good bit, and I’m reading a good one right now on Hillary Clinton, on the white-glove rebels of Wellesley 1969. In ‘65, when they went to school and I graduated in ‘65, they went to school to get an MRS degree - they were there as genetic material to be spouse to successful husbands, and that changed for them between 1965 and ‘69. Those things have happened in our society, for whatever reason. I think it’s the economic pressures of the world. There are more people vying for resources and dollars. It’s a much more cutthroat world for us who’ve been sheltered and protected for all of this time. Real world. SY - A response to things becoming more complicated, basically? RB - Yes, I’ve heard some very ultra-traditional foresters on the Forest Commission, ten years ago talking about environmental things, water quality and streams, the man had been there - retired last year with 30-something years. Said in a meeting about eight years ago, “If I or we in this meeting had said five years ago what we are saying today, we would have been run out of the room for heresy.” Those were not subjects that were part of the discussion. SY - What kind of issues were important? When you first started. RB - One of the cute things I like to say is, on the first forestry test that I took at Clemson, there was one question on it. Bob Shipman was the professor, whom I met later on at a national SAF meeting in Washington. The first question on the first forestry test that I had to take at Clemson after I’d been there about a year and a half, was: Why did you major in forestry? And the answer in 1961 was to make more money. That was the answer. Cold. It was simply viewed as an investment of your time and money, and now you’re going to make more money, which could be argued both ways. I missed it, because I talked about working in the environment and being out of doors and I missed it. I told Bob Shipman that he was wrong, that was the wrong answer to the question in 1960, and it’s definitely the wrong answer to the question today. What was your question? SY - We were just talking about things becoming more complicated and what issues were important, what was important in forestry. RB - Then, we were looking at post-World War, everything was structured, it was simple timber stand improvement. We spent time out in the woods cutting down little small inferior trees and doing timber stand improvement. A lot of the warm and fuzzy things to land, things that seemed appropriate; the first issue that came along was when I was working up on the Sandhills State Forest in Chesterfield, South Carolina. A 90,000 acre state forest that we had virtually eradicated both the longleaf pine and the scrub oak. Because they were referred to by George Washington and others as the pine barrens, scrub oaks and sand hills with scattered longleaf pine. Following the Civil War, with the poverty in the Southeast, they had been turpentined. Now you had these cat-faced trees that were scarred up ten to fifteen feet and flattop longleaf pines. We as young foresters went out and clearcut the longleaf pine and bulldozed the scrub oaks, then cleared up the land for a contractor who would rent from us the rights to grow watermelon on that land for a year. This would prepare it for a pine seedbed or pine regeneration. We would come back in and plant slash pine then. That was still during our love affair with slash pine. That was what forestry was all about. I spent several years, or a few years, spraying 100s of acres with 2,4-D. Quite frankly, there may be some problems with it mimicking estrogen, we’ll have to find out later, but because of the public furor over Agent Orange, 2,4,5-T, trichlorophenol or whatever, that herbicide was taken off the market. I believe that there was nothing to it, just media hype. SY - Because it was similar. RB - It didn’t matter. I don’t think it hurts us. DDT supposedly weakened egg shells, but I think that 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T were politically jettisoned for the Nixon Administration. I was spraying thousands of acres of 2,4-D in 1966, ‘66, ‘68. Later on I read an article in Reader’s Digest on a little place in Serviso, Italy where this where trichlorophenol, I may be getting the name wrong, the chemical that contained dioxin, that minute chemical in 2,4,5T, the tank exploded. The birds flying through the air fell dead. They dismantled the factory, they evacuated the people, and they buried the factory in the ocean and dioxin was the most toxic substance known to man. And I’ve read everything that I could lay my hands on for 25 years, and never found anywhere that dioxin ever killed anyone.
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It will cause chloracne. They’re still scared right now of the chlorination process in papermaking, dioxin is a part of that fear. Now they’re going completely to oxygen bleaching or something that doesn’t include chlorine. But in my reading for thirty years, I’ve never found record that dioxin was a problem. SY- I’ve never known why they bleach coffee filters anyway, they’re going to turn brown almost immediately [laughs]. RB - We love white paper. We do things that may or may not make sense. SY - The Vietnam War then, started a lot of public awareness of herbicides, is that what you’re saying? RB - The Wellesley book, the girls were rebelling against the leadership of society and that role that women were staying at home. They were rebelling on behalf of minorities, of blacks. There were five black girls in that class. They were rebelling against the social order, they were rebelling against their mothers’ roles. They were rebelling against sex and against drugs. Then these young men were being killed in Vietnam in this unfair war, so they were rebelling in general. The 2,4,5-T was just an irritant to create public awareness and dissension. Media Hype. I have a degree in forestry, but I have a bachelor’s and worked with the media for many years. The media is an interesting animal. Working in public relations, I can take any message and I can spin it up or I can spin it down according to what you need, the constituency. There is no truth in the world that I live in. But once something goes into the public psyche, prescribed burn, clearcutting, herbicides, then you can’t argue with it. The foresters can stand over here and talk about how wonderful clearcutting is as a regeneration method for shade-intolerant trees that can not exist without. They just don’t understand it. The other group says over here, “It’s ugly.” I don’t like the thought of cutting a tree down. There was a man who 10 or 15 years ago came to America from France and did a lot of work. He had done work in France on how we as young children, infants, make road maps into our brain of what things are. Some interesting work. In France everything has gender, male or female. Here we have neuter things. In France, cheese is alive. Over here, cheese has been killed and it’s been put in a refrigerator. He told us, as foresters, we can’t be going around talking about cutting down trees. It’s like the beef industry telling you, “We killed a bunch of cows for you today.” It’s not what you do! You can talk about family pleasures, about all of the things that happen when you eat a hamburger, or have a good time. But you don’t show the cow being killed and gutted. But the foresters want to say, “Clearcutting is wonderful.” SY - Maybe not the most effective way to get the message across. RB - It’s the absolute worst by some people, but here again, the foresters are very good pragmatists. They are very good at many things. They think that because they watch TV, therefore they are good communicators. You get into these mind-set arguments. Bridges go up, and we become defensive, and crystallized in our positions, and we scream. Nothing happens except we lose. SY - There’s also been some comments that since the early years of forestry, the message has been basically “plant trees and stop wildfire” then you turn around and say “Clearcut and prescribed burn” and people go “huh?” They find it contradictory. RB - Yes, there’s a lot of that. I am too much of a realist—I realize that in South Carolina, most of all the trees we’ve been planting, we’ve been planting the same areas over and over, because those are the quick productive good ones. Many areas in South Carolina have probably been planted two or three times. There’s a whole lot of land that gets cut and God re-seeds it, or nothing happens. I’m a bird hunter. Bird hunting, when quail existed, were dependent on annual fires to open up the woods, so you could hunt. But I have sat on both sides, done public relations for fire prevention and trying to embrace prescribed burning. When Hurricane Hugo came through South Carolina, 10 years ago, we did a fire prevention campaign post-Hugo that was, on record, the most expensive, the most comprehensive, most intensive forest fire prevention campaign in the history of the world. The government gave us $1 million to do a fire prevention campaign on the four million acres that were destroyed by Hugo. We hit prescribed burning very, very hard. I mean, the rural burning. The public doesn’t understand fire, they don’t like smoke in their clothes, they don’t like smoke in their houses. They have expectations. More than 10 years ago in the South, we were very comfortable with fire. We knew fires burned all the time some places, some places the public attitude was, you just let it burn. We really made an impact on uncontrolled wildfires ten years ago. So, yes, that is an evolution to people.
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And now we’re saying that we need prescribed burning, and we will almost surely lose it. The only way you can say prescribed burning is for the benefits that it provides for unique species. Red-cockaded woodpecker, trumpet creeper, Venus flytrap. That’s really the only justification, because you can bush-hog. You can treat with chemicals. You can do a lot of vegetative control without the liability of smoke. The fire’s not the problem, see, the smoke’s what’s the problem. SY - A lot of people are against the chemicals as well, though. RB - Yes. And bush-hogging is expensive. You use a lot of gasoline. Everything we do is an energy trade-off. That’s the thing that most people don’t understand. We could shut down clearcutting or timber harvesting in the Pacific Northwest. We can come here and get it as long as we can. When it’s more convenient, we go to South America and bring those trees. Which is the greater trade-off? We are not smart enough to know what the trade-offs are. END
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Chapter 11 Environmentalism and the APSAF Most foresters are quick to point out that foresters have been active in protecting and restoring the natural resources in this country long before environmental concern became the dominant issue it is today. The earliest practicing foresters, including Gifford Pinchot and Carl Schenck, were among the first advocates for environmental awareness in this country. Even so, it wasn’t uncommon in the past for considerable site damage to occur during harvesting operations. Related issues, such as habitat protection, were often not factored into management planning. Federal and state regulatory requirements greatly increased in the 1960s and 70s, addressing a number of activities including standards for wetlands, plant and animal habitat, and water and air quality. Also, local municipal edicts increased in many locations. As a result of this, forest management planning and scrutiny became more complex and comprehensive. SAF, state and federal forestry agencies, forest industry, forestry consultants, and schools increased focus on developing compliance guidelines, such as BMPs, smoke management standards and criteria for management of various habitats. While an unlimited number of actions, conflicts and issues could be identified for inclusion in this chapter, the experiences and perspectives of two long term APSAF members, Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr. and Bob Emory, are presented to give an overview of issues and actions that encapsulate changes that most APSAF members have experienced during their careers.
Foresters have always been Environmentalists by Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr., CF Virginia Division SAF, January 2017
Earth Day, April 22, 1970. Sitting on the Virginia Tech Drill Field listening to the speakers and music on that first Earth Day, I had no clue Earth Day would still be celebrated forty-seven years later or that the “Environmental Movement” would grow to what it is today. Why should an “Environmental Movement” be of concern to foresters? After all, we have always worn the “white hats.” And, as a popular SAF bumper sticker once proclaimed “Foresters Were the First Environmentalists.” My innocence lasted until the first day of Dr. William Leuschner’s Forest Policy class. What? There are people out there who don’t always agree with everything foresters do? I 189
learned about the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley, the difference between “preservation” and “conservation,” and there seemed to be some question as to whether everything was done properly on a national forest in West Virginia named Monongahela. Dr. Leuschner took us to a public hearing on the Jefferson National Forest New Castle Ranger District, and I learned pretty quickly how deeply people care about the environment. I also learned that there are many different ideas on what is good for the environment. Mismanagement of our natural resources in the later half of the 19 th and early portion of the 20th centuries was a catalyst for Gifford Pinchot and Dr. Carl Schenck to be among the pioneers of professional forestry in the United States. We (APSAF) can take pride that Gifford Pinchot started the forestry profession and Dr. Schenck located the Biltmore Forest School—which is now in an area referred to as the “Cradle of Forestry”—in the mountains of North Carolina. Foresters saw the environmental problems and began controlling timber harvesting, regenerating forests, improving water quality, and preventing wild fires. Foresters were practicing “environmentalists” even before the word was coined. Detrimental environmental effects from winning World War II, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and the “clearcutting controversies” of the late 1960s and early 1970s helped encourage foresters and the general public to become active in the “environmental movement.” The perceived detrimental effects of clearcutting started on federal lands with the general public saying “these are my forests and I do not want them destroyed.” Too often, the decisions made and regulations and laws that were passed were based on emotions and insufficient, incomplete, or biased information. The results of these decisions, regulations, and laws often led to unintended consequences. Today, guess what? Concerns remain over timber harvesting, regenerating forests, water quality, wild fires, endangered species, wildlife habitat, invasive species, and other environmental issues. Through excellent forest research conducted by state and federal agencies, universities, and private industry, we are continuing to improve the way we manage forest ecosystems. By combining research results, practical application, and common sense, we have excellent tree seedlings to plant, are helping control insects and disease, and have developed forestry “best management practices” (BMPs). These BMPs (resulting from the 1972 Clean Water Act) are being used in the woods every day. And to ensure that BMPs are being used properly we have authorized inspectors to assist and direct us. The general public is requiring forest product companies to “certify” that the forests where their products come from are meeting stringent requirements that will maintain or enhance site quality thus ensuring future sustainability. The result has been a number of “certification” entities who are using BMPs and who are putting auditors in the woods to ensure the BMPs are being followed. Because of this research, foresters are not only being equipped to do our jobs better, but we are also being provided with scientific facts and information to help inform the public. In retrospect, the “environmental movement” definitely stimulated forestry professionals to step forward and become a more active and effective voice in discussions about forest management concepts that are based on science and practice. It is by helping to inform the public as to what constitutes good forestry that I have seen the Society of American Foresters (SAF) really step up to the plate. Public education and information is being carried out at all levels within the SAF and through a variety of formats. Examples include developing white papers and policy statements; testifying before county, state and federal government entities; speaking and providing tours to teachers, school groups, and civic organizations; providing funding and carrying out countless SAF Forestry Fund projects, among other activities. (See below for notable examples within recent memory within the Virginia Division.) Foresters were, are, and hopefully always will be environmentalists. Let’s always remember our mission statement which is: “…..to advance sustainable management of forest resources through science, education, and technology; to enhance the competency of its members; to establish professional excellence; and to use our knowledge, skills, and conservation ethic to ensure the continued health, integrity, and use of forests to benefit society in perpetuity.” I believe if we continue to faithfully perform this mission, we will continue to be viewed as true environmentalists “wearing the white hats.”
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*The author is grateful to Dr. David Wm. Smith, Dr. William Leuschner, and Dan Goerlich for contributing to and reviewing this paper, and to Adam Downing, Jennifer Gagnon, Bill Worrell, John Hancock, Adam Foehringer, Greg Scheerer, Jack Cannon, Neil Clark, Mark Books, Anne Jewell, and Charlie Huppuch for their contributions.
Notable Virginia Division SAF public education efforts within recent memory include
On October 19, 1984 the Robert E. Lee Chapter and the U.S. Park Service dedicated the Appomattox Courthouse National Historic Park Nature Trail. Along the half mile trail thirty tree species are identified, and signage explains the relationship between historical events and various land use practices and their subsequent effect on the forest. Jim Cook and Wayne Bowman spearheaded the project in the 1980s. Chapter members Bill Braford, Greg Scheerer, Don Tempest, Jason Fisher, Dan Goerlich, and others have helped maintain the trail, which is still being extensively used today. In the late 1980s or early 1990s the Southeast Virginia Chapter constructed a nature trail at Chippokes Plantation State Park in Surry County. Trees were identified and a walkway was cleared through the woods. Several “walk in the woods” tours were conducted and planned for teachers and the Wakefield 4-H Center. Jack Cannon and Ed Zimmer were instrumental in this project. In 1990 the Robert E. Lee Chapter initiated The Red Hill Tree Identification Project. Recognized by Congress as a National Memorial, Red Hill is the last home and burial place of Patrick Henry. Trees on the site were identified and marked with plaques, and a pamphlet was developed to explain the uses of the trees during the colonial period. The pamphlet also stated the goals of the Society of American Foresters. Chapter member Wilbur C. (Chuck) Stanley, Jim McClary, and Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr., and others were instrumental in starting this project. In 1992 Dr. Otis F. Hall, Dr. James E. Johnson and Wilbur C. (Chuck) Stanley wrote a white paper for the Virginia Division entitled “Forest Regeneration and Clearcutting in Virginia” and Linda M. Armistead, the Virginia Division’s 1992 Communications Chair, took information from that white paper and designed a multi-colored flier entitled “Rx for future forests.” In the early 1990s the Blue Ridge Chapter constructed a 0.6-mile loop trail at Explore Park in Roanoke County. The trail highlighted forestry education topics such as tree identification, succession, ecology, hydrology, wood products, wildlife habitat, soils, and forest management. A trail brochure, documented waypoints, and trail blazes permitted the trail to be self-guided, and chapter members conducted numerous tours for school groups. In 1993 and 1994 alone, over 1,500 students were educated on the trail. John Hancock, and Matt Sampson were instrumental in the early days of the trail and until Explore Park closed in 2007. The Roanoke County Parks and Recreation Department took over management of the property in 2013, and the park and interpretive trail were reopened in May 2014. Chapter members Adam Foehringer, Mike Skinner, Bill Sweeney, Grant Curry, and Tom Reisinger worked with County Parks and Recreation personnel to revamp the trail and trail brochure, and are once again leading school groups on the trail. In 1996 the Skyline Chapter began cutting firewood and delivering it to needy families who heated their homes with wood. Mark Hollberg was instrumental in starting this project. The woodcutters have continued this project every year since, often delivering from 4 to 5 truckloads to one or more recipients. Members recently cutting include Justin Barns, Chris Peters, J.B. Paez, Bill Fosnocht, Charlie Huppuch, Dean Boe, Larry Endsly, Sean Flynn, Mark Honosky, and Gabe Templeton. In 1999 the Skyline Chapter conducted a Hardwood Release for James Madison’s Montpelier in Madison County. Plots were laid out, and oak saplings were marked for release from overtopping and competing trees which were cut or girdled. Charlie Huppuch, John Scrivani, Mark Hollberg, and Temple Hahn were instrumental in this project.
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In 2000 or 2001 the Robert E. Lee Chapter began its Adopt-A-Highway Litter Pick-up Project on a portion of heavily traveled U.S. Rt. 24, which goes through the Appomattox Courthouse National Historic Park. Highway signs at both ends of the maintained portion give the chapter and SAF good PR. One end of the maintained section is located at the “Robert E. Lee Headquarters” parking area. Greg Scheerer spearheaded this project which, has involved numerous chapter members to this day. In 2004 the Skyline Chapter helped provide funds for interpretive signs and began providing guided walks on the Marl Creek Trail located at the Cyrus McCormick Farm in Rockbridge County. The trail interprets forest and wildlife features as well as good farm practices to protect the water and soil. Chapter member Charlie Huppuch laid out the trail and supervised its construction. In 2004 the Skyline Chapter began its Cyrus McCormick Farm Forest Demonstration Project. Over the years a series of stands have been harvested or thinned in the 233-acre oak-hickory forest as examples of how woodlot owners might manage similar stands. The forest is being used by a variety of groups including Virginia Tech extension foresters to conduct forest landowner, teacher, and logger tours and classes. It is also being used by Dabney Lancaster Community College and Virginia Tech students for forestry events. Chapter members Patti Nylander, Karen Stanley, Matt Yancey, Charlie Huppuch, and Bill Braford spearheaded the project. In 2004 the Skyline Chapter conducted a two-day joint effort with Project Learning Tree and the Headwaters Soil and Water Conservation District to inform middle and high school science teachers about forestry. The event was funded by an SAF Foresters Fund grant. Chapter members Tom Dierauf, Charlie Huppuch, Mark Hollberg, and others were instrumental in the project. In 2006 the Southwest Virginia Chapter began their Trees to Products Teachers’ Tours to enhance teacher knowledge of forestry issues. The four-day, three-night, professional development field tour program provides teachers with factual and credible information about Virginia’s hardwood forests and links these concepts to Virginia Standards of Learning (SOLs). Teachers see and learn about the sustainable and renewable resource of trees and how trees are converted into a variety of everyday products. This annual program has been conducted eleven times since 2006 and to date has reached 119 educators that annually instruct approximately 13,150 students. Chapter members Mike Hincher, Bill Worrell, and Jon Rockett were instrumental in starting and conducting the tours. The Virginia Forestry Education Foundation joined forest industry in providing funding for the tours. In 2013 the Chapter received the SAF’s House of Society Delegates’ 2nd Place National Recognition Award for this project. Beginning in 2007 the Rappahannock Chapter has annually hosted a Walk in the Woods at the New Kent Forestry Center in New Kent County. The event was initiated by Anne Jewell (prev. Ulrey) and Lauren Magalska in partnership with Lisa Deaton, PLT Coordinator and SAF member. SAF members provide guided hikes, Project Learning Tree activities, informational exhibits, and give away tree seedlings. The event has grown to include early-morning, guided, bird walks; Master Naturalists; VDGIF; Leave No Trace; and VDOF exhibits and subject matter experts. From July 26 – August 4, 2010, the Rappahannock Chapter partnered with approximately fifty SAF members from the SAF National Office, National Capital Chapter, Southeast Virginia Chapter, and multiple other chapters to staff an SAF exhibit at the Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill. The SAF was one of approximately 40 exhibitors on the Conservation Trail, which was an extremely popular event, with an estimated 15,000 plus Scouts, Scouters, and guests walking the trail. The purpose of the exhibit was to conduct an outreach regarding the relevance of forestry and the SAF; explain the possibilities of a forestry career; and help the Scouts earn their Forestry Merit Badge. Mark Books took the lead in this project. (The SAF National Office has recognized the significance of the BSA National Jamborees, which are
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normally held every four years, and has made provisions for the SAF to have an exhibit dating back at least to 1981, which was the first Jamboree to be held at Fort A.P. Hill. SAF members Tom Davidson and Richard Reitz were early pioneers with these exhibits. Beginning in 2013 the National Jamboree was held at the Summit Bechtel Reserve near Beckley, WV.) The Rappahannock Chapter has partnered with Fort A.P. Hill Forestry Branch Staff (Mark Books and Anne Jewell), VDOF, and SAF members from other chapters to host a Fort A.P. Hill Earth Day. This event has occurred annually on or around Earth Day for a number of years. The forestry professionals interact with over 1,000 students and the general public annually by providing information on forest management, the forestry profession, forest health concepts, and giving away tree seedlings. The Rappahannock Chapter has a long-running tradition of making an annual contribution to Project Learning Tree and making an annual contribution for one camper to attend the Holiday Lake Forestry Camp. In 2014, after four years of planning/construction and $20,000 being raised through monetary (including a $1,500 Foresters Fund Grant) and in-kind donations, the half mile x 6-foot wide Sydnor Jennings Elementary School Forestry and Fitness Community Walking Trail was completed. The trail is located near Volens in Halifax County. This was a joint project between the school’s PTO and the Robert E. Lee Chapter. Chapter members Dan Goerlich, Dave Snyder, Jason Fisher, Greg Scheerer, Don Tempest, Delmer Aylor, and others have been instrumental in constructing and maintaining the trail. The students provided a great deal of the work by helping to spread the surface gravel and plant trees. The students and community are putting the trail to good use. In 2016 the Skyline Chapter provided funds and technical help at the Cyrus McCormick Farm for a two-day Project Learning Tree event for 27 science teachers from Augusta County. The teachers were introduced to forest management, protection of watersheds, and PLT opportunities for students. Chapter members Jon Rockett, and Charlie Huppuch, Jim Kuykendall and Sandy Green, environmental teacher from Headwaters Soil and Water District were instrumental in this project.
A native Virginian, Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr., CF, graduated from Virginia Tech with a B.S in Forestry and Wildlife in 1973 and M.S. in Forestry in 1975. Spradlin worked six years for Westvaco in Rupert, WV, as their first Cooperative Forest Management (CFM) forester. He recruited and assisted private landowners and also served as Chair of the West Virginia Tree Farm Committee. In 1981 he worked for seven years for Continental Forest Investments as an Area Manager in Powhatan, Virginia, responsible for managing the company’s property in a multi-county area, also serving with Virginia Forestry Association on their Executive and Tree Farm Committees. Spradlin was re-hired by Westvaco Corporation in January 1989 as a CFM forester in Appomattox, Virginia. During his career he assisted over 500 landowners, planting over 30,000 acres of loblolly plantations. Lee joined SAF in 1976, served as Robert E. Lee Chapter Chair, Virginia Division Chair, APSAF Chair, and on the SAF Council (2002 – 2004). He received the APSAF Distinguished Service to Forestry Award in 1996, has been a Certified Forester since 2002, was elected an SAF Fellow in 2005, was Virginia’s Outstanding Tree Farm Inspector in 2010, served on the Virginia Board of Forestry from 2010 – 2012, and received the SAF Presidential Field Forester Award for District 8 in 2017.
Appalachian Section SAF Environmental History by Robert Emory, August 2017
People love trees and forests but how each person loves them is a matter of perspective. Some see the forest as majestic and something to be preserved at all cost; others, while also appreciating the beauty and ecological value of the forest, see it as a source of revenue and a driver of rural economies. Most are somewhere in between and may move back and forth on the scale
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depending on the characteristics of a particular forest or its ownership status, either public or private. Given such a wide range of perspectives, it is easy to understand why forest management, or lack of it, can trigger emotions and controversy. So, what is the current state of the forest? Other sections of this history document no doubt include helpful details about the acreage, forest inventory and ecological characteristics of the forests in our three states. At a high level, making the assumption that the forest in our three states is similar to that of the South, in spite of development and the significant back and forth movement of land between forest cover and agriculture, forest acreage has been somewhat stable since the 1950s; we have as much forestland in the South as we did in the 1950s. The use of the forest for building products and paper has significantly increased during that same period but, due to forest management and decisions made by landowners, the forest inventory (the volume of standing trees) has increased significantly as well. So, on a stable land base, in spite of using more timber for forest products, we have significantly more timber that we did in the 1950s. This increase in inventory can in part be attributed to the increase in productive planted pine stands, government programs that provided incentives to plant trees on erodible crop land and, not insignificantly, the effect of strong markets for timber as a profit incentive for landowners to manage their timber. Going back to the 1950s we can say that the more timber we have used, the more we have. This relationship between strong markets for forest products and forest acreage and inventory has been borne out by numerous studies done by both the US Forest Service and consultants. Forest Industry Evolution The forest industry, made up of both multi-national corporations and many thousands of small sawmills, has undergone significant change. In the early to mid-1900s the industry moved from timber mining to an era of timber management, and by the 1960s large industries, as well as many family forest owners, began to be more intentional in their forest management. Tree planting became more common and harvested sites were prepared for planting, either mechanically or with fire. Forest management was an iterative process and was informed by both science and experience. Natural regeneration was, and continues to be, the default silvicultural system for hardwood. While natural regeneration is used by some landowners for pine sites, planting has become common. Large forest products companies, most of them operating paper mills, were early adopters of pine plantation management. Site preparation ranged from burn and plant to intensive mechanical site preparation. Because growing pulpwood was a primary motivation, the companies typically employed heavy planting densities to maximize pulpwood production. The use of herbicides to enhance site preparation became common. Based on experience with herbicides, application rates were adjusted downward to “just enough” to achieve the desired level of vegetation control. Planting densities decreased as pulpwood became more plentiful and landowners began to focus more on growing high value sawtimber. In some cases this shift also reduced establishment costs. University research, research co-ops and proprietary research done by companies has resulted in significant improvements in genetics, site selection, the appropriate use of herbicides and fertilizer and the use of thinning and other silvicultural improvements has led to improved site productivity and tree quality. The forest industry, after what in retrospect seems like a period of great stability, began in the 1990s to undergo a significant transformation that continues today. For many decades the “integrated forest products company” was the norm. These companies typically owned and managed forest land and produced a wide range of forest products such as paper, pulp, lumber and other building materials. Arguably two factors drove significant change in the industry: The integrated forest products company model fell out of favor on Wall Street. What was previously viewed as a strength, a company in a variety of product lines and sufficient timber to supply its mills, came to be viewed as inefficient. The new view said that in a company with multiple product lines, where when product was down another product could make up for it, inefficiency was hidden and if each product line had to stand by itself, greater efficiency would result. In other words, Wall Street preferred companies to efficiently specialize in certain products
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which allowed Wall Street to more precisely assemble a diversified forest products portfolio, as opposed to investing in companies with diversified portfolios. New landowning corporate structures came to be more common. Timberland Investment Management Organizations and Real Estate Investment Trusts had tax efficiency advantages over the traditional integrated companies, and the large companies began to divest their timberland, much of it going to TIMOs and REITs.
Largely driven by the two forces above, the old integrated companies generally became either manufacturers or landowners. Those that chose to be manufacturers began to reorganize along product lines; they chose which products they would produce and sold the other product lines to companies who had chosen to specialize in them. The manufacturers sold or “monetized,” as Wall Street described it, their forest land, much of it finding its way to tax efficient TIMOs and REITs. The tremendous restructuring of this previously somewhat stable and conservative industry took place in a remarkably short period of time, around fifteen years. Foundational Environmental Protection Environmental regulations, and more recently forest certification, form a foundation for protection of resources when forest operations are carried out. While our states do not have forest practices acts, the combination of environmental regulations including the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, the widespread use of forestry Best Management Practices and the advent of forest certification systems provide a valuable baseline of environmental protection. The Clean Water Act When Congress adopted the Clean Water Act in the 1970s water quality in the US had been significantly degraded in the more than three hundred years since European settlement, and trends were in the wrong direction. While many associate the Clean Water Act with incorporating pollution limits through a permitting system focused on things like industrial discharges and sewer treatment facilities, the Clean Water Act also addresses “non-point” sources of pollution, and it is in this category that potential water quality impacts from forestry fall. Our states address non-point pollution for forestry with highly effective Best Management Practices (BMPs) designed to keep pollution from reaching water bodies. Retaining some trees and vegetation adjacent to streams and controlling runoff from forest roads are typical BMPs. Water quality in the US has significantly improved since the passage of the Clean Water Act, and the use of forestry BMPs contributed to that improvement. The Endangered Species Act Also adopted by Congress in the 1970s, the Endangered Species Act seeks to protect rare and declining plant and animal species by working with states and landowners to avoid having to places species on the Endangered or Threatened list, listing species when necessary and working to attempt to recover the listed species sufficiently to remove them from the list. The Snail Darter, and its impact on the proposed construction of a TVA dam, was one of the first listed species to receive wide public attention. For forest managers in our area the first listed species to significantly impact management was the red-cockaded woodpecker, which prefers a mature longleaf savanna habitat, a forest type that has been significantly diminished in recent decades due to development, the reduction of fire and landowners’ preferences for faster growing pine species. Forest Certification Forest Certification systems were introduced in our area in the 1990s. The systems are built on a set of sustainable forest management criteria, developed through a stakeholder process, and audited by independent auditors. Forest certification adoption by landowners is optional, and if our area is typical of the US, only 15-20 percent of forest acreage is certified. Certification has been more heavily adopted by institutional and larger landowners. Smaller landowners, who own most of the forest land in the area, have 195
shown less interest in certification, but that does not mean that their lands are poorly managed; they may just be hesitant to assume the cost of certification. While only a portion of our forests is certified, certification has generally raised the sustainable forest management bar. One forest certification system has a certified sourcing standard that can be used by woodconsuming companies to address the sustainability of the wood they buy. This system extends some of the positive benefits of certification beyond just those forest ownerships that are certified. Certified sourcing is widely used by pulp and paper mills and by many sawmills and other manufacturers of forest products. Certified sourcing requires, among other things, that wood consumers include BMP compliance in wood purchase contracts, that they support logger training programs and that they encourage landowners to utilize loggers who have completed training. Additionally, these companies must provide information on endangered species and rare forest types to landowners from whom they buy wood. Two aspects of fiber sourcing certification, logger training programs and an emphasis on using BMPs, have resulted in underappreciated improvements in how forestry activities are carried out on both certified and noncertified lands. In our states, none of which have a forest practices acts, we rely heavily on the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, Best Management Practices and certification to protect natural resources during forestry operations. Our states have proactively developed Best Management Practices to protect water quality and have put programs in place to encourage and monitor their use. It is no mystery that our highest quality water comes from the forest. Having such mechanisms in place allows us to deliver many of the positive outcomes of forest practices acts without having to bear the administrative burden of them. Controversies and Environmental Issues The divergent perspectives people hold about forests and their appropriate use can lead to controversy. This section includes several topics and issues about which there has been controversy in the last several decades. They are offered merely as examples and do not comprise a comprehensive treatment of this topic. Public Forests Private forest ownership is the dominant ownership class both in the South and in our area, and public forests in our area comprise a much smaller percentage of the forest land base than in some parts of the country, e.g., the Pacific Northwest. Regionally they are not a significant portion of the timber supply but they tend to be clustered in specific regions, like the mountains, and in these areas they can be an important part of the supply base. We have not had waterhshed issues like the Northern Spotted Owl in the Pacific Northwest where the listing of the species under the Endangered Species Act dramatically impacted the management of the National Forests and significantly reduced them as a source of timber. Nevertheless, the same perspectives about management of public forests that are found in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere are found here. These perspectives include A desire to favor hiking and resource protection over forest management but not to the point of excluding it A desire to totally eliminate any forest management activities A desire increase timber harvest A desire to privatize public forests Everything in between If you don’t live near a national forest you likely don’t hear or think much about them. But if you do you are probably aware of the ongoing push and pull about how they should be managed, and you have probably observed (and likely hold) one of the perspectives above. Timber supply is a diminishing role for these “multiple use” forests but, in areas where these forests are located they can still be an important source. Certain habitats (early successional) may be underrepresented on public forests due to a reduction in logging and the species that depend on those habitats are impacted. National forest managers have a 196
difficult task developing management plans for these forests that achieve the right balance of the perspectives listed above, and the task will likely continue to be difficult for the foreseeable future. Chip Mills In the 1990s some pulp and paper mills began to de-bark and chip pulpwood at off-site chip mills, and sometimes these chip mills were located a significant distance from the mill. Reasons for this change include reducing operating costs, avoiding the cost of transporting bark and other unusable portions of the tree to the mill and expanding the wood basket from which a mill procures wood. Locating a chip mill away from the paper mill simply changes the place where the wood is processed and does not mean that consumption of wood has increased. But moving the processing “outside the fence” made it more visible. What was previously “out of sight, out of mind” became very visible and controversial. The controversy had a variety of causes: Sometimes is was driven simply by the volume of truck traffic in the vicinity of the chip mill. Because the processing had previously been done at the mill, the appearance of remote chip mills caused some to think that this must be a new or additional use of wood, and they had concerns about possible impacts on the forest. Environmental advocates organized anti-chip mill campaigns and portrayed them as “new consumption” and therefore a threat to the forest. A small number of chip mills, located in areas with poor markets for hardwood pulpwood, supplied a hardwood chip export business. While these mills provided a vital market for hardwood pulpwood they came under intense criticism for several reasons o A belief that hardwood forests would be devastated o An aversion to shipping US raw materials to other countries o A desire to see the final product made here rather than abroad (the jobs argument) The chip mill controversy eventually diminished, partially due to the collapse of the hardwood chip export business when the international consumers found less expensive sources of wood, the plateauing of new chip mill construction, and studies done by some states, including North Carolina, showing that chip mills were not a threat to the forest. Partly driven by the chip mill controversy, the US Forest Service published the Southern Forest Resource Assessment in 2002. This comprehensive analysis did not identify a threat to the forest from chip mills, found that hardwood forests were stable and in a very visible way communicated that the largest threat to forests in the South is urbanization—the conversion of forestland to other uses. Some of the environmental advocacy groups that sprang up during the chip mill controversy survived and continue to actively criticize planted pine stands, hardwood logging, use of herbicides and new uses for wood. The Endangered Species Act As stated earlier, with a few exceptions, e.g., red-cockaded woodpecker, forest management in our area has not been significantly impeded by species listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Aquatic species are largely protected when forest management activities are conducted according to Best Management Practices, and forest managers have been able to adjust to accommodate listed terrestrial species. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is the primary agency responsible for administering the ESA in our states (NOAA is responsible for some marine species). The Service may independently decide to consider whether a certain species should be listed, and there is also a process by which individuals or organizations may petition the Service to consider listing species. Once a species is petitioned the Service has, by statute, a certain amount of time to reach a conclusion on whether a listing is warranted. If found to be warranted the species is placed on a Candidate List and the Service makes listing decisions, subject to a public comment process, on the Candidate Species.
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Since 2007 advocacy groups, utilizing the petition mechanism, have petitioned the listing of 1250 species, a dramatic increase in the Service’s workload. One petition included over 400 species. The groups sued the Service when it was unable to meet its statutory time lines, and, as a result of adverse court decisions and settlements, the Service is obligated to make listing decisions on hundreds of species at an unprecedented pace. The SE US is disproportionately affected by the expedited schedule forced on the Service, and our states have many species in play. After decades of operating relatively smoothly under the Endangered Species Act, as a result of the expedited listing schedule imposed on the Service, forest management could be impacted but that remains to be seen. For decades SAF has been an important source of information on the ESA and on specific species Pellet Exports Manufacturing and exporting wood pellets to Europe, primarily the UK, is a market that has developed over the last five to ten years. As part of their commitment to combatting climate change, some European Union members have provided incentives to power and heat producers to substitute wood pellets for coal. The carbon benefits of using wood for energy are recognized by the UN and incorporated into the EU energy policies. In addition, the UK has developed a carbon calculator that takes into account the energy expended to manufacture pellets in the southern US and ship them across the Atlantic. Based on the UK’s calculations, even when carbon generated by manufacturing and shipping is accounted for, wood pellets reduce carbon pollution relative to coal. When this market first appeared, estimates of its potential size and rate of growth were much more optimistic than what has actually occurred. The overly optimistic predictions of EU market size, in combination with anticipated use of wood to produce liquid biofuels that would qualify under the US Renewable Fuel Standard, triggered alarm among some who doubted the ability of the forest to supply anticipated volumes. Liquid biofuel production from forest materials has not gotten off the ground, and wood going to supply that endeavor is negligible. In spite of the slower than anticipated growth of the pellet business and the forest biofuels business’s failure to progress, the use of forest biomass for pellet production has drawn almost unprecedented resistance and criticism from some environmental groups even though the pellet export industry in the US South utilizes a mere 2% of the annual wood production in the South. Opponents of the pellet business have raised two objections: They question the ability of the forests of the US South to sustainably supply this market They question the carbon benefit of substituting wood pellets for coal The opposing voices on the ability of the forest of the US South to sustainably supply this market fall into two camps: Those who advocate that additional use of material from the forest will lead to overharvest, utilizing higher value trees (sawtimber) to produce pellets, displacement of existing industries and liquidation of natural forests. Those who believe that additional markets for wood provide market incentives for landowners to retain their land as forestland and to manage it, resulting in slowing the rate of conversion of forestland to non-forest uses and a continuation of the increase in forest inventory that is documented back to at least the 1950s. Critics of the pellet industry argue that it will deplete the southern forest, liquidate natural forests, and since this is a subsidized market, it will allow pellet producers to outcompete existing industry on ability to pay for wood. They also say that the industry uses “whole trees” and “whole forests” to burn for energy. Even with subsidies there has been no evidence that pellet producers can pay more for wood than producers of paper, lumber or other products. Their incentive is to locate pellet mills in areas where competition for wood is low and to pay as little as possible. Regarding the use of whole trees, the great majority of the whole trees used for pellets are plantation thinnings, and reliable markets for this material 198
are very important to landowners and forest managers. The claim that there is widespread use of high value sawtimber for pellet flies in the face of logic and requires a belief that landowners are ignorant. History has shown that the market allocates high value timber to high value markets and low value timber to low value markets, e.g., pellet mills, and there is no reason to believe that that will change. History and numerous studies also indicate that markets, even markets for the lower value timber used by the pellet industry, provide an incentive for landowners to manage their timber and retain their forestland as forestland. Carbon The opposing voices in the carbon debate fall into two main camps: Those who believe that when a tree is used for energy a “carbon debt” is created that takes a replacement tree many years or decades to “pay back.” The rest of the landscape is ignored. Those who believe that the impact of using that tree for energy must be weighed against all the other trees on the landscape that continue to grow and sequester carbon. Under this scenario, as long as forest carbon stocks are stable or increasing (as they are in the US) the use of forest material for energy is carbon neutral. The complexity of this subject can be illustrated by the fact that the EPA Scientific Advisory Board was asked seven years ago to develop a methodology to calculate the carbon impact of using biogenic feedstock to produce energy. Doing so requires utilization of assumptions, models, scenarios and counter factuals and reaching agreement on those is difficult with no guarantee that those things agreed to are in fact correct, in spite of best efforts. That work is still ongoing. However Congress acted early in 2017 to make it the policy of the US government to reflect the carbon-neutrality of forest biomass, provided that such energy production does not cause conversion to non-forest use. Congress’s action is consistent with the approach described earlier – use of forest biomass is carbon neutral as long as forest stocks are stable or increasing. The policy adopted by Congress is logical, implementable and measurable. The USDA Forest Inventory and Analysis measures and tracks changes in US forest acreage and forest inventory. SAF, through the Journal of Forestry and other publications, has provided excellent articles on carbon accounting. Unpredictable Litigation Those, whether environmental groups or industry, who choose to pursue desired outcomes through litigation face a significant challenge. They often must make use of legal mechanisms or regulatory “hooks” that are not directly tied to their desired outcome but provide the only mechanism to pursue it. This can result in success or failure, in unintended consequences or in seemingly unending litigation. Below are two illustrations of unintended consequences. Those who view pesticides unfavorably have long claimed that the application of pesticides through a nozzle is a “point source” of pollution, a category in the Clean Water Act that is often addressed through permitting. The requirement of a permit for a point source activity provides critics of the activity increased leverage through their ability to participate in the development of permitting requirements and conditions. The point source vs. non-point source status of pesticide application has been litigated many times over the years. An agricultural group thought it had a very favorable case in a favorable court jurisdiction and brought suit. Unexpectedly they lost the case resulting in EPA developing a general permit for the application of pesticides for agriculture, forestry, mosquito control and a number of other activities. That was not the outcome the agricultural group wanted or expected. Nor was it an outcome most forestland owners wanted. An environmental group, presumably due to opposition to logging, sued over the point vs. nonpoint status of pollution from forest roads. One must assume that this was the only regulatory hook they could find to get at logging. The case eventually found its way to the Supreme Court where it was only partially resolved. Congress chose to act and amended the Clean Water Act to make it clear that forest roads do not need a federal permit. Surely this was not the result the environmental group had in mind.
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There are of course, many examples where litigation has achieved the result desired by the party initiating the litigation (see the Endangered Species Act section above) but the process is complicated, expensive and unpredictable. SAF’s Role Among SAF’s roles is to be a source of objective information and education on forest-related topics, including environmental issues, and to “ensure the continued health, integrity, and use of forests to benefit society in perpetuity.” SAF has developed thoughtful position statements on many topics and issues, including some of the issues discussed in this chapter. In addition, SAF has in its many journals and publications provided balanced, science-based articles on a wide variety of topics associated with forests and forest practices. SAF is appropriately seen by decision-makers as a reliable source of information of forests and forestry in general and on complex forest-related subjects in particular. Conclusion As stated earlier, this chapter is not an attempt to catalog all the forest-related environmental issues that have arisen in the last century. The issues selected for discussion are some with which I have had direct experience, and I hope they are helpful examples of why we have ongoing controversy – people love the forest, but love it in different ways. Forests provide us with many goods and services ranging from clean water to recreation to lumber and other forest products. Forests and forest products are important parts of our nation’s economy and may be the most significant driver of the economy in many rural areas. It is not a surprise that there is controversy over our forests and how they are managed, and such controversy will be with us for the foreseeable future. Those of us on either side of a forest-related controversy unfortunately sometimes mirror the societal model that has evolved of late – talk with only those who are like-minded, read only what we agree with and demonize those with different opinions. That is not a good way to make decisions about the forest or to deal with one another. We can do better. SAF is in a unique position to inform foresters, decision-makers and the public as we seek to “ensure the continued health, integrity, and use of forests to benefit society in perpetuity.” Bob Emory, a Virginia Tech graduate, lives in New Bern, NC and has been a forester with Weyerhaeuser Company for 45 years, the last twenty of which he has been the Environmental Affairs Manager for the US South. He is a Registered Forester in North Carolina and has been an SAF member for 43 years.
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Chapter 12 Into the New Millennium By Joann Cox and Tom Straka
Membership driven organization – APSAF’s Greatest Challenge Continues Theodore Roosevelt is quoted as saying, “Every man owes part of his time and money to the business or industry to which he is engaged. No man has a moral right to withhold his support from an organization that is striving to improve conditions within his sphere.” APSAF has a storied and successful 100-year history of building professional camaraderie and creating paths to professional careers and leadership for its members, exactly as its founders and Roosevelt envisioned. Long-standing personal and professional friendships, and networks among foresters, originating from APSAF membership, are often cited as the greatest of membership benefits. An “APSAF Family” atmosphere is clearly evident at meetings. APSAF grew to a peak of 1,991 members in 1998, after its humble start of 15 members in 1921. Since its apex, membership has declined to 1,206 in 2018—about the same level as the 1960s. Based on current trends, APSAF membership could fall below 1,000 in the next few years. Some members view this as an alarming trend, while others view the decline as a healthy reset to a membership level of active core professional members. Additionally, APSAF demographics are currently skewed towards 60-year-old white males and, to an ever-increasing extent, do not mirror the demographics of those entering the forest management workplace. SAF and APSAF records document a long history of unsettled discussions about training and experience prerequisite to being recognized by SAF as qualified for membership and professional forester status. As the profession of forestry grew and evolved, specialization, or “splintering” as it was sometimes called, compounded the complexity of defining the profession and gave rise to “broad vs narrow tent” disagreements over who was qualified to be called a forester and a member of SAF. Exactly what constitutes the “broad field of forestry” is still evolving. Early on, categories of SAF membership were formed to reflect differences in education and professional qualifications. Also, categories were formed to reflect different dues rates as a function of differences in membership benefits received, and perceived differences in ability to pay—for students, young foresters, regular members and retirees. Member category revisions continue today.
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Like membership numbers, the level of engagement by members, especially in leadership positions, appears in decline. Leadership positions are often difficult to fill or remain vacant. Much effort has been put forth to understand and reverse the decline in membership. Despite various member surveys and studies, student engagement initiatives, and recruitment campaigns, the declining trend in membership continues. Most efforts towards improving membership have focused on recruitment. Less attention has been on the more confounding subject of retention. Is it time to shift our focus? Leading up to the peak in membership in 1998, APSAF enjoyed robust employer support of SAF. Payment of dues by employers was common, and participation in APSAF activities was encouraged. As forest industry restructured and economically streamlined itself during the end of the 20 th century, employer support for SAF ebbed. During this same period, state forestry associations, and other forestry organizations, improved in scope and quality and became more attractive to forestry professionals as a source of continuing forestry education and networking. This has been especially true of forestry organizations that include a broad spectrum of forest landowners, forest industry representatives, forest conservationists, professional foresters, loggers and other forestry or timber-related occupations. As APSAF enters its second century, regaining its value to professional foresters is clearly one of its greatest challenges. The health of APSAF over the next 100 years is dependent on an engaged and active membership, regardless of the size of the organization. The founding foresters of APSAF had a clear vision of purpose that is as valid today as it was in 1921. It is up to the current membership to adapt this vision to the challenges of today and offer foresters something in APSAF that they cannot find in other organizations. It is our responsibility to support our organization, which strives to improve conditions within our profession. 2000 to the present A primary focus at the turn of the century was membership and leadership. Obviously the two are connected. APSAF followed the national trend for professional organizations and SAF, spending much of its planning and development activities attempting to slow or reverse declining trends. Unfortunately, those declining trends have prevailed, and APSAF now finds itself adapting to a changed environment. Events in 1997 impacted the path of APSAF in the twenty-first century. A series of two-day APSAF Leadership Workshops was held annually each February in Brown Summit, North Carolina at a rural retreat/conference center that included accommodations for attendees. This was designed to replace small leadership workshops that were organized at the division level. The first one, organized by 1997 APSAF Chair Pat Straka, was held February 10-11, 1998, with a theme of “How Do I Fit Into the SAF?” Typical topics included: “What the National Office Can Do for You,” “Planning Great Meetings for Your Chapter,” “Being an SAF Leader,” and “Planning for the Future.” A highlight of these meetings was participation by SAF Executive Vice President Bill Banzhaf. They were also noted for an active social each evening that provided a chance for the new APSAF leaders to interact and get to know each other. The first workshop trained 53 APSAF leaders. A second event that occurred in 1997 would impact at least the first two decades of the next century. The Spring 1997 Trail Blazer announced a new editor for the quarterly, Charles F. Finley, Jr. (Charlie), and secretary/treasurer Vernon L. Robinson, held those two continuing offices that would influence executive committees throughout much of the early years of the new century. The year 2000 saw Tom Straka as APSAF chair and Pat Straka as national council member. Tom spoke at the February Brown Summit Leadership Workshop and opened and closed the workshop with a theme of “The Challenge of Membership,” stressing that APSAF was “the biggest and best of the societies within SAF,” and that we “needed to keep it that way.” Membership would help define APSAF over the next two decades. He reported beginning 2000 with 1,919 members. National SAF had 17,551 members. APSAF represented 11 percent of total SAF membership (the largest voting district). Membership tended to be split evenly across the three state divisions. SAF national conventions occupied planning efforts during the year. The 2000 National Convention was hosted by our neighbor state society, the National Capital SAF. As is the custom for D.C. conventions, APSAF provided many of the volunteers. The 2002 National Convention would be in 202
Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Bob Kellison and Art Cooper served as general co-chairmen, and Fred Cubbage as program chair. During the 1990s the Kenney P. Funderburke, Jr. Educational Endowment Fund was envisioned as a source of funding for active APSAF members and students to attend educational workshops and meetings. Development of the fund was slow over that decade, but in 2000 Judd Edeburn and Lee Spradlin revitalized the effort, and the fund began to take applications. The fund continues to be APSAF’s major fundraising activity, along with the Foresters’ Fund. Also starting in 2000 each Division Chair was allotted two pages of the Trail Blazer for opinion and division news. A position statement titled National Forest Management in the Southern Appalachians was approved by the APSAF Executive Committee on February 21, 2000. The position statement promoted the belief that “scientifically based forest management provides the best opportunities for sustaining the wide array of forest resources” in managing the national forests. In addition, the Virginia Division of APSAF provided comments and recommendations on the USFS Roadless Area Proposal on July 13, 2000. Rick Hamilton took over as Section chair in 2001. Rick continued the emphasis on membership and leadership, with a theme of “SAF’s Relevance,” leadership responsibilities, and proactively getting out forestry’s message. Planning for the 2002 National Convention in Winston-Salem was a major effort during the year, with fundraising for the convention spearheaded by Kenney Funderburke. The Brown Summit Leadership Workshop had only 35 attendees in February and a problem was noted with getting attendance from chapter chairs. At end of 2001, APSAF membership was reported as 1,782. APSAF became more involved in state-level forest policy by setting up Forestry Action Teams (FACTS), designed to help inform the public of the condition and management of the region’s forests and to serve as a forestry information source for the media. The teams were set up at the division-level with Tom Straka as the chair. The year 2002 saw Rhett Bickley as APSAF chair, Lee Spradlin as the new national council member, and Dave Smith as SAF president, the first of three SAF presidents to come from APSAF in the twenty-first century (so far). The year centered on activities supporting the 2002 National Convention in Winston-Salem that would have 1,400+ attendees. Art Cooper and Bob Kellison served as co-general chairs, Fred Cubbage as national program chair, and Steve Anderson and K.O. Summerville as coarrangements team chair. The decline of the Brown Summit Leadership Workshop began with suggestions to hold it every other year. Instead it was moved to the Wednesday prior to the annual meeting as a one-day affair that could be attended along with the annual meeting. The forester registration law in South Carolina generated controversial discussion, with the South Carolina Division lending support for registration. In Virginia a bill to regulate the title “forester” passed the General Assembly, and to personally use the term “forester” one must have at least a BS degree from a college or university accredited by SAF. The question, “Do we need APSAF,” was raised (mostly in North Carolina), a question that has been asked in the past, with an argument that perhaps the three divisions could operate more effectively as independent bodies. The discussion ended up favoring the existing APSAF structure. A second forest policy question in Virginia dealt with arguments for a forest practices act. The Virginia Division participated in the discussion of that issue in Richmond. In 2003 Knight Cox served as APSAF chair, and he welcomed Dabney Lancaster Community College and Haywood Community College as student chapters in APSAF. The impact of industry mergers and industrial land transfers to timberland investment management organizations was having noticeable impacts on the forestry profession, including APSAF. APSAF benefitted from very strong leadership, much of which came from forest industry, most notably Westvaco Corporation, but the pool of talented leadership began to decline as the number of acres of industrial timberland declined. By April 2003 there were just over 3,000 certified foresters nationwide. APSAF had 14.4 percent of these certified foresters, maintaining APSAF’s status as number one in SAF. After the 2003 Leadership Workshop in Raleigh, these workshops continued to be held in conjunction with the annual meeting, and the Brown Summit workshops were discontinued. APSAF membership declined below 1,600. The year 2004 saw Judson Edeburn as APSAF chair. Vern Robinson retired as secretary-treasurer at the end of 2004. Vern was long-serving and exerted significant influence on the executive committee as the stable force. North and South Carolina Divisions debated forester registration laws during this period; 203
the laws survived the debate. The Educational Endowment Fund was restructured; its balance reached nearly $27,000. The Leadership Workshop continued as a before-meeting prelude to the Annual Meeting, with 25 attendees and a strong program. In April the Virginia Division issued a position statement titled Professional Forest Management in Virginia that stated the importance of using professional foresters when making forest management decisions, along with the importance and responsibility of private property rights. In 2005 William B. Snyder served as APSAF chair, Fred Cubbage as the new national council member, and Liz Bourgeois as the new secretary-treasurer. APSAF’s presence on the web was established, but not well- developed. Craig Clark took over as Webmaster, with chair-elect David Powell looking for innovative ways to better utilize the internet. SAF Council released the Volunteer Organization Structure Task Force Report (VOS Report) outlining recommendations to reorganize Council voting districts, make changes to the national convention meeting and how Working Groups are organized, and to better incorporate student representation in SAF. Past APSAF Chair Judd Edeburn and Fred Cubbage gathered the limited comments (mostly favorable on the VOS Report recommendations) received from APSAF members and forwarded them to the national SAF. Vern Robinson wrote a “Farewell” in the Spring 2005 Trail Blazer as Liz took over this position. He had served in that position since 1990. Vern gave a brief history of what occurred over his tenure, and part of this covers the portion related to this chapter: In 2000, we established an APSAF Foresters’ Fund and did away with it the next year because we were not using the number of Foresters’ Fund grants that were allocated to us by National. We appointed Janet Steele as our APSAF Leadership Workshop Coordinator and she has been doing a terrific job for us. In 2002, the North Carolina Division hosted the SAF National Convention. In 2003, Knight Cox set up a Financial Plan in which we allocated the profits from the Convention to the Membership, Education, and Communication Initiatives. Judd Edeburn and William Snyder then developed the mechanism for making the Initiatives work. Over this period we added the Southwest Chapter, the Catawba Chapter, and the Dabney-Lancaster and Haywood Tech as new student chapters. Finally, technology impacted the way we worked. During this period we went from printing and mailing everything to emailing just about everything.
In 2006, International Paper announced it was selling all its timberland and getting out of the business of forest management. While forest industry retained procurement organizations, this represented one of several major forest industry timberland divestures that would cripple APSAF membership in key chapters located near the mills. A survey of APSAF members showed that almost all were willing to conduct APSAF business over the web. David Powell served as APSAF chair. National SAF set up a new Fellows selection process, with Fellow nominations being vetted by a five-member District Fellows Committee. Since APSAF was its own voting district, this effectively was an APSAF Fellows Committee. The committee was to represent each state division and the original committee included Tom Straka (chair), Otis Hall, K.P. Funderburke, K.O. Summerville, and Harold Olinger, with Art Cooper appointed the incoming member (with a five-year term). In 2007 Ron Myers came in as APSAF chair. The goals for the year were to increase the capital portion of the K.P. Funderburke Education Fund, support student representation on the executive committee, and continue to upgrade APSAF’s communication efforts. The Spring Trail Blazer reported MeadWestvaco continued to divest timberland. MeadWestvaco foresters were the backbone of one of South Carolina’s strongest chapters. APSAF membership fell to just below 1,500. A common problem in APSAF was inactive chapters. There were three in North Carolina: Albemarle, Catawba, and Nantahala. Southeastern Chapter in Virginia was reported to be revitalized. The Division was working to get those chapters back to active status. Forester registration continued to be a hot issue in both North and South Carolina. APSAF lost at or above ten percent of its membership for the years 2005-2007. The Fall 2007 Executive Committee minutes reported that, “It seems that APSAF is in a membership crisis, along with National SAF.” Poor participation in the annual Leadership Workshop was still an issue. The APSAF executive committee approved a position statement in support of the proposed new NC Forester Registration Law in November 2007. The next year John Thurmes served as APSAF chair with Joann Meyer Cox as the new national council member. Warren Wilson College became a new student chapter. Carlyle Franklin, Membership 204
Chair, developed a membership plan based on member retention, reinstatement, and recruitment. Another emphasis was fully funding the K.P. Funderburke Endowment Fund, and forester registration was still a continuing issue in some divisions. Mike Wetzel and Tom Straka conducted a survey of the APSAF chapters and concluded they were in danger of wilting away. They saw chapters as the basis of maintaining overall membership. APSAF changed bylaws to make electronic voting possible. Ched Kearse was elected APSAF chair for 2009. In the midst of economic turmoil that faced the country and forest industry APSAF looked for ways to operate leaner, one of which was the Trail Blazer being mailed with The Forestry Source, saving about $600 quarterly. The APSAF website was still undergoing continuous development. APSAF members were keenly interested in the sale of part of the National Office property in Bethesda, and Council Member Cox made this one of her key talking points in reports to APSAF. A student mentorship program for early career foresters was initiated, and Wayne Community College became a student chapter. APSAF’s membership dipped below 1,500 by the end of the year. In 2010 economic woes continued, and APSAF lobbied National SAF to provide members with alternatives for paying dues. Mark Megalos served as APSAF chair. Website reports became standard agenda items as improvements to this key communications tool were stressed. APSAF was encouraged to take advantage of social networking sites, such as Facebook, as a means of engaging younger members. APSAF and SAF member volunteers from eight states were in force to help out at the Boy Scout Jamboree held at the A.P. Hill military reservation in Virginia that celebrated 100 years of scouting. Growing the K.P. Funderburke Endowment Fund continued as an important objective. SAF student chapters (Duke, Virginia Tech, N.C. State, and Clemson) all utilized the K.P. Funderburke Education Endowment for travel to SAF meetings during the year. The website traffic statistics and analysis suggested increased use of the APSAF website following its redevelopment in 2008. The website was averaging nearly 250 visits per day. In 2011 Chip Maley served as APSAF chair and Tom Straka as the new national council member. Dues, membership, and revenue continued to be inter-related problems at both the national and APSAF levels. An emphasis on fully funding the K.P. Funderburke Endowment Fund continued. Chairs of all three divisions were concerned with membership problems, but state divisions continued to hold strong summer meetings. All state divisions continued a number of forestry education/demonstrations aimed at increasing public awareness of forestry, with students often being the target audience. A significant change in Virginia was a joint “summer meeting” or “Virginia Forestry Summit” with the Virginia Forestry Association and the Virginia Chapter of the Association of Consulting Foresters. The Forestry Summit has continued to be the Virginia Division’s annual meeting, a break from a long tradition. In 2012 APSAF was invited to host its annual meeting in conjunction with the Virginia Forestry Summit, with pros and cons being discussed. This would not occur, but showed the popularity of the “Summit” framework. Chuck Gresham, APSAF chair, wore a seersucker coat, bowtie, Docksiders, and straw hat at the 2012 National Convention in Spokane to promote the 2013 National Convention in Charleston. Mary Morrison began as Professional Recognition Chair in 2012. APSAF has always had more than its proportional share of outstanding SAF members; Mary worked tirelessly to see APSAF members were recognized at the national level, with impressive results. Liz Bourgeois retired as secretary-treasurer in December. In 2013 Ed Stoots became APSAF chair, with Ginger Reilly as the new secretary-treasurer, and our (third since 2000) SAF National President was Joann Cox. The 2013 SAF National Convention was held in North Charleston, with Fred Cubbage as convention chair. Other APSAF convention coordinators/directors included Bill Worrell, Joe Cox, Red Anderson, Jim Gray, John Thurmes, Liz Bourgeois, Pat Layton, and Tammy Cushing. Most of the efforts during the year centered on the National Convention, with the South Carolina foregoing its summer meeting. A column title from the Trail Blazer by Chair Ed Stoots summarized discussion on membership well: “We have a choice: Continue to watch our dinosaurs grow older, OR nurture new hatchlings.” MeadWestvaco announced the sale of its U.S. timberlands, impacting some of APSAF’s most active members. APSAF membership had declined into the 1,200 range.
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In 2014 incentives for new members, division projects to educate the public on the important of forestry, and policy statements continued as the focus of APSAF. A problem with finding qualified members to run for division and APSAF offices was noted. As the economy improved so did APSAF’s financial status with solid revenue streams and expenses under budget, leading APSAF Chair Tony Doster to promote the development of a process to fund worthwhile projects to accomplish ASPAF’s mission. Judd Edeburn was elected the new SAF National Board Member (no longer called council member). In 2015 Jennifer Gagnon became APSAF chair. One continuing theme was getting the K.P. Funderburke Fund up to $100,000. About 60 percent of that goal had been met. While maintaining the Va. Forestry Summit as the primary annual meeting, starting in 2016, the Virginia Division began having oneday “continuing education meetings” each September that provided an inexpensive way for division members to earn continuing education hours. The South Carolina Division reported that they were beginning activities to address updating the decade-old forestry exhibit at the South Carolina State Museum, plus consider fundraising options. They had a major role in securing that exhibit in the museum. Forester registration laws continued to be issues in North and South Carolina. Revisions of the APSAF bylaws started in 2015. APSAF and NC Division financially supported and promoted the Forest History Society’s new documentary, First in Forestry: Carl Schenck and the Biltmore Forest School, which aired nationally on PBS in 2016. By 2016 APSAF membership had dipped to about 1,100. It did increase slightly over the year and seemed to stabilize. Membership chair, Tres Hyman, asked: “Can APSAF find its compass?” He reported that recently the trend was a loss of 14 regular/transition members for each new member. The focus of addressing that problem was leadership development and student recruitment and retention. All divisions reported legislative and public service projects; decreased membership did not equate to diminished efforts to promote forestry. A subcommittee of the Professional Recognition Committee was established to ensure at least one fellow nomination comes from each division. Barry New served as APSAF chair; APSAF adopted a new Project Funding Program in November 2016 after two years of development to provide funding on an annual basis to the membership to increase the options and resources for grassroots level activity. In 2017 Scott Wallinger initiated an insightful discussion on APSAF membership, which involved Tres Hyman, Barry New, Christa Rogers, and Mike Wetzel. Scott suggested SAF become more welcoming towards allied B.S./M.S. professionals who might not have a B.S. in forestry. APSAF membership was holding steady at slightly above 1,100 members. The K.P. Funderburke Endowment Fund reached over 80 percent of its $100,000 goal. APSAF members continued to be overrepresented in national award recognition due to the tireless efforts of Mary Morrison. Anne Jewell served as APSAF chair with Christa Rogers as the new SAF National Board Member. The APSAF website was still a major topic in terms of updates and improvements needed. APSAF made adjustments to the location of the annual meetings so that the APSAF Centennial, falling in 2021, would be in North Carolina, the site of the original APSAF meeting. Ginger Reilly stepped down as secretary-treasurer at the end of 2017. Tom Davidson was elected APSAF chair for 2018 and Rick Cantrell as chair-elect, Bill Worrell as the new secretary and Tony Doster as the new treasurer. Tom’s national reputation in communication and organizational skills was reflected in early efforts to strengthen APSAF using those skills. He organized a meeting of past APSAF chairs at the 2018 APSAF meeting to seek advice and counsel on APSAF issues and direction. A 2017 Investment Task Force (Tony Doster, Jim Schroering, David Smith, Janet Steele and Tom Straka) transitioned to a standing APSAF committee chaired by Charlie Finley to ensure APSAF’s financial assets are better invested and managed. Additional changes to the executive committee structure include splitting the Secretary/Treasurer role into two closely related roles, splitting the Communications and Foresters Fund Chair in two chair positions, and establishing a new Student Engagement Committee chartered in 2017. Updated APSAF Bylaws aligning with national bylaws were underway of being approved by the membership. APSAF Special Activities and Events
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In order to achieve the mission of several APSAF issues, activities and events propelled members to dedicate extraordinary efforts to “advance the science, technology, education, and practice of forestry.” The following is by no means a complete listing of such happenings during the new millennium, merely a subset to demonstrate the resolve and dedication of natural resource and forestry professional members of APSAF. The goal of telling these few stories is to inspire current and future generations of APSAF members to dream big, stay true to your convictions, and rely on the ethics of the profession. Credentialing NC Forester Registration Act Following recommendations of a Forest Practices study group created by the governor, NC instituted the Forester Registration Act in 1975, which included establishment of a NC Board of Registration for Foresters. The law was only a voluntary title act with no required participation by foresters. In the early 1990s the NC Association of Consulting Foresters successfully led an effort to have the law amended to require anyone calling themselves a Consulting Forester to meet all requirements of the law and be registered. In the mid 90s, an effort was mounted to strengthen the law into a practices act to require registration for everyone who practiced professional forestry in NC. Support was strong among many foresters for this change, but the effort failed because of opposition by North Carolina Forestry Association (NCFA). However, this effort led to the title law becoming mandatory in 1999. While still only a title act, registration was now required for everyone who used the title “forester” in any role. Also added was the condition that all applicants must pass an exam administered by the Board. In addition, annual CFEs became required for maintaining registration. In 2003, the Board developed a “white paper” outlining weaknesses of the Title Act law. The major points were
Criminal misdemeanor law is very difficult to enforce; need civil law instead that could be enforced administratively Board has authority over only actions of Registered Foresters, not others Criminal law further restricts the Board’s administrative options; no authority to provide hardship waivers on CFE's and limited authority to reject applicants Urban Forestry not adequately addressed Other administrative weaknesses in the wording of the law
The Board, however, decided it was not appropriate for it to seek to increase its own authority. So, the NC Division of APSAF took the leadership in following up on evaluating the law through extensive meetings, polling and discussions within the APSAF membership to determine what, if anything, the SAF's position should be on improving the law. Although not unanimous, a large majority of APSAF membership agreed the points in the Board's report needed addressing. The NC SAF Registration & Licensing Committee, made up of members from all forestry disciplines, developed an initial draft revision of the law that converted it from a criminal 'Title' law to a civil 'Authority to Practice' law which made registration mandatory for everyone practicing forestry in NC. After consulting with legal experts, it was determined there was no value in changing the term registration to licensing. After completing an initial draft of the revision, APSAF met with numerous groups seeking participation and inputs and developed a final draft with their inputs. Even with significant support throughout much of the forestry community, there was political opposition, primarily in NCFA, which threatened to greatly change the proposal if it were presented to the General Assembly. The decision was made to not introduce it at that time. Administrative changes were made through the state’s rule-making process in 2010 to improve the operation of the Board. In 2014, an effort was made by the state legislature to eliminate the number of state boards, and this board was considered for elimination. The reason given was primarily because of the limited number of legal actions the Board had brought against violators of the law. However, after further evaluation, the value of this Board was recognized and maintained.
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South Carolina Forestry Credentials: 2000 to the Present To practice forestry in South Carolina any person, including a graduate forester must be licensed by the state through the Board of Registration of Foresters. The Board and the licensing requirement were created in 1961. Since then the law has been tweaked a few times but it remains today fundamentally the same law. Although it is titled the Registration of Foresters Law, it regulates the profession at SAF’s most restrictive form of governmental enforced standards. The law is, in fact and in practice, a licensing law. The first two years of the new century passed quietly after two heated debates amongst foresters about the law in the 1990s. At the request of the General Assembly in 2002 the Legislative Audit Council (LAC) issued a review report of the Board of Registration and the registration law. The report recommended the Board be eliminated and the law either be repealed or changed to a certification level of regulation. While a few foresters applauded the recommendation, most of the forestry interests in the state rebutted the LAC report and the legislature took no action. In January 2005 a three-year battle began over an attempt to expand the scope of the registration law. It started with a bill to add a requirement that foresters establish escrow accounts to handle the money of their customers and clients. The bill also sought to change all the registration wording in the law to licensing wording to better reflect the true nature of the regulation. The General Assembly did not vote on the bill. Another bill introduced in the General Assembly late in 2005 incorporated the licensing wording changes, expanded the regulatory scope of the registration law while exempting certain contractors from the law, and introduced the term “fiduciary” in two sections of the law. The legislature did not vote on the bill during the 2005 – 2006 legislative session. With the support of the South Carolina SAF Division leadership the bill was reintroduced at the beginning of the 2007 – 2008 General Assembly session. The bill immediately split the forestry profession in the state and a bitter internecine feud ensued. Seeing the profession was split, the legislature once again did not vote on the bill. Credentialing faded in importance within the profession until early 2012. In mid-December the Director of the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation (LLR), issued a report identifying “regulated trades, occupations, and professions” that were excessively or unnecessarily regulated by the state. This report, ordered by the Governor, suggested the “Registration of Foresters Act could be repealed as an unnecessary layer of regulation.” While many foresters welcomed this suggestion, the SC Division and the SC Forestry Association opposed repeal of the law. Both organizations adopted statements supporting the status quo. In 2013 the SC SAF Division renewed its Position Statement, South Carolina Program to Credential Foresters, supportive of the Board of Registration and the Registration of Foresters Act. Also, in 2013 the Governor ordered all occupational regulatory boards and commissions to assess the regulatory burdens they impose on citizens and businesses. This assessment included conducting public meetings and accepting written comments. Some SAF members feared this assessment might endanger the licensing law, but neither foresters nor the public showed much interest in the process or the outcome, and nothing came of this regulatory exercise. The most recent effort to make some changes to the licensing law came in 2014. LLR and the Board of Registration for Foresters worked with the General Assembly to consider a bill which made administrative and legal language changes to the law. This effort was not controversial among the several forestry groups and interests in the state until a member of the Senate added language which exempted wildlife biologists from the law. Concerned that this one exemption might undermine the existing law and disturb the status quo, all of South Carolina’s forestry groups opposed this technical language bill as amended. This bill, like all the others since 2000, died. In response to this last legislative effort to amend the law in a fashion unacceptable to the forestry interests around the state, the SC Forestry Association organized a Foresters Licensing Task Force to assess the status of the regulation of the forestry profession. The SC SAF Division appointed two former Division Chairs to the Task Force. The majority of Task Force members were SAF members. The Task Force did reach several conclusions about regulation of foresters and the Registration of Foresters Act and developed three consensus recommendations for consideration by the Task Force’s member groups. As of 208
May 2018, these recommendations have not been acted upon, and the Task Force itself is dormant. Forester credentialing in South Carolina remains quiet and unaltered. Duke Student Chapter Forestry Symposia In the fall of 2007 the Duke University Student SAF Chapter initiated an annual one-day symposium designed to highlight topical forestry, natural resource and environmental issues. The symposium is open to students and faculty at Duke, surrounding institutions, and attracts many SAF professional members and others from the local area. Subject areas have included forest finance, biomass, climate change, certification, ecosystem services, risk assessment, and community forestry among others. Students have gained valuable experience through organizing the symposium and have been successful in attracting distinguished speakers representing a broad cross-section of professional backgrounds from across the nation. The symposium has been well received by those in attendance and has provided Continuing Forestry Education credits for those needing them. K.P. Funderburke, Jr. Educational Endowment Fund A South Carolina native, Marine, member of SAF since 1950, and SAF Fellow, Kenney P. Funderburke, Jr. exemplified the lifelong dedication of what it means to be an APSAF member. In addition to serving in leadership capacities at the local, state, and national level of SAF and the SC Board of Registration of Foresters, Kenney served on steering committees of various forestry educational initiatives. He served as chair of the finance committee for the SC State Museum forestry exhibits. In 1997 Kenney received the Order of Palmetto for public service achievement (photo, left). Kenney received the SAF President’s Award for Outstanding Field Forester in 2000 to recognize his illustrious professional career. [Kenney died March 9, 2019 in Summerville, SC at age 92. A one page —but vastly insufficient —tribute was paid to Kenney in the Spring 2019 Trail Blazer.] In 1994 Kenney had a vision for an endowed fund, which could be used by APSAF members for a variety of continuing education projects. The executive committee approved the establishment of the fund, and a strong start to raise funds began. As other SAF projects and priorities consumed people’s time the fund-raising effort languished. In 2000 APSAF revised the Educational Endowment Fund to focus on supporting students’ participation in APSAF annual meetings or SAF national conventions and support for APSAF members to attend leadership workshops. The fund was renamed the K.P Funderburke, Jr. Educational Endowment Fund in 2001. Over time the funding goal increased with the latest goal set in 2008 to reach and maintain a principal of $100,000. As of the beginning of 2018, the fund reached $82,000. Fund raising efforts continue to be a mainstay at the annual meeting and at some of the division meetings. The $100,000 goal was realized in early 2019. From 2013 to January 27, 2018, the records show $10,157 has been disbursed to aid 125 students and members attend APSAF and National Convention meetings. Thank you letters published in The Trail Blazer from students from Clemson, Duke University, Haywood Community College, North Carolina State, and Virginia Tech describe their deep appreciation to be able to network with fellow students and professionals from across the country. We are indebted to Kenney’s vision, service, dedication, and loyalty to the forestry profession. SAF Accreditation Program In 2008 APSAF council representative Joann Cox sent a letter of support to SAF Associate Director, Science and Education Terry Clark regarding Duke University’s proposal for an SAF-Accredited Graduate-Professional Program in Forest Conservation at Duke University. The initiative proposed by the Duke Forestry faculty, students, and alumni urged “SAF to develop an accredited graduate-professional curriculum that includes a core of traditional forestry coursework, that promotes professional ethics, and 209
one that develops student expertise in interdisciplinary issues that increasingly determine the fate of forests: e.g. carbon cycling, climate change, biodiversity, bio-energy, fire, globalization, and international trade.” The approval by SAF in 2008 to accredit two-year forest technology programs and to promote urban forestry specialization provided a window of opportunity to encourage the various SAF Committees on accreditation to re-examine the accreditation process in light of this emerging need. In December 2009, SAF chartered a task force under the direction of the Educational Policy Review Committee to consider the merits of an SAF accreditation program for educational programs in terrestrial ecology. The net outcome of the years of dedicated work by the EPRC members and others resulted in SAF’s approval of the Standards for Accreditation in Natural Resources and Ecosystem Management in December 2013. As of 2018 academic programs leading to a Baccalaureate or Master’s degree accredited by SAF include 52 universities and colleges across 38 states in the USA and one province in Canada. Baccalaureate or Master’s degree accredited programs found within the boundaries of APSAF include Duke University, North Carolina State University, Clemson University, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Also, academic programs leading to an Associate Degree accredited by SAF include 25 colleges across 17 states in the USA and one Province in Canada. Associate degree accredited programs found within the boundaries of APSAF include Haywood Community College, Wayne Community College, Horry-Georgetown Technical College, and Dabney S. Lancaster Community College. Hofmann Forest Excerpts taken from The Proposed Sale of the Hofmann Forest: A Case Study in Natural Resource Policy Frederick Cubbage, Joseph Roise, and Ron Sutherland. Published in Forest Economics and Policy in a Changing Environment: How Market, Policy, and Climate Trans-formations Affect Forests. Proceedings of the 2016 Meeting of the International Society of Forest Resource Economics. Forest Service Southern Research Station e-General Technical Report SRS-218, December 2016. p. 81-93. Available at http://sofew.cfr.msstate.edu/papers/cubbage16.pdf. The first Director of the North Carolina State University School of Forestry, Julius Hofmann, felt the students in the new program needed a forest to learn on and practice their discipline, and he worked tirelessly to acquire a suitable tract of land for the new School that he founded after leaving Pennsylvania. In 1934, he set up a Forestry Foundation as a vehicle to obtain a loan and manage such a property, and bought a massive 80,000 acre pocosin tract in the North Carolina coastal plain. Despite the initial mission that focused on the Hofmann Forest, [in 2013 the new] Natural Resource Foundation soon decided to sell the Hofmann based on the premise that it would gain more revenue for its educational and research support mission from the sale of the Hofmann Forest than it could receive from actually managing the Hofmann. Numerous citizens, faculty, and citizens opposed the sale, and pursued various strategies and tactics to stop the sale and protect the Hofmann for education, research, and conservation in its existing university foundation ownership. The North Carolina Society of American Foresters voted to oppose the sale (see January 31, 2013 Resolution), and the Association of Consulting Foresters contributed funds to the environmental lawsuit opposing the sale, as did more than 100 individuals. The issue ultimately created a context so broad that foresters and environmental activist groups such as the Dogwood Alliance and Center for Biological Diversity also cooperated and helped by sending action alerts to their members in order to protect a planted forest area, for perhaps the first time ever. These alerts led to more than 4000 email and letter requests to Roy Cooper, the Attorney General of North Carolina, and to Dean Mary Watzin, asking them to stop the sale of the Hofmann Forest. Social media efforts included more than 10,000 signatures on online petitions opposing the sale. These petitions were ultimately delivered to the NCSU’s Chancellor during the largest protest [of at least five] that included students, activists, and professors who marched in to the Chancellor’s outer office chanting “No sale, no way, the Hofmann Forest has got to stay.” While public relations and media efforts to stop the sale generated widespread public support and opposition to the sale, the proponents of the sale 210
largely stonewalled any faculty opposition, newspaper editorials, or written and internet petitions. It was clear that public opinion alone was not apt to reverse the decision to sell the Hofmann. Thus in another strategy to get on somebody’s agenda in order to stop the sale, some opponents filed a [state of North Carolina] environmental lawsuit. This included Fred Cubbage [APSAF Fellow and 2017 SAF President] as the lead plaintiff, along with Ron Sutherland and three other colleagues—another former professor, the former President of the Forestry Foundation Board, and a local Jones County property owner. After temporary restraining order and injunction trials to stop the sale failed, an appeal to the North Carolina Appellate Court was filed. In a huge surprise, the North Carolina Supreme Court unilaterally reached down and took the case out of the Appellate Court hands, and heard it in a hearing in December 2013. Soon after the Supreme Court hearing, the proposed sale to Walker Farms and a new purchase partner, a Timber Investment Management Organization (TIMO), fell through. Based on the sale cancellation, the Supreme Court essentially ruled the case moot, and made no decision. This lack of a decision in the end, after hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal expenses, did not support the position of the opponents or the proponents of the sale. Thus if another sale were proposed, opponents could return to court. And the case regarding standing to sue, the Hofmann as State Property, and even State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) was at least strengthened by having enough merit to be heard by the Supreme Court, which accepts only the most serious and substantive cases in the State. The proposed Hofmann Forest sale is a compelling policy case of public or private forest land management issues. We [the authors of the paper] hope that more public information about the issue can inform discussion and that readers can benefit from hearing about the process and draw their own conclusions about the merits of the approaches used by Hofmann Forest sale proponents and opponents, and strategies and tactics used by both sides. The issue also will bear further monitoring regarding matters such as the expenditures of the interest and principal from the sale proceeds; the access and use of faculty, students, and locals to the forest; and the benefits that accrue to local citizens as well as university administrators from the sale. We [the authors of the paper] all will watch these developments with keen interest. Followup Note: North Carolina Society of American Foresters Meeting at Annual Society of American Foresters – Appalachian Society Meeting, January 31, 2013 In their meeting at the annual APSAF meeting, about 47 attendees at the North Carolina SAF business meeting voted to oppose the Hofmann Forest sale on January 31, 2013, with no affirmative votes and about 5 abstentions. That resolution follows. Resolution The Society of American Foresters members attending the North Carolina Appalachian Society of American Foresters meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, on January 31, 2013 vote to oppose the sale of the Hofmann Forest. Since 1937, the Hofmann Forest has symbolized the mission and traditions of teaching, research, and extension of the School of Forestry, Department of Forestry, College of Forest Resources, and College of Natural Resources (CNR). The Hofmann Forest provides a long-term, large-scale experimental and operational working forest for demonstration, science, natural resource management, and income, including a diversity of current and future uses. The continued ownership of the Hofmann Forest demonstrates the commitment of CNR and NC State University to sustainable forest management and NC State and its relevant forest and natural resource foundation should continue to own and manage the forest.
America’s First Forest: Carl Schenck and the Asheville Experiment Documentary Film In 2013, the Forest History Society started production of a documentary film, America's First Forest: Carl Schenck and the Asheville Experiment. The film explored the pivotal role of the Biltmore Estate chief forester, Dr. Carl Schenck and the Biltmore Forest School, the first school of its kind in American history. Though the conservation movement and professional forestry began on the Biltmore Forest—now preserved as the Cradle of Forestry an America National Historic Site—Carl Schenck has remained an
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unheralded early leader of both. The film rectifies this oversight while educating the viewer about what professional foresters do and how and why they manage forests. Drawing from Schenck's memoir Cradle of Forestry in America, the film premiered on UNC-TV in March 2016. Joann Cox, a former president of the Society of American Foresters, engaged the Society’s president, Steve Anderson, and its historian and film’s executive producer, James Lewis, in discussions about how SAF and APSAF could support efforts to distribute the film to classrooms in the Carolinas and Virginia. A $5,000 SAF Forester Fund Grant contribution resulted in the Society of American Forester’s name, logo, and URL listed on the film’s contributor webpage, and SAF is listed in the closing credits of the DVD release under the heading “Additional Funding provided by.” The film has received national recognition and featured in numerous newspapers and magazines in North Carolina and across the country. Educational materials for 8th grade social studies classes created by the Forest History Society through funding from the USFS can be found on the www.americasfirstforest.org website. Vanishing Forest Industry and APSAF – history and implications In the initial decades of the Appalachian Section foresters with federal and state agencies and forestry schools were prominent in APSAF’s formation and leadership. Before 1950, many of the legendary names in state government and universities were the leaders of APSAF: C. F. Korstian, Julian V. Hofmann, Richard J. Preston, Marlin H. Bruner, Charles H. Flory, George W. Dean, Ralph C. Winkworth, and Verne Rhodes. Foresters from large forest products companies did not exist in meaningful numbers. Major pulp mills arose in the 1920s and 1930s, and companies began to acquire land. Technology we associate with forestry in the three states emerged increasingly after World War II, and the GI Bill after the war provided a surge in forestry graduates, many of them employed by large companies. Pulp mills were Champion International at Canton, NC; Camp Manufacturing at Franklin, VA; Chesapeake Corporation at West Point, VA; Continental Can at Hopewell, VA; Kieckhefer in Plymouth, NC; North Carolina Pulp in New Bern, NC; Bowater at Catawba, SC; Hoerner Waldorf at Roanoke Rapids, NC; International Paper at Georgetown, SC; Sonoco at Hartsville, SC; and West Virginia Pulp and Paper in Covington, VA and Charleston, SC. Later came Federal Paperboard at Riegelwood, NC; South Carolina Industries near Florence, SC; Union Camp at Eastover, SC; Bear Island Paper near Doswell, VA; Domtar at Bennettsville, SC; and a small mill operated at Big Island, VA. Holly Hill Lumber Company in Holly Hill, SC became a large multiproduct complex. Twelve companies owned the 17 pulp and paper mills plus Holly Hill Lumber. Those companies’ extensive wood procurement operations and growing forest management organizations employed hundreds of foresters. Company forest managers viewed SAF as the primary forum where foresters discussed new and evolving technology for managing forests. Over time, that broadened to include changes in products, changes in the industry and the growing influence of foreign competition. The American Pulpwood Association (now Forest Resources Association) focused on logging and forest management equipment development. Industry foresters were active participants in the Southeastern Technical Division of APA as today’s generation of equipment emerged. That technology was introduced more broadly to foresters via APSAF. State forestry associations grew to become the place where foresters, landowners, loggers, suppliers and others gathered to focus on the business of forestry in their states, Tree Farm and the political context for forestry. The foresters who led the corporate forestry organizations in the APSAF states were foresters themselves, often with master’s degrees, and they saw SAF as their professional society. They were active leaders across the spectrum of organizations, serving on their boards and as officers. They encouraged their foresters to participate in those organizations as part of their continuing professional development, including leadership skills. For many of their most promising foresters, their mandate – whether explicit or tacit – was “you will participate in SAF, you will serve on committees and develop the skills and recognition to become potential SAF and industry leaders.”
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Thus, foresters from the large forest products companies appeared increasingly in leadership roles in APSAF in the 1950s, and their foresters were active participants as well. This was especially true at the Chapter level, but State and Section/Society level meetings were also seen as important training and development opportunities. As forestry became more prominent and the environmental era emerged, corporate forestry executives became active in those arenas, and they expected their foresters to be active, to stay abreast of emerging technology, and to have working relationships with a broad cross-section of the professional forestry community. Through the American Pulpwood Association, Art Nelson of Champion International, Fred Gragg, Oscar Tracewitz, Bob Nonnemacher and Harold Winger of International Paper, Tom Harris of Chesapeake Corporation and Scott Wallinger of Westvaco were publicly active at the national and regional levels. They expected their forest and wood procurement managers and foresters to be equally active at the regional, state and local levels. Pete Lannon of West Virginia Pulp and Paper was Chair of APSAF in 1956. He was manager of the company’s Experimental Forest near Georgetown, SC. William Ernst and C. H. Niederhof of West Virginia Pulp and Paper were at-large Representatives in 1952 and 1960, respectively, as was Herb Carruth of Bowater in1961. Sharon Miller of Chesapeake Corporation of Virginia chaired APSAF in 1965, followed by Carl Brown of International Paper in 1966 and Bobby Womack of Catawba Timber Company (Bowater) in 1970 and Bob Beason of IPCo in 1979. Carl Brown, Sharon Miller, Scott Wallinger and Bob Beason served on the SAF National Council, followed by Gary Youngblood and Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr., of Westvaco. Ed Matics, longtime wood procurement manager for Westvaco’s Covington, VA mill, was not active in SAF himself, but he strongly encouraged his foresters to participate, and that’s reflected in the large number of Covington based foresters who held SAF leadership positions through the years in Virginia and APSAF. Ron Bost of Duke Power’s forestry subsidiary chaired the NC Division in 1982. Bobby Womack, Rob Beason, Scott Wallinger, Eddie Drayton (Sonoco), and Walter Jarck of Catawba served as Chairs of the SC Division. Dick Brake of Chesapeake Corporation, Don Gross, Garry Youngblood, Gerald Foltz, Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr and Scott Shallenberger of Westvaco had stints as the Virginia Chair. Throughout this time, their colleagues from these and other large companies served on APSAF committees at the state and Society level. Virtually no activity within APSAF took place without the active involvement of numerous industry foresters. The foundation of the state societies and APSAF was the local chapters of SAF. Here, too, foresters from the large companies were often the largest component of membership. The chapters were the backbone of SAF where much of SAF’s presence was generated. They were the SAF voice at the local level. Chapter members worked with school groups, garden clubs and civic groups to assure foresters’ professional image was widely recognized. Chapter meetings provided professional camaraderie along with a spectrum of informative programs. Not all foresters could attend two-day state or tri-state meetings regularly, but they could attend evening chapter meetings – and they did. In many parts of the APSAF states, corporate foresters were the majority of chapter membership. As the company forest ownership era ended, many chapters felt a significant loss of membership and diminished activity as those numbers decreased. That large involvement of corporate foresters in SAF began a rapid and massive downward course at the beginning of this century as company after company began a rapid selloff of corporate forests. Georgia-Pacific sold its forests in 1999 to Plum Creek Timber. In previous decades, International Paper had absorbed Union Camp (including the mills at Franklin, VA and Eastover, SC), Federal Paperboard at Riegelwood, NC and then Champion International (including the mills in Canton and Roanoke Rapids, NC). Between 2001 and 2006, International Paper sold essentially all of its Southern company forests to TIMOs, including the forests in the three APSAF states. MeadWestvaco began sale of its forests gradually and concluded sale of its South Carolina and Virginia forests around 2007. A driving factor was corporate perception of an emerging “Wall of Wood” across ownerships in the South that made corporate ownership of forests no longer necessary. Accompanying that was the need for massive infusions of capital to retire debt from acquisitions and to finance redeployment of company 213
facilities in a global context. Land sales generated huge cash inflows and a very low historic cost basis in company forests in many cases generated significant, visible profits. With the end of corporate forest management, a huge population of former company foresters either retired or found new employment with smaller local firms of consulting foresters and TIMOs and REITs or with conservation non-governmental organizations. There are still sixteen pulp and paper mills owned by eight companies within the APSAF region. With the WestRock acquisition of KapStone, it now owns six of the mills in the three states. International Paper owns three mills, Domtar owns two mills and one each are now owned by Evergreen, Resolute, Roseburg, Sonoco and Weyerhaeuser. Sonoco still owns hardwood forests near its Hartsville, SC mill. None of the others except Weyerhaeuser as part of its timber REIT own company forests. Also, as a result of mergers and acquisitions and evolution of corporate executive management, corporate cultures are vastly changed today from the earlier era, and wood procurement foresters for the most part are far down in the corporate structures. Below is a list of large forest products companies in APSAF as of December 2018. North Carolina Paper Mills Canton, NC: Champion International- Blue Ridge Packaging - Evergreen Packaging New Bern, NC: North Carolina Pulp - International Paper – Weyerhaeuser Plymouth, NC: Kieckhefer – Weyerhaeuser - Domtar Fluff Pulp Riegelwood, NC: Federal – International Paper Roanoke Rapids, NC (first kraft paper mill in USA): many earlier owners, Champion International, International Paper, KapStone, WestRock South Carolina Paper Mills Bennettsville, SC: Willamette – Domtar Catawba, SC: Bowater/Catawba Timber – Resolute Forest Products Charleston, SC: Westvaco – MeadWestvaco – KapStone – WestRock Eastover, SC: Union Camp – International Paper Florence, SC: South Carolina Industries – Stone Container - RockTenn – WestRock Georgetown, SC: International Paper Hartsville, SC: Sonoco Holly Hill, SC: Champion – Blue Ridge Packaging – Evergreen Packaging, (had forests in Newberry, SC) Virginia Paper Mills Ashland, VA: Bear Island Paper Company– shut down in 2017, reopened in 2018 and shut down again in 2019 Big Island, VA: Earlier companies – Owens-Illinois, Georgia-Pacific, Covington, VA: Westvaco –MeadWestvaco, WestRock, Franklin, VA: Camp Manufacturing – Union Camp – International Paper, Hopewell, VA: Continental Can – Smurfit-Stone – RockTenn – WestRock, West Point, VA: Chesapeake Corp. – St. Laurent – Smurfit Stone – RockTenn – WestRock, Former Major Industrial Plant Companies Bear Island, Bowater/Catawba, Champion International, Chesapeake, Continental Can, Federal, International Paper, Georgia-Pacific, Sonoco, South Carolina Industries, Union Camp, Westvaco. 12 Companies, 17 mills. All but one owned substantial forests. Major Current Industrial Plant Companies WestRock (6 mills); International Paper (3 mills); Domtar (2 mills); Evergreen, Resolute, Roseburg, Sonoco, Weyerhaeuser (one plant each) 8 Companies, 16 mills; no forestland except Weyerhaeuser.
_________________________ The Society of American Foresters invests significant effort and resources into leadership training for its members. An important characteristic of the government, university and industry foresters mentioned above is that they were natural leaders. When they saw a need, they took action! When they saw an 214
opportunity, they took action! APSAF flourished because of such leaders and its strong membership. Today, APSAF depends on the very large number of foresters who work in numerous consulting forestry and TIMO/REIT organizations to support its membership and dynamism. The key question in the 21 st century is whether today’s National Forest supervisors, state foresters, university forestry deans and senior faculties, as well as consulting foresters and TIMO/REIT executives will exhibit the same kind of leadership as their predecessors to make APSAF flourish. Certainly, APSAF will depend on emerging leaders at the chapter level. But, leadership begins at the top and that falls to those who lead forestry and related natural resource agencies, academic institutions and today’s forest businesses within the three states. Forestry in the three states has seen many other changes, especially the significant and important growth of state and many county forestry associations. The challenge for SAF itself is to find the “sweet spot” of programs and activities that appeal to and meet the professional needs of the spectrum of today’s generation of foresters and natural resource professionals who comprise the current and potential SAF membership. Germany Exchange Tours: 2014 SAF-Sponsored German Forestry Study Tour In the later part of July and early August 2014, SAF sponsored a 14-day forestry study tour to experience and observe German forest management. This once-in-a-lifetime tour provided a unique opportunity to meet and visit with German foresters and landowners and to see exceptional forest management and private castles that very few Americans have seen. The tour, arranged by APSAF and SAF Fellow John Palmer, was especially prepared to visit Dr. Schenck’s home area in the mountainous Odenwald region and to be in Dr. Schenck’s hometown of Lindenfels during its annual festival. In conjunction with John Palmer, four native Germans volunteered their time to help coordinate the tour. Professor Dr. Marcel Robischon served as the overall coordinator and interpreter. Dr. Robischon’s forestry degrees are from Freiburg, Germany and Cambridge and Oxford Universities in England, with three years of post-doctoral work for the USFS in California. Professor Dr. Christoph von Rhöneck, a Schenck family descendant, oversaw the visits throughout the Odenwald where Dr. Schenck lived. Dr. von Rhöneck recently retired as a respected Professor of Physics and an administrator at Ludwigsburg University. Additional Schenck family members helped with the many special arrangements. The Baroness Francine von Finck coordinated many forestland visits throughout Bavaria, plus her own estate during the first part of the tour. Mrs. von Finck is a respected member of the Council of the International Dendrology Society. The Countess Dr. Christina Nesselrode hosted a special Rhine River cruise and visit during the post-tour to her son’s large forestry properties, which specialize in hardwood management. Dr. Nesselrode is also an active member of the International Dendrology Society. On August 4, 2014, the tour participants attended a special tree planting ceremony held at the edge of the Allmendwiese. The German Forest Service donated a tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera), Dr. Schneck’s favorite tree in the USA, as part of the tree planting ceremony in honor of Dr. Schneck in the “kurgarten.” Carsten Wilke, Head Forester in the State of Hessen and German Forest Society President and Joann Cox, 2013 SAF President, planted a tuliptree and an oak (Quercus) with accompanying plaques to commemorate SAF’s visit to Dr. Schenck’s hometown. Later on that day, a ceremony in memory of Dr. Schenck was held with welcome remarks from Lidenfels Buergermeister Michael Helbig, Herr Carsten Vilke from the Deutsche Forestverein, and Joann Cox. The von Rhönecks hosted a welcome reception and dinner in their garden beside the Lindenfels Castle along with many of the Schenck family descendants. Dr. von Rhöneck booked 15 German foresters to play their traditional hunting horns plus fireworks over the historic Lindenfels Castle making for a memorable day. In addition, Mrs. Cindy Carpenter (USFS Cradle of Forestry) arranged to have songs composed by Dr. Schneck’s forestry student sung, including an original composition written by Cindy for this special occasion.
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Joann Cox (2013 SAF President) made a speech on behalf of SAF thanking our hosts and recognizing Dr. Carl Schneck’s contributions to forestry in the USA. She extended an invitation to the German Forest Society to organize a similar forestry study tour to America, including especially visiting the area in the Appalachian Mountains where Dr. Schenck worked and established the first American college of forestry at the Cradle of Forestry. An article written by Chris Bolgiano in the October 2014 The Forestry Source highlighted the details of the trip. 2018 German Forest Society Southeastern U. S. Forestry Study Tour In October 2018, APSAF hosted members of the German Forest Society on a ten-day tour of Southeastern forestry operations. The German Forest Society hosted several stops and events during the 2014 SAF German Forest Study Tour. During that study tour, Joann Cox invited the German Forest Society to visit the United States and tour Forestry Operations here. The objective of the tour showed the German Forest Society members as many aspects of the forestry sector as possible while they visited the U.S. APSAF members John Palmer, Joe Cox and Joann Cox served as the primary coordinators of the German Forest Society tour. H. Stro Morrison, III, APSAF SC Division member coordinated the coastal South Carolina field stops. Joann Cox procured a Forester’s Fund grant to sponsor meals and expenses of the tour. Also, the NC Division Pisgah Chapter and the South Carolina Division provided funds. APSAF hosted fifteen members of the German Forest Society (GFS) on the 2018 tour. The GFS attendees included landowners, forestry professors, foresters, and several prominent German Forestry officials, including a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet. A welcome dinner held at the Lake Logan Lodge near Canton, NC began the tour welcoming the Germans to the United States. David Lane, State Forester of North Carolina, extended the official greetings to North Carolina along with members of the APSAF Pisgah Chapter, Haywood Community Student Chapter, and Warren Wilson Student Chapter, the President of Haywood Community College, and U. S. Forest Service employees. The festivities continued at the famous 'Sit & Whittle' cabin (formerly owned by Champion Paper Company's owner Ruben B. Robinson) for local beer, local wine, birthday cake, plus mountain blue grass music (thanks to Rob Elliot from Evergreen Packaging). The evening's events included Cindy Carpenter singing a song she had written about Dr. Schenck. Cindy’s beautiful guitar accompaniment lead the entire group in a rip-roaring singing of Pinus Pinus Ponderosa— a favorite song of Dr. Carl A. Schenck’s Biltmore Forest School students. We also presented a gift tree to Lake Logan to commemorate this gathering. The Germans seemed to especially appreciate having a few of the young forestry students from Haywood Community College and Warren Wilson College in attendance. The German Forest Society tour started in the Asheville area. We visited privately owned forests, The DuPont State Recreational Forest, the Cradle of Forestry, the Pisgah National Forest, and the Biltmore Estate. On these stops the Germans explored native forests, forest ecosystem restoration work, white pine plantation silviculture, and mountain hardwood silviculture. At Biltmore, they visited sites where Carl Schenck planted trees that are still present. Hans Rohr, the NC Bladen Lakes State Forest Manager, who was born and raised in Germany, served as a translator from English to German for this part of the trip. It was not all business as the president of the German Forest Society, Carsten Wilke, and Susann Biehl, the manager of the forests owned and held by the Episcopal Church in Germany, competed in a Jack-and-Jill crosscut saw event during the 29th John C. Palmer Collegiate Woodmen’s Competition. Another leisure activity included a self-guided morning tour of the Biltmore mansion followed by a meeting with Bill Cecil, the great grandson of George Vanderbilt. From Appalachia, the German Forest Society headed to the coastal plains of South Carolina. Our Lowcountry tour stared with a tour of the Audubon’s Francis Beidler Forest wildlife sanctuary in Four Holes Swamp, a blackwater creek system in SC. The Germans delighted in spotting a cottonmouth and an otter, while exploring one of the few SC existing stands of old growth forests of cypress and tupelo trees. The second day in the coastal plains included an official welcome by the South Carolina State Forester, Scott Phillips, when we stopped for a tour of the family-owned Cullom’s Sawmill in Allendale. That afternoon, we toured privately owned forests that featured loblolly pine and longleaf silviculture.
216
The third day included preparations for an unwelcome visitor, Hurricane Michael – primarily safety briefings for the German tour members and procurement of flashlights. We visited the SC Department of Natural Resources James W. Webb Wildlife Center near Garnett, SC. Here, the staff introduced the GFS to management efforts at the Webb center to create habitat for desired species, including the Red Cockaded Woodpecker, turkey, and deer. That afternoon, we visited a site ready for a prescribed burn. Unfortunately, it rained the night before and the burn could not be conducted. The South Carolina Forestry Commission did have a fireplow on site, and the local Commission staff briefed the GFS on the role of the Commission in fire-fighting and prescribed fire. That evening and night, Michael passed to the west and proved to be a quick visitor with no power loss at any of the places that the Germans stayed. The next morning, we visited the Arborgen facility in Ridgeville. The Arborgen tour included a synopsis of their nursery operations, controlled mass pollination techniques, the breeding and cloning techniques utilized to produce varietal seedlings, and a tour of the greenhouse facilities where the techniques are practiced. We followed that with a visit to downtown Charleston. Unfortunately, the visitor’s center was closed due to Michael. So, we spent a few hours touring the downtown area, including the historic market. During the entire tour, the Germans enjoyed all sorts of local foods and cuisine. In western North Carolina, they experienced local farm-raised trout. In South Carolina, they experienced some fine Lowcounty barbecue, including excellent banana pudding, a wonderful fried chicken lunch with local farm raised vegetables at the Webb Center, and numerous seafood dinners, including a shrimp boil. The tour ended with a farewell dinner at the Tabby Room at the Dataw Island Club. The exceptional filet and shrimp dinner and traditional Southern dessert of bourbon pecan pie was followed by comments from the German Forest Society president, Carsten Wilke. He expressed his deepest appreciation to everyone involved in organizing this informative and memorable tour. All the German Forest Society members went to the front of the room and sang all four versus of American the Beautiful. The local APSAF members and tour hosts, as well as the wait staff at the Country Club, were humbled by this display of thanks. The German Forest Society members then followed this by singing their national anthem. All told, the German Forest Society experienced various silviculture regimes in the Southeastern U.S. They also met a lot of foresters, landowners, and students. As a special expression of thanks, the Germans presented tour guides and their helpers with special gifts from their native land, including schnapps flavored with spruce buds, a carpenter’s ruler made out of German beech, letter openers, and for special guests, a German flag that flew over the Bundestag, the German parliament, or a copy of a book on German Forests from the late 1600s that first recognized that sustainable management of forests supports a healthy society. It was a special experience for both the German Forest Society and the local members of the APSAF.
Acknowledgements for this chapter Any project, whether work related or affiliated with a volunteer organization such as APSAF, always needs individuals willing to step forward when the call for help goes out. Lucky for me when I made that call stalwarts of our APSAF community stepped up to help. While these individuals on their own may not solve all the issues facing our profession, I am convinced by serving and working together as APSAF members, we are able to pave the way to learn from each other, increase mutual understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing our profession, collaborate on correcting misconceptions, and build new friendships and enhance old ones. My deepest thanks go to the following APSAF members who contributed their time in writing and editing this chapter. Dr. Tom Straka was my writing partner, sounding board, and colleague who helped frame the chapter content, find other contributors, and wrote the synopsis of APSAF events using the Trail Blazer. Mike Wentzel and Derryl Walden, whose tireless involvement in credentialing, provided overviews of this subject from each of their respective home states. Tres Hyman, 2018 APSAF Membership Chair, wrote about the greatest challenge to APSAF, membership enrollment and retention. Judd Edeburn, former and highly regarded Duke Forest Resource Manager, wrote about the Duke SAF Student Chapter forestry symposium. Ginger Reilly and Pat Straka contributed to the writeup about K.P. Funderburke, Jr. and the formation of his educational endowment fund.
217
Dr. Fred Cubbage, NCSU professor and co-author of over 1000 research papers and professional speeches, shared the insights of the events surrounding the attempt to sell the Hofmann Forest. John Palmer, retired forestry professor from Haywood Community College and founding director of the HCC campus arboretum, detailed the highlights of the 2014 SAF-sponsored German forestry study tour. Jamie Lewis, Staff Historian of the Forest History Society and executive producer of America’s First Forest: Carl Schenck and the Asheville Experiment documentary film, provided an overview of the film. Scott Wallinger (Westvaco), Bob Beason (International Paper), and John Thurmes (Westvaco/WestRock) worked together to produce an examination of the history and implications of the changes in the forest industry and APSAF. Joe Cox, retired School Forest Manager of NCSU and board member of the NC Tree Farm Program, provided a look forward about the 2018 SAF-sponsored German Forest Society Southeastern U. S. Forestry Study Tour. To these dedicated APSAF members a heartfelt thanks for your friendship and help. ~ Joann Cox
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Chapter 13 Reflections on the Future of APSAF by Christa Rogers, Board Representative As the saying goes, it’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. As the Appalachian Society of American Foresters approaches its 100th year, it seems an appropriate time for reflection. We have done much to grow the profession and enhance the careers of Appalachian foresters. The previous chapters do a great job of capturing much of our inspiring history through technical advances, public perception, changing markets and political controversy. But what’s next? The profession and the Society are entering an interesting period. We have many challenges (aka opportunities) that seem to be at pivotal moments in their lifecycle. First, in recent times forestry schools reacted to the job market and began modifying curricula. Now many forestry degrees have concentrations in Forest Management, Wildland Recreation, Restoration and Conservation Science, and Urban Forestry, and many are accredited by SAF. Next, while almost 50 percent of our membership is 60 years and older, we appear to have many opportunities to gain new student members and retain young APSAF professionals. To aid growth and welcome people of different demographics and interests, SAF has recently adopted a Diversity and Inclusion Policy. National SAF membership is stable or even on the rise after a period declining membership and revenues, and many state societies are thriving due to excellent programs and local engagement. Times have certainly changed over our 100-year history. Americans are moving to cities faster than ever, and that seems especially true in the South. Agriculture is increasingly modernized, and fewer workers are needed to perform the same tasks. We now see some forest operations replaced by drones and automated heavy equipment. Steve Wilent, editor of The Forestry Source recently wrote an article about the day in the life of a forester may have in the year 2031. It reads: “8:45 a.m. Arrival at Tract 67. The screen in the dashboard shows an outline of the tract on a Google Map and image of the area. He gets out of the truck holding cup of coffee (the cup and its cap are made from woodbased cellulosic nanofibers), slams the door, takes a sip, sets the cup on the hood, yawns, stretches, and then draws his “phone” from his vest pocket and taps a couple of times on the screen. The QuadHangar in the truck bed opens its bay doors and small quadcopter rises from the compartment….”
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Along more classic lines, there is a C. S. Lewis poem called The Future for Forestry. It begins “how will the age of trees feel when the last tree falls in England?...” It’s a sad poem, and it cautions that progress and development will ruin the beauty of nature and specifically forests. It was written in the 1930s, and I am sure we can all relate to its meaning. Fewer kids are growing up playing in the woods and turning over rocks in the creeks. As people become less connected to the landscape, they think lumber comes from the home improvement store, and water comes from the faucet. It’s becoming harder to effectively communicate the importance of what foresters do and how we provide forest products and sustainability. This isn’t a message that will get easier in the future, which means the strength of our SAF is even more critical. The need for foresters and forest science is greater than ever. The region APSAF covers contributes billions to the state economies and the SAF chapters in the Carolinas and Virginia are some of the most active (probably because those forests are very active). However, as our demographics shift and our states welcome new residents, many of these new residents are disconnected from the natural heritage of the region. As SAF Foresters, we have a responsibility to promote forest stewardship and educate those around of the importance of forest products and the wise use of our forest resources so they remain for future generations. These needs and trends will enable the SAF to remain the go-to professional society for foresters and natural resource professionals who need access to forest science and policy information. SAF will foster many to become leaders within the Society as well as aiding us in our professional development and performance in our daily forestry careers. The near future depends on SAF’s strategy, and in 2019 the Society is guided by the “5 Key Pillars.” They are 1) Increase tangible value to members, 2) Grow membership in 3 dimensions: Numbers, Diversity, and Generational, 3) Secure a sound financial picture, 4) Elevate the professional status of forestry, and 5) Promote sound forest science and policy. To that end, I expect APSAF and its divisions to continue offering hearty, well-attended meetings that espouse the forest science and policy of our members and colleagues. I think we will continue to be a robust state society that touts more Certified Foresters than ever. I expect the APSAF of the future to have a much more diverse membership than what we have in 2019, including more members who are younger, or are earlier in their careers, and greater numbers from the broader field of forestry. Gifford Pinchot founded SAF with the purpose of creating a professional society for the new career of forestry that would elevate the profession’s status in the eyes of others. He wanted SAF “to further the cause of forestry in America by fostering a spirit of comradeship among foresters; by creating opportunities for a free interchange of views upon forestry and allied subjects, and by disseminating a knowledge of the purpose and achievements of forestry.” In the future, I expect APSAF will continue this vision to protect and serve society by inspiring, guiding, and governing members in the conduct of their professional lives. For the greatest good. For the greatest number. For the long run.
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Appendix: Awards and Service Recognition 1. APSAF Annual Meeting Location, Chair, Vice chair, other officers Year 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939
Location Asheville Asheville Asheville Asheville Asheville Richmond Nashville,TN Raleigh Bristol,TN-VA Athens,GA Asheville Raleigh Columbia Statesville Asheville Durham Durham Spartanburg Charlotte
J.S. Holmes Verne Rhodes E.F. Frothingham W.J Damtoft E.F. McCarthy R.S. Maddox C.F.Korstian M.A. Mattoon E.F. Frothingham Verne Rhoades J.V.Hoffman C.F. Evans W.J Damtoft C.F. Korstain Wm. Maughan F.H. Claridge R.M. Nelson C.R. Hursh
Verne Rhodes E.F.McCarthy W.J Damtoft H.M. Curan R.S.Maddox W.J Damtoft M.A. Mattoon none----------Verne Rhoades C.F. Evans J.H.Bueil F.H. Claridge Wm. Maughan S.R. Broadbent J.H.Stone J.J. Goulden E.V. Roberts R.W.Graebar
C.F.Korstian C.F.Korstian C.F.Korstian E.F. McCarthy F.W.Haasis M.A. Mattoon J.W.McNair J.W.McNair W.K. Beichler W.K. Beichler I.H.Sims I.H.Sims I.H.Sims Wm. Maughan C.A.Abell C.A.Abell C.A.Abell G.H.Hepting
1940
Asheville
N.D. Canterbury
W.P. Bullick
M.H. Bruner
1941 1942
Asheville Asheville
N.D. Canterbury C.H. Flory
J.W. Squires M.H. Bruner
J.L. Averel L.E.Chaiken
1943
Asheville
W.K. Beichler
J.V.Hoffman
G.M.Jemison
C.J. Peterson N.E. Hawes N.D. Canterbury A.E. Wackerman Wm.Maughan W.C/. Hammerle W.E. Cooper
1944 1945 1946 1947
Columbia Columbia Raleigh Asheville
W.C. Hammerle G.H. Hepting G.M.Jemison M.H. Bruner
G.M.Jemison W.J. Barker W.J. Barker H.F. Bishop
W.J. Barker L.T. Easley R.J. Riebold Locke Craig
1948
Raleigh
N.T.Barron
H.F. Bishop
J.C. Blakeney
1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955
Greensboro Raleigh Columbia Durham Roanoke Raleigh Columbia
Lenthall Wyman A.E. Wackerman T.H.Davis L.E. Chaiken R.J. Preston Phil Griffiths Tom Lotti
P.A. Griffiths P.A. Griffiths R.W. Wolcott R.W. Wolcott R. Bartholomew R. Bartholomew C.H. Stoltenberg
1956 1957 1958 1959 1960
Durham Richmond Raleigh Columbia Durham
Peter Lannan, Jr T.E. Maki H.F. Lanthrop W.T. Ahearn H.J. Doyle
C.H. Stoltenberg W.T. Ahearn W.T. Ahearn N.B. Goebel N.B. Goebel
L.E. Chaiken G.E. Jackson H.F. Lathrop Wm. Ernst Roy Carter E.C. Pickens G.F. Grushchow N.B. Goebel R.N.Hoskins H.F. Bishop L.E. Chaiken C.H. Niederhof
R.J.Preston R.J.Preston
1961 1962
Roanoke Durham
R.C. Winkworth N.T. Barron
J.V.Hoffman G.M.Jemison M.H. Bruner J.W. Cruikshank Lenthall Wyman W.J Barker T.H.Davis G. W. Dean R.J. Preston J.C.Blakeney John Gray Peter Lannan, Jr T.E. Maki H.F. Lanthrop E.S. Harrar R.M. Osborn R.C. Winkworth M.H. Bruner J.J. Ennis
T.M.Hasell,Jr T.M.Hasell,Jr
H.C. Carruth K. Trousdell
R.J.Preston R.J.Preston
Chair
Vice Chair
Secretary/Treasurer
221
At large Rep
SAF Council
E.H. Frothingham E.H. Frothingham E.H. Frothingham E.H. Frothingham J.S. Holmes
C.F. Korstian C.F. Korstian C.F. Korstian C.F. Korstian Verne Rhodes Verne Rhodes Verne Rhodes
W.J Damtoft W.J Damtoft W.J Damtoft W.J Damtoft
1963 1964
Roanoke Asheville
J.J. Ennis T.M.Hasell, Jr
T.M.Hasell,Jr Sharon Miller
S G.Hobart S G.Hobart
P.A. Griffiths R.C. Bryant
1977 1978 1979
Vice Chair Position Became Chair Elect Position in 1965 & State Chair Positions Added Richmond Sharon Miller Carl A. Brown S G.Hobart Raleigh Carl A. R.A. Klawitter S G.Hobart Brown Columbia R.A. Klawitter R.C.Bryant S G.Hobart Raleigh R.C.Bryant R.L. Marler S G.Hobart Roanoke R.L. Marler B.L.Womack S G.Hobart Greensboro B.L.Womack G.E. Jackson S G.Hobart Charleston G.E. Jackson C.C.Steirly S G.Hobart Durham C.C.Steirly Claude Bardon Wm. E. Cooper Norfolk Claude Wm. E. Cooper Koloman Lehotsky Bardon Greensboro William E. W.H.D.McGregory Koloman Lehotsky Cooper Myrtle Beach W.H.D.McGreg Julian Hofmann Koloman Lehotsky or Asheville Julian O. C. Goodwin William E. Cooper Hoffman Richmond O. C. Goodwin John Hosner William E. Cooper Raleigh John Hosner Robert Beason William E. Cooper Charleston Robert Beason Robert McElwee William E. Cooper
1980
Winston Salem
1981 1982 1983
1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976
NC Div Chair
S
Lyle Hicks
J
Carl A. Brown Carl A. Brown Sharon A. Miller Sharon A. Miller Sharon A. Miller Sharon A. Miller
G.V. Chamblee J.B. Hubbard Donnie P. Todd John Gambrell Thomas Rhyne O.C. Goodwin Martin Shaw
Scott Wallinger
L.A. Kilian
Scott Wallinger
Donald Dewey
H B N W R S G L D M E
Scott Wallinger
John Weatherly
R
Scott Wallinger William Millikan William Millikan
David Olson Richard Mills James L. Huff
J B E D D
Horace Green
William E. Cooper
William Millikan
Edwin J. Young
Roanoke Asheville Myrtle Beach
Robert McElwee Horace Green Eric Ellwood Eric Ellwood
Eric Ellwood O.G. Langdon R.M. Allen
J.B. Hubbard J.B. Hubbard J.B. Hubbard
William Millikan William Millikan William Millikan
W R D
1984
Charlotte
R.M. Allen
H.L. Haney, Jr.
J.R. Warner
Robert Beason
1985 1986
Norfolk Raleigh
H.L. Haney, Jr J.P.Pridgen
J.P.Pridgen Tom McLintock
J.R. Warner J.R. Warner
Robert Beason Robert Beason
1987
Greenville,SC
H.L. Olinger
J.R. Warner
Leonard Kilian
1988 1989
High Point Richmond
Gary Youngblood Arthur Cooper
J.R. Warner J.R. Warner
Leonard Kilian Leonard Kilian
Larry Jervis E. C. Franklin
C J
1990 1991 1992
Pinehurst Charleston Asheville
Donal Hook Leonard Kilian K. P. Funderburke
Vernon Robinson Vernon Robinson Vernon Robinson
John Hosner John Hosner John Hosner
James Reavis Andrew Parker T.C.Thompson
J J S
1993
Greenville,SC
Robert Kellison
Vernon Robinson
Gary Youngblood
Judd Edeburn
P
1994
Charlottesville
Crockett Morris
Vernon Robinson
Gary Youngblood
David Brown
D
1995
Winston Salem
William Rilee
Vernon Robinson
Gary Youngblood
Myrtle Beach Williamsburg Raleigh
Vernon Robinson Vernon Robinson Vernon Robinson
David Smith David Smith David Smith
1999
Charleston
Patricia Straka Ralph Cullom Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr Thomas Straka
K.O. Summerville Charles Williams W. Austin Wright Moreland Gueth
W
1996 1997 1998
Tom McLintock H.L. Olinger Gary Youngblood Arthur Cooper Donal Hook Leonard Kilian K. P. Funderburke Robert Kellison Crockett Morris William Rilee Patricia Straka Ralph Cullom
Rick Hamilton Ronald Bost Thomas McLintock Arthur W. Cooper Ralph Cullom Harold Blanchard Samuel Hughes
Vernon Robinson
Patricia Straka
Eugene Robbins
W W H S
2000
Roanoke
Rick Hamilton
Vernon Robinson
Patricia Straka
Barry New
J
Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr Thomas
222
D
N G
W
2001 2002
Charlotte Greenville, SC
Straka Rick Hamilton Rhett Bickley
Rhett Bickley S. Knight Cox
Vernon Robinson Vernon Robinson
2003
Williamsburg
S. Knight Cox
Judson Edeburn
Vernon Robinson
2004
Raleigh
William Snyder
Vernon Robinson
2005
Columbia
David Powell
2006
Charlottesville
Judson Edeburn William Snyder David Powell
2007 2008 2009
Pinehurst Myrtle Beach Newport News
2010
Greenville, NC
2011 2012
Charleston Wytheville
2013
Charlotte
2014 2015
Williamsburg Columbia
2016
Charles Webb Charles Webb
B C
Ron Meyers
J
Allen Plaster
C
Liz Bourgeois
Patricia Straka Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr Fred Cubbage
Mark Megalos
T
Ron Meyers
Liz Bourgeois
Fred Cubbage
Joann Cox
Ron Meyers John Thurmes Chester Kearse Mark Megalos
John Thurmes Chester Kearse Mark Megalos
Liz Bourgeois Liz Bourgeois Liz Bourgeois
Fred Cubbage Joann M. Cox Joann M. Cox
John Palmer Les Hunter Tony Doster
M R M T C
Chip Maley
Liz Bourgeois
Joann M. Cox
P
Chip Maley Charles Gresham Ed Stoots
Charles Gresham Ed Stoots
Liz Bourgeois Liz Bourgeois
Tom Straka Tom Straka
Michael C. Thompson James Gray Douglas Steiger
Tony Doster
Ginger Reilly
Tom Straka
Christa Rogers
Jennifer Gagnon Barry New
Ginger Reilly Ginger Reilly
Judson Edeburn Judson Edeburn
Pete Hancock Hans Rohr
Durham
Tony Doster Jennifer Gagnon Barry New
Anne Ulrey
Ginger Reilly
Judson Edeburn
2017 2018
Charlottesville Greenville, SC
Anne Jewell Tom Davidson
Tom Davison Rick Cantrell
Christa Rogers Christa Rogers
2019
Wilmington
Rick Cantrell
Dan Goerlich
Christa Rogers
Travis Hughes
D
2020
Norfolk
Dan Goerlich
Adam Downing
Anne Jewell
Henry Randolph
S
2021
Asheville
Adam Downing
Not elected at time of printing
Ginger Reilly Bill Worrell/Tony Doster Bill Worrell/Tony Doster Bill Worrell/Tony Doster Not appointed at time of printing
Thresa Henderson Clay Altizer Jeff Pardue
T C M G C R
Anne Jewell
Sam Cook
J
223
M T
M
2. APSAF Distinguished Service Award YEAR 2019 2018 2016 2014 2012 2010 2008 2006 2004 2002 2000 1998 1996 1994 1992 1990 1988 1986 1984 1982 1980 1978 1976 1974 1972 1970 1968 1966 1964 1962 1960 1958 1956 1956
NAME YEAR. NAME. Elizabeth Bourgeois Anne Jewell 2017 Greg Scheerer Mike Bozzo 2015 John Hancock Edward Stoots 2013 Jennifer Gagnon James McCarter 2011 Daniel Goerlich Adam Downing 2009 Joseph Roise Scott Shallenberger 2007 Bradley Fuller Rick A. Hamilton 2005 Stanford Adams Chester Kearse, Jr 2003 R. Easton Loving Larry Jervis 2001 Thomas Straka David W. Smith 1999 Gary Youngblood Patricia Straka 1997 Frank Olah Shelby L. (Lee) Spradlin, Jr. 1995 C. Crockett Morris, Jr. Kenney Funderburke, Jr. 1993 O. Gordon Langdon Otis Hall 1991 Samuel Hughes Thomas McClintock 1989 Leonard Kilian, Jr. Harold Olinger 1987 Edwin E. Rodger Harold Burkhart 1985 Robert Allen John Hosner 1983 Eric Elwood Walt Ahearn 1981 Wally Custard Scott Wallenger 1979 T. Maki W.E. Cooper 1977 N.B. Goebel Cammon Niederhof 1975 Sharon Miller Bruce Zobel 1973 Marlin Bruner G.E. Jackson 1971 Navarre Barron Richard Preston, Jr. 1969 Russell Haynes William Maugham 1967 Keith Dorman George Dean 1965 Fredrick Claridge Seth Hobart 1963 Clarence Korstian none 1961 Robert Graiber Theodore Coile 1959 Julian Hofmann Francis X. Schumaker 1957 Charles Flory Elwood Demmons 1957 Ralph Winkworth* Monroe Green* *Junior Award This award was known as the Appalachian Section Achievement Award prior to 1975
3. APSAF Young Forester Leadership Award YEAR NAME 2019 Nate Herring 2018 Shannon McCabe 2016 David Schnake 2014 Scott Barrett 2012 William Worrell 2010 Jennifer Gagnon 2008 Greg Meade 2006 Adam Downing 2004 Michael Mortimer 2002 Mark Rogers 2000 R. Easton Loving 1998 Elizabeth Bourgeois 1996 Fred Turck 4. APSAF Volunteer Service Award YEAR NAME 2018 Susan Guynn 2016 Janet Steele 2014 William Worrell 2012 Brian Clarke 2010 John Gee 2008 James Gray 2006 Daniel Goerlich 2004 Michael Lane 2002 Temple Hahn 2000 Dylan Jenkins 1998 Vernon Robinson
5. SAF Presidents from APSAF Name
Year
Clarence F. Korstian
1938-41
David W. Smith
2002
Joann M. Cox
2013
Fred Cubbage
2017
Tammy Cushing
2019
YEAR.
NAME.
2017 2015 2013 2011 2009 2007 2005 2003 2001 1999 1997 1993
Donald Hagan Pete Hancock April Nuckools Anne Ulrey Jewell Neil Clark Greg Sheerer Ronald Myers Daniel Goerlich Barry New Jennifer Quick Michael Bozzo Pat Straka
YEAR. 2017 2015 2013 2011 2009 2007 2005 2003 2001 1999
NAME. Jeff Pardue Matt Dowdy Walter Mallard, Jr. John Angst Gerald Foltz Charles Gresham Edward Zimmer Mark Hollberg Harold Olinger Jeffery Bauman
Henry (Gene) Kodama
2020
APSAF members who have received national SAF Awards 6. Award in Forest Science YEAR
NAME
2017
Randolph Wynne
2016
David Wear
2015
Frederick Cubbage
7. Barrington Moore Memorial Award YEAR
NAME
2013
Thomas Fox
2010
Howard Allen, Jr.
2003
David Van Lear
2000
Ellis Cowing
1997
Robert Kellison
1991
Harold Burkhart
1982
Charles Davey
1968
Bruce Zobel
1960
Francis Schumacher
8. Carl Alvin Schenck Award YEAR
NAME
2018
Carolyn Copenheaver
2017
Larry Gerring
1998
John Seiler
1990
David Smith
9. Diversity Leadership Award YEAR
NAME
2017
Sam Cook
10. W. D. Hagenstein Communicator of the Year Award 2019
Robert Beanblossom
2018
Charles F. Finley, Jr.
2017
Tom Davidson
11. John A. Beale Memorial Award YEAR
NAME
2019
Patricia Straka
2018
Joann Cox
2017
Tom Straka
2016
Eugene Stoots, Jr
2015
Elizabeth Bourgeois
2006
David Smith
1995
Sharon R. Miller
1968
Bruce Zobel
1960
Francis Schumacher
12. National Young Forester Leadership Award YEAR
NAME
2015
Scott Barrett
2011
Tamara Cushing
2004
Daniel Goerlich
2009
Gregory Meade
2008
Greg Scheerer
2005
Michael Mortimer
2004
Daniel Goerlich
1999
Rick Cantrell
1996
John Hancock
13. Gifford Pinchot Medal YEAR
NAME
2019
Carlton Owen
2015
Henry (Gene) Kodama
2009
David Smith
1999
Arthur Cooper
1995
John Hosner
14. Presidential Field Forester Award YEAR
NAME
2019
Jeff Pardue
2018
William Ardrey
2017
Shelby L. Lee Spradlin
2016
Bruce White
2015
Robert M. Franklin
2014
John Magruder
2013
Leslie Hunter
2012
Jake Stone
2011
James Gray
2010
Jessie Crawford III
2008
Silas K. Cox
2007
Larry Layman
2006
Charles Maley
2005
Nathan McClure
2004
Thomas Dierauf
2002
Larry Jervis
15. Sir William Schlich Memorial Award YEAR
NAME
2018
Bettina Ring
2000
Harold Steen
1988
Bruce Zobel
1978
William Towell
1972
Richard Preston, Jr.
16. Student Leadership Award YEAR
NAME
2018
Jordan Luff
2017
Preston Durham
17. Technology Transfer Award YEAR
NAME
2016
James McCarter
2005
James Johnson
2002
George Kessler
1992
Harry Haney, Jr.
18. Employer Leadership Award YEAR
NAME
2019
Gelbert, Fullbright & Randolph
19. APSAF Fellows Name
Mike Wetzel
Bettina Ring Mary Morriåson Stephen Manzene Anne Jewell Tony Doster Barry New Charles Maley Scott Shallenberger Hancock, John Rogers, Christa Gray, James Ed Stoots Layton, Patricia Anderson, Steven Franklin, Carlyle Fox, Tom Megalos, Mark Thurmes, John Davis, Jan Kearse, Chester Carroll, John Mortimer, Michael Snyder, William Cox, Knight Thurmond, Guy Walden, Derryl Zedaker, Shepard Cathey, John E.
2018 2018 2018 2018 2018 2018 2017 2017 2016 2015 2015 2015 2014 2013 2012 2012 2012 2011 2011 2011 2010 2010 2010 2009 2009 2009 2009 2008
Year 2019 VA SC NC VA NC NC SC VA VA NC NC VA SC NC NC VA NC SC VA* SC VA VA* NC SC SC NC VA SC
Division
Name Dewald, Dr. Laura E. Edeburn, Judson D. Farmer, John D., Jr. Hahn, Temple T. Wall, W. Virgil Willis, James R. Cox, Joann Meyer Dierauf, Thomas A. Huppuch, Charles D. Plaster, Allen L. Brown, Gregory N. Hyman, Waldo H. Webb, Charles D. Adams, Stanford M. Harmon, L. Hodge Spradlin, Shelby L. (Lee) Wade, Dale D. Davey, Charles B. Hicks, Edward B. Reamer, Larry D. Staiger, Douglas K. Hamilton, Rick Warner, Stanley F. Palmer, John G. Rilee, William H. Summerville, Kenneth O. Straka, Patricia A. Straka, Thomas J.
Year
Division 2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 2007 2007 2007 2007 2006 2006 2006 2005 2005 2005 2005 2004 2004 2004 2004 2003 2003 2002 2002 2002 2001 2001
NC NC VA VA SC VA NC VA VA NC VA SC NC NC SC VA NC NC NC SC NC NC VA NC VA NC SC SC
Whitfield, Fred E. Lively, John Swank, Wayne T. Thatcher, Robert C. Van Sickle, Charles C. Bickley, Rhett S. Kinard, Frederick W., Jr. Robinson, Vernon L. Smith, David Wm. Youngblood, Gary G. Cubbage, Frederick Morris, C. Crockett Cullom, Ralph M. Hughes, Samual M. Olinger, Harold L. Herren, Robert D. Crutchfield, Douglas Harris, Thomas G. Hook, Donal D. Kincaid, Dan B. Nelson, Albert L. C. Haney, Harry L. Smith, Warren Stanley, Wilbur C. McElwee, Robert L. Olson, George A. Trew, I. Frederick Walbridge, Thomas A., Jr. Wenger, Karl F. Dorman, Keith W. Eng, Donald W. Killian, Leonard A., Jr. Baughman, William D. Geddes, Roland B. Tombaugh, Larry W. Warner, John R. Wilson, S. Leigh Young, Edwin J. Argow, Keith A. Barden, Claude F. Benson, Robert J. Box, Benton H. Chestnutt, William F. Cooper, Arthur W. Fenstemaker, Forrest L. Grey, Gene W. Marcum, Garry F. Miller, Sharon R. Rodger, Edwin E. Burkhart, Harold E. Ellwood, Eric L. Green, Horace J. Matics, Harold E. Peach, Nelson L. Van Lear, Davd H. Nichols, C. R., Jr.
2001 2000 2000 2000 2000 1999 1999 1999 1998 1998 1997 1997 1996 1994 1994 1992 1991 1991 1991 1991 1991 1990 1990 1990 1989 1989 1989 1989 1989 1988 1988 1988 1987 1987 1987 1987 1987 1987 1986 1986 1986 1986 1986 1986 1986 1986 1986 1986 1986 1985 1985 1985 1985 1985 1985 1984
NC NC NC NC NC SC SC SC VA VA NC VA NC NC VA VA SC VA SC NC SC VA NC VA VA NC VA VA VA NC SC SC SC VA NC SC SC NC VA SC SC SC NC NC NC VA VA VA NC NC VA SC SC SC
Custard, Wallace F. Funderburke, Kenney P. Langdon, O. Gordon McClintock, Thomas F. Smyth, Arthur V. Boyce, Stephen G. Smyth, Arthur V. APSAF Fellows continued Boyce, Stephen G. Niederhof, Camman H. Wallinger, R. Scott Ahearn, Walter T. Hofmann, Julian George Milliken, William F. Allen, Robert M. Bryant, Milton M. Evans, Thomas C. Hall, Otis, F. Smith, Walton Ramsey Barber, John C. Berntsen, Carl M. Bryan, Milton M. Grest, Edward G. Hosner, John F. Jackson, Gorham E. Little, Elbert L., Jr. Lloyd, William J. McGregor, William H. Davis Vitas, George Winkworth, Ralph C. Bruner, Marlin H. Towell, William E. Dean, George W. Maki, T. Ewald Zobel, Bruce J. Haig, Irvin T. Stevensen, Donald D. Flory, Charles H. Harrar, Ellwood Scott Hepting, George H. Preston, Richard J., Jr. Duerr, William A. Wackerman, Albert E. Duffield, John W. Eyre, Francis H. Schumacher, Francis X. Wahlenberg, William G. Detwiler, Samuel B. Damtoft, Walter J. Demmon, Elwood L. Morrell, Fred W. Frothingham, Earl H. Guthrie, John D. Korstian, Clarence F. Holmes, John S.
1983 1983 1983 1983 1983 1982
VA SC SC NC VA NC
1983 1982 1982 1982 1981 1981 1981 1979 1979 1979 1979 1979 1977 1977 1977 1977 1977 1977 1977 1977 1977 1977 1977 1975 1973 1969 1969 1969 1967 1967 1965 1965 1965 1965 1963 1961 1959 1959 1959 1957 1955 1951 1951 1951 1942 1942 1942 1939
VA NC SC SC SC NC SC SC NC NC VA NC VA VA VA VA VA NC VA VA SC NC NC SC NC VA NC NC NC NC SC NC NC NC VA NC NC VA NC NC VA NC NC VA NC VA NC NC
End Notes l. E.L. Demmon, “Historical Highlights of the Appalachian Section, Society of American Foresters, on the Occasion of the Golden Anniversary,” Minutes of Business Session, Appalachian Section, Society of American Foresters, 2:45pm, Thursday, Feb. 4, l97l; History Committee Appalachian Section, Society of American Foresters, “Notes on the History of the Appalachian Section, Society of American Foresters,” n.d. (Appalachian Society of American Foresters, Records, Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, N.C., hereafter APSAF Records); William Maughan, ed., A Guide to Forestry Activities in North Carolina South Carolina, and Tennessee (Appalachian Section, Society of American Foresters, January l939), l3-l4, 35, l50-l5l. Obituary “William Darrow Clark,” Journal of Forestry v2l, n4 (April, l923), 423. Committee on American Forest Research, Society of American Foresters, “North American Forest Research,” Bulletin of the National Research Council, vl, n4 (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences: August, l92O) 48. Elwood R. Maunder, “J.E. McCaffrey: Go South Young Man,” Oral History Interview 2/64 and 3/65 (Santa Cruz, CA: Forest History Society, l974) 4, l2-l6. “Southern Forestry Congress,” in The Encyclopedia of American Forest and Conservation History (Durham, NC: Forest History Society) 6l6. “Membership List of the Society of American Forestry, November l, l924,” Journal of Forestry v22, n8(December, l924), 938970. 2. Charles D. Smith, “The Appalachian National Park Movement, l885-l9Ol,” The North Carolina Historical Review XXXVll (January):38-65. Charles S. Sargent, “A Suggestion,” Garden and Forest V(July l3):325-326. 3. E.L. Demmon, “Historical Highlights of the Appalachian Section, Society of American Foresters, on the Occasion of the Golden Anniversary,” Minutes of Business Session, Appalachian Section, Society of American Foresters, 2:45pm, Thursday, Feb. 4, l97l; History Committee Appalachian Section, Society of American Foresters, “Notes on the History of the Appalachian Section, Society of American Foresters,” n.d. (Appalachian Society of American Foresters, Records, Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, N.C., hereafter APSAF Records); William Maughan, ed., A Guide to Forestry Activities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee (Appalachian Section, Society of American Foresters, January l939), l3-l4, 35, l50-l5l. Obituary “William Darrow Clark,” Journal of Forestry v2l, n4 (April, l923), 423. SAF Committee on American Forest Research, North American Forest Research, 48. Elwood R. Maunder, “J.E. McCaffrey: Go South Young Man,” Oral History Interview 2/64 and 3/65 (Santa Cruz, CA: Forest Historical Society, 1974) 12-16. “Southern Forestry Congress,” in The Encyclopedia of American Forest and Conservation History (Durham, NC: Forest History Society,) 616. Joseph Hyde Pratt, “Memorial Sketch of Dr. Joseph Austin Holmes,” Journal of Forestry v32,n1 (April, 1916), 1-15. W.C. Corker, J.S. Holmes, and C.F. Korstian, “William Willard Ashe,” Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Society, v48 (October, 1932), 40-47. Gifford Pinchot and W.W. Ashe, “The Timber Trees of North Carolina/ The Forests of North Carolina,” N.C. Geological Survey Bulletin, n6 (Raleigh, NC: N.C. Geological Survey 1987). 4. H.B. Ayres, “Some Economic Features of the Southern Appalachian Forests,” Proceedings of the Society of American Foresters, 1901. J.A. Holmes, Forest Problems in the Southern Pine Belt,” Proceedings of the Society of American Foresters, 1901. Ferdinand A Silcox, “The Lumbering of Loblolly Pine in South Carolina,” thesis, Yale University School of Forestry, 1904. Franklin W. Reed, “Report on an Examination of a Forest Tract in Western North Carolina,” United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Forestry Bulletin 60 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1905). 5. Carl. A. Schenck, Cradle of Forestry in America: The Biltmore Forest School, 1891-1913 (Durham, NC: Forest History Society, reprint 1998), 113-116, 139. Carl A. Schenck, ed., The Biltmore Immortals v1 (Darmstadt, Germany: L.C. Wittich, 1953) and v.2 (19570. Kenneth B. Pomeroy and James G. Yoho, North Carolina Lands: Ownership, Use, and Management of Forest and Related Lands (Washington, DC: American Forestry Association, 1964) 167. Elwood R. Maunder, ed., Voices from the South: Recollections of Four Foresters (Santa Cruz: Forest History Society, 1977), Oral History Interview with Inman F. Eldridge, 1959: 1-3,8, and Oral History Interview with Walter J Damtoft, 1959: 178, 184,188. “Membership List of the SAF, November 1, 1924,” Journal of Forestry v22,n8 (December, 1924) 938-970. “Announcement of Candidates for Membership,” Journal of Forestry (1920s). Jonathan Daniels, The Forest is the Future (New York: International Paper Company, 1957) 32. 6. Carl. A. Schenck, Cradle of Forestry in America, 148-150, 187-188. Elwood R. Maunder, “Oral History Interview with Mr. Reuben B. Robertson and Mr. E.L. Demmon, Asheville, NC, February 15, 1959,” oral history files, Forest History Society, Durham, NC, 1-10, 17-18. 7. H.E. Jolley, “The Cradle of Forestry: Where Tree Power Started,” American Forests, 76, (Fall): 16-21. Society of American Foresters, “Meetings, 1900-1901,” Proceedings of the Society of American Foresters 1 (May, 1905): 24-25. Ralph S. Hosmer, “The Society of American Foresters: An Historical Summary,” Journal of Forestry vll, n38 (Nov, 1940): 839. Maunder, “Interview with Mr. Reuben B. Robertson and Mr. E.L. Demmon,” 28. Maunder, Voices from the South, Oral History Interview with Walter J. Damtoft, 1959. 188-189. 8. Harold K. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service: A History, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976), 26-27, 122-129.
9. W.W. Ashe and H.B. Ayers, “Forests and Forest Conditions in the Southern Appalachians,” ln A Report of the Secretary of Agriculture in Relation to the Forests, Rivers, and Mountains of the Southern Appalachian Region (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1901) 45-68. J. Wilson, Report of the Secretary of Agriculture on the Southern Appalachian and White Mountain Watersheds (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1908) 39. l0. S.S. Mastran and N. Lowerre, Mountaineers and Rangers: A History of Federal Forest Management in the Southern Appalachians, 1900-1981 (Washington D.C.: USDA Forest Service, 1983) 23-29. 1l. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 45, 64, 133. Hosmer, “The Society of American Foresters,” 841. l2. William Maughan, editor, A Guide to Forestry Activities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee (Appalachian Section, Society of American Foresters: January, 1939) 150, 164, 180. E.L. Demmon, “Historical Highlights of the Appalachian Section,” 52. Committee on American Forest Research, Society of American Foresters, “North American Forest Research,” 283. Joseph Hyde Pratt, “Memorial Sketch of Dr. Joseph Austin Holmes,” Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, v32, nl, (April, 1916), l-15. 13. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 1-2. P.L. Buttrick, E.H. Frothingham, G.F. Gravatt, and E. Murray Bruner, “Chestnut and the Chestnut Blight in North Carolina,” N.C. Geological and Economic Survey Economic Paper 56, (Raleigh, NC: N.C. Geological and Economic Survey, 1925). USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Bent Creek web page, http: //www.srs.fs.fed.us /bentcreek/early. htm 14. W.W. Ashe, “Report on an Examination on Certain Swamp Lands belonging to the State,” N.C. Geological Survey: Biennial Report of the State Geologist, 1905-1906: 40-50. W.W. Ashe, “Management of Loblolly and Shortleaf Pines,” Proceedings of the Society of American Foresters, v5, n1,l9l0: 84-100. W.W. Ashe, “Loblolly or North Carolina Pine,” North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey Bulletin 24, (Raleigh, NC: N.C. Geological and Economic Survey, 1915). W.W. Ashe, “The Forests, Forest Lands, and Forest Products of Eastern North Carolina,” North Carolina Geological Survey Bulletin 5, (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Geological Survey, 1894). W.R. Mattoon, “Fighting Gully Erosion,” American Forestry v22:1916, 286-287. W.R. Mattoon, “Slash Pine for reforestation in the Coastal Plain,” Clemson Agricultural College Bulletin, 192-_ 15. Thomas H. Sherrard, “A Working Plan for Forest Lands in Hampton and Beaufort Counties, S.C.” U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Forestry Bulletin 43, (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1903). Charles S. Chapman, “A Working Plan for the Forest Lands in Berkeley County, S.C.” U.S. Department of Agriculture Bulletin 56 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1905). Stanley L. Wolfe, “Wood-Using Industries of South Carolina,” South Carolina Department of AgricultureL Commerce, and Industries Tenth Annual Report (Columbia, S.C.: The R.L. Bryan Co., 1913). Elwood R. Maunder, “Clarence F. Korstian: Forty Years of Forestry, An Oral History Interview,” (unpublished manuscript, Forest History Society, Durham, NC: 1969), 32. C.F. Korstian, “Natural Regeneration of Southern White Cedar,” Ecology v5:1924, 188-191. C.F. Korstian, “ Timber from Southern White Cedar Pays on Coastal Swamp Land,” U. S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1927, 617-619. E.H. Frothingham, “Woodlots in the Piedmont Region: A Profit Source,” U. S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1926: 780-782. 16. E.L. Demmon, “Historical Highlights of the Appalachian Section,” 54. Maughan, Guide to Forestry Activities, 224. 17. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 3. 18. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 52-56, 176-179. Hosmer, “The Society of American Foresters,” 844-845. For examples of the debate within the SAF, see especially: Henry S. Graves, “The Real Issue,” Journal of Forestry, 192O:98-99. William B. Greeley, “Self-Government in Forestry,” 1920:103-105. Gifford Pinchot, “National or State Control of Forest Devastation,” 1920:106-109, and others. Paul D. Kelleter, “State or Federal Control of Private Timberlands,” Journal of Forestry, v29, n3 (March, 1921) 223. 19. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 179-188. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 3. 20. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 173, 185-195. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 3, Maughan, Guide to Forestry Activities, 151, 155, 164, 180-181. Examples of fire control publications aimed at public education include: Angus W. McLean, “An Advanced Program of Reforestation for North Carolina,” North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development Circular 12 (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development, 1925). K.E. Kimball, “Forest Fires and Taxation: A Brief Study,” North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development Circular 11 (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development, 1925). J.G. Peters, “Woods Burning in the South,” North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development Circular 20 (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development, 1929). Henry H. Tryon, “Forest Fires in South Carolina,” South Carolina Extension Service Circular 77 (Columbia, SC: South Carolina Extension Service, 1926). Horace L. Tilghman, “Forest Fires, Can South Carolina Afford Them?" American Forestry v30 (1924) 746, 748. Carl 1. Peterson, “Does It Pay to Burn the Range?" Tennessee Division of Forestry
Circular 11 (Nashville, TN: Tennessee Division of Forestry, 1927). Rufus S. Maddox, “Forest Fire Prevention and Suppression,” Proceedings of the Tenth Southern Forestry Congress (1928), 89-93. Fred H. Claridge wrote two pamphlets promoting reforestation: “Forest Tree Planting,” N.C. Department of Conservation and Development, Division of Forestry Circular 15 (Raleigh, NC: N.C. Department of Conservation and Development, Division of Forestry, 1926) and “Tree Seed Collecting in North Carolina,” N.C. Department of Conservation and Development Circular 18 (Raleigh, NC: N.C. Department of Conservation and Development, 1927). 21. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 185-195. Maughan, Guide to Forestry Activities, 8, 152, 192-201. 22. Anonymous, “Notes,” Journal of Forestry v29, n3 (February, 1921). Walter J. Damtoft, “Minimum Silvicultural and Protective Requirements from the Standpoint of the Timberland Owner,” Journal of Forestry v2O, n3, (March,1922), 228-232. John S. Holmes, “Publicly Owned Forests and their Place in a Country-wide Forestry Program,” Journal of Forestry, v24, n2, (February, 1926), 159-165. J.H. Pratt, “Forestry Problems of the Southern Appalachians and the Southeastern States,” North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey Circular 3 (Chapel Hill, NC: N.C. Geological and Economic Survey, 1922). 23. Maunder, “Clarence F. Korstian,” 62-65; Clarence F. Korstian, Forestry on Private Lands in the United States (Durham, NC: Duke University School of Forestry, Bulletin 8, June, 1944), 183-195, 206. Wilson Compton, “Facing the Forest Future,” (Duke University School Forestry Lectures, n5, 1942), quoted in Korstian, Forestry on Private Lands, 185. Clarence Korstian, WinstonSalem Journal, January 8, 1942. Anonymous, “Society Affairs,” Journal of Forestry v25, n1 (January, 1927), 105. Anonymous, “Notes,” Journal of Forestry, v26, n5 (May 1928), 733. 24. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 3-5. George H. Hepting, “Forestry Pathology in the Southern Appalachians, 19001940.” Forest History 8 (Fall 1964), 11-13. Arthur F. Verrall, A History of Forest Pathology Research in the South and Southeast (New Orleans, LA: USDA Forest service, General Technical Report, SO-036, May, 1982) 65-69. G.F. Gravatt and D.E. Parker, “Introduced Tree Diseases and Insects,” in Trees: Yearbook of Agriculture 1949 (Washington DC: US Department of Agriculture and Government Printing Office, 1949) 446-451. Hosmer, “The Society of American Foresters,” 848-849. Steen, Forest Service Research: Finding Answers to Conservation’s Questions (Durham, NC: Forest History Society, 1998), 19. Maunder, Voices from the South, Oral History Interview with Elwood L. Demmon, 155-156. 25. Committee of the Southern Appalachian Section, SAF, “A Forest Type Classification for the Southern Appalachian Mountains and the Adjacent Plateau and Coastal Plain Regions,” Journal of Forestry, v24, n6 (November, 1926), 673-684. 26. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 4. Maunder, Voices from the South, OHI with Demmon, 124-125. Donald G. Coleman, An Oral History Interview with Dr. Eloise Gerry (Madison, WI: USDA Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory, 1961), 5-7. Germaine M. Reed, Crusading for Chemistry: The Professional Career of Charles Holmes Herty (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1955), 269. 27. Raphael Zon, Forests and Water in the Light of Scientific Investigation (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1927). History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 4. Steen, Forest Service Research, 10. 28. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 4-5. 29. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 3-6. Steen, Forest Service Research, 19-22. Steen, The US Forest Service, 137-141. Hosmer, “The Society of American Foresters,” 847-848. 30. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 4. Elwood L. Demmon, “Historical Highlights of the Appalachian Section,” 53. Anonymous, “Society Affairs,” Journal of Forestry, v24, n2 (February, 1926), 219-220. Anonymous, “Society Committees,” Journal of Forestry v27, n6 (October 1929) 754-756. 31. The committee members were Harry Lee Baker (chair), Rufus S. Maddox, John S. Holmes, Fred B. Merrill, E. Murray Bruner, Henry Tryon, and Burley M. Lufburrow, the first State Forester of Georgia (1925). 32. Earle Kaufman, “The Southland Revisited,” American Forests, v61, n8 (August 1955) 38-40. Bill Rooney, “Burnin’ Bill and the Dixie Crusaders,” American Forests, v99, n5-6 (May/June, 1993) 35. APSAF, Membership Directory: Appalachian Section of the Society of American Foresters (January, 1948) 47. 33. Maunder, Voices from the South, OHI with Inman F. Eldredge, 44. 34. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 5. Maunder, Voices from the South, OHI with Demmon, 132. South Carolina State Forest Service, Forestry for Vocational Agricultural Schools (Columbia, SC: 1931). W.K. Beichler, “Education as an Outstanding Forestry Need in the Southern Appalachians,” Journal of Forestry, v27, n4 (April, 1929), 440-442. F.H. Claridge, Forestry Lessons for Vocational Agriculture in High School (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development,
1932). W.R. Mattoon, “Managing Farm Woodlands,” Journal of Forestry, v27, n6 (October, 1929) 720-725. Delanson Y. Lenhart, “Forest Conservation Programs for Schools, Service Clubs, Women’s Clubs and Other Civic Associations,” (Columbia, SC: SC State Commission of Forestry, 1932). 35. Elwood L. Demmon, “Historical Highlights of the Appalachian Section,” 53. Anonymous, “Society Affairs,” Journal of Forestry, v25, n5 (May, 1927), 615-616. 36. Clarence F. Korstian to Major Robert Y. Stuart, 1/17/27 (SAF papers, Forest History Society, Durham, NC). Anonymous, “Society Affairs,” Journal of Forestry, v25, n5 (May 1927), 615. 37. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 5. 38. Ferdinand W. Haasis to E.R. Hodson, 6/3/26; George Harris Collingwood to Ferdinand W. Haasis, 6/9/26; Edward F. McCarthy to Paul G. Redington, 6/12/29 (Society of American Foresters papers, Forest History Society, Durham, NC). 39. Society of American Foresters, Report on Industrial Forestry, December 16, 1930 (SAF papers). Henry Clepper, The History of Professional Forestry in the United States (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971) 204. 40. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 3, 6. J. Bernard Hogg and Ronald J. Sheay, The Allegheny Society of American Foresters: A Seventy-five Year History, 1922- 1997 (Dillsburg, PA: Allegheny Society of American Foresters, 1997), 3. Anonymous, “Society of Affairs,” Journal of Forestry, v26 n4 (April 1928), 556. Memorandum the SAF Council from Franklin Reed, August 9, 1935 (SAF papers). 41. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 4. Hosmer, “The Society of American Foresters,” 847. Anonymous, Society Affairs,” Journal of Forestry, v21, n2 (February 1923), 207-208. Anonymous, Society Affairs,” Journal of Forestry, v24, n8 (December, 1926) 951. Anonymous, “Society Affairs,” v25, n5 (May, 1927), 615. 42. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 4. Hosmer, “The Society of American Foresters,” 847. Samuel Trask Dana and Evert W. Johnson, Forestry Education in America: Today and Tomorrow (Washington, DC: Society of American Foresters, 1963), vii. Henry S. Graves, et al. “Standardization of Instruction in Forestry, Report of the Committee of the Conference of Forest Schools,” Forestry Quarterly, 1912:26, 430-453. Henry S. Graves, “Some Considerations of Policy in Forest Education,” Journal of Forestry, 1928:26, 435-453. Henry S. Graves Vocational Training in Forestry,” Journal of Forestry, 1928:26, 749-761. Membership Directory (Appalachian Section of the Society of American Foresters: January, 1948) 10. 43. Dana and Johnson, Forestry Education, 45-56. Henry S. Graves and Cedric H. Guise, Forest Education (Hew Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1932). 44. Private Forestry Survey, 1926. Society of American Foresters Papers, Forest History Society, Durham, NC. Maunder, Voices from the South, 142-144. Membership Directory (Appalachian Section of the Society of American Forester: January, 1948) 29. William Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee (Appalachian Society of American Foresters, January, 1939), 251-252. Membership Directory, 1948, 15. Thomas Dill, Chesapeake, Pioneer Papermaker: A History of the Company and Its Community (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1968). Parke Rouse, Jr., The Timber Tycoons: The Camp Families of Virginia and Florida and Their Empire, 1887-1987 (Published for the Southampton County Historical Society, Courtland, VA by The William Byrd Press, Richmond, Virginia, 1988). 45. Chesapeake Pulp and Paper Company was established in 1914 by Elis Olsson at West Point, Virginia. Albemarle Paper Company in Richmond originally used rags to produce pulp, but later relied on kraft pulp supplied by Chesapeake. Albemarle sold its interest to Chesapeake within a few months, and Chesapeake sold its interest to Camp Manufacturing in 1941. Chesapeake-Camp and Camp Manufacturing merged in 1944. 46. Maughan, Guide to Forestry Activities, 2-14, 17-18, 22-23, 35-42, 106-107, 150-152, 157, 164-165, 180-181, 192-200. Dana and Johnson, Forestry Education in America, 220. Maunder, Voices from the South, OHI with Demmon, 132. 47. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 222. 48. Stephen G. Boyce, oral history interview by Susan L. Yarnell, 4/19/00, Durham, NC. Steen, Forest Service Research, 2-8. Coleman, Oral History Interview with Dr. Eloise Gerry, 1-4. Patricia L. Stickney, Lloyd W. Swift, Wayne W. Swank, Annotated Bibliography of Publications on Watershed Management and Ecological Studies at Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory, 1934-1994, General Technical Report SE-86 (Asheville, NC: USDA Forest Service, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, 1994), iv. Harold K. Steen, ed. Forest and Wildlife Science in America (Durham, NC: Forest History Society, 1999). 49. History Committee, APSAF "Notes," 3, 6. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 22, 24.
50. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 6-7. Maughan, Guide to Forestry Activities, 151. Harold K. Steen states that “the modern concept of multiple use appeared for the first time in substantive way” in the Copeland Report of 1933, quoted from Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 202. Verne Rhoades, “Federal Forest Purchases and Forest Recreation,” North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey Circular 9 (Chapel Hill, NC: N Geological and Economic Conservation Policy for Geological and Economic Survey, 1924). John S. Holmes, “A North Carolina,” North Carolina Survey Circular 13 (Raleigh, NC: N.C. Geological and Economic Survey, 1926). 51. Clarence L. Forsling, “A Range Management Division for the Society,” Journal of Forestry, v26, n2 (February, 1928), 254256. Maughan, Guide to Forestry Activities, 35. Charles R. Hursch and 50. History Leonard I. Importance Barrett, Forests of Georgia Highlands: Their for Watershed Protection, Recreation, and Wood Production. Bulletin 15 (Macon, GA: Georgia Forest Service in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service Appalachian Forest Experiment Station and the Georgia Agricultural Experiment Station, 1931) Anonymous, “Game Value Big Factor in Income from Forest,” Journal of Forestry v29, n4 (April, 1931) 619-620. Anonymous, Journal of “South Carolina Commercial Forestry Conference,” Forestry v29, n4 (April, 1931) 622623. Inman F. Eldredge, “Management of Southern Pine for Naval Stores,” Journal of Forestry v29, n3 (March, 1931) 328. John Fedkiw, Managing Multiple Uses on National Forests, 1905-1995 (Washington, DC: USDA Forest Service, 1996) 1-28. E.P. Meinecke, “Tentative Program of Annual Meeting,” Journal of Forestry, v30, n7 (November, 1932) 900-901. 52. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 7. George P. Ahern, Deforested America (Washington DC: privately published, 1928) Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 223. George P. Ahern, “Notes Forestry in the Philippine Islands,” Journal of Forestry v24, n4 (1934), 349-351. Schenck, Cradle of Forestry in America, 125 Arthur V. Smyth, Capital Forestry: A History of the National Capital Society of American Foresters (Washington DC: National Capital Society of American Foresters, 1990), 7. Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 7. 53. History Committee, APSAF, Notes,” 7. Maughan, Guide to Forestry Activities, 18, 47, 253. Membership Directory, 1948, 6. 54. Gerald W. Williams, “Social Science Research in the Forest Service: An Increasing Emphasis,” in Harold K. Steen, ed., Forest and Wildlife Science in America: A History (Durham, NC: Forest History Society, 1999), 318-351. Franklin W. Reed, “Results of Forest Policy Ballot,” Journal of Forestry, v29, n7 (November, 1931), 990. 55. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 223-225. Hosmer, “The Society of American Foresters: An Historical Summary,” 847. 53. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 199-204. Harold K. Steen, “The Forest Service and the History of Forest Science,” in Steen, ed., 22-24. 57. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 7-8. John S. Holmes discusses similar ideas in J.S. Holmes, “A Conservation Policy for North Carolina,” and J.S. Holmes, “A Forest Policy for North Carolina,” Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Society, v45, nl (November, 1929), 28-32. 58. Carl Williams, “The Land Use Problems of the South,” Journal of Forestry, v30, n3 (March, 1932) 276-283. Edwin E. Ziegler, “Financial Aspects of Growing Pine in the South,” Journal of Forestry v30, n3 (March, 1932) 284-297. Harry Lee Baker, “Comments,” Journal of Forestry, v30, n3 (March, 1932) 297-298. Clarence F. Korstian, “Comments,” Journal of Forestry 299300. Fred Morrell, “Some Financial Aspects of Cooperative Forest Protection,” Journal of Forestry v30, n3 (March, 1932) 301309. 59. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 8. A mistake occurs in the “Notes,” naming Virginia twice in the discussion of county cooperation in fire control programs. That Tennessee was intended instead of the second occurrence of Virginia was deduced from data in William Maughan, ed., A Guide to Forestry Activities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee (Asheville, NC: Appalachian Section, Society of American Foresters: January, 1939), 183. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 200-201. 60. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 8-9. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 151, 155. Pomeroy and Yoho, North Carolina Lands, 113, 346. 61. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 9. Hogg and Sheay, Allegheny SAF, 3. Membership Directory, 1948, 57. 62. History Committee, APSAF, “Notes,” 9. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 22, 164. 63. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 70-71. David H. Van Lear and Thomas A. Waldrop, History, Uses, and Effects of Fire in the Appalachians (Asheville, NC: USDA Forest Service Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, General Technical Report SE-54, April, 1989), 9. Stephen G. Boyce, oral history interview. Ferdinand W. Haasis, “The Decreasing Importance of Forest Grazing in the Southern Appalachians,” Journal of Forestry, v24, n5 (May, 1926) 533-534. Anonymous, “Highlights of the Eleventh Southern Forestry Congress, April 4-6, 1929,” Journal of Forestry, v27, n5 (May, 1929), 571-581.
64. L.J. Leffelman, “Forest and Game Management in South Carolina with Special Reference to Game Birds,” Journal of Forestry v3l, n6 (October, 1933) 658-663. Henry S. Graves, Protection of Forests from Fire USDA Forest Service Bulletin 82 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Dffice, 1911), 7, 26-27. Stephen J. Pyne Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982) 100-122, 143-160, 260-294. Maunder, Voices from the South, 134-136, 149- 150, 215-217. Herbert L. Stoddard, The Bobwhite Quail, Its Habits, Preservation, and Increase (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932). Austin Cary, “Some Relations of Fire to Longleaf Pine,” Journal of Forestry, v30, n5 (September, 1932), 594-601. H.H. Chapman, “Some Further Relations of Fire to Longleaf Pine,” Journal of Forestry, v30, n5 (September, 1932) 602-604. A.L. MacKinney, Effects of a Light Fire on Loblolly Pine Reproduction (Asheville, NC: USDA Forest Service Appalachian Forest Experiment Station, 1935) Technical Note 9. L.M. Hutchins, “Diseases and the Forest,” in Trees: Yearbook of Agriculture 1949 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Government Printing Office, 1949) 443-445. Arthur W. Hartman, “Fire as a Tool in Southern Pine,” in Trees, 517-527. L.M. Hutchins, “Fire, Friend and Enemy: progress, But Still a Problem,” in Trees, 477-479. R.F. Hammatt, “Bad Business: Your Business,” in Trees, 479-485. L.E. Chaiken, The Behavior and Control of Understory Hardwoods in Loblolly Pine Stands. Technical Note 72. (Asheville, NC: USDA ' Forest Service, Southeastern Experiment Station, 1949). L.E. Chaiken, Annual Summer Fires Kill Hardwood Root Stocks. Research Note 19, (Asheville, NC: USDA Forest Service Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, 1952). L.E. Chaiken, Extent of Loss of Loblolly Pine Seed in Winter Fires. Research Note 21. (Asheville, NC: USDA Forest Service Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, 1952). L.E. Chaiken and W.P. LeGrande, Jr., “When to Burn for Seedbed Preparation,” Forest Farmer 8 (1l), 4. Paul C. Lemon, “Successional Responses of Herbs in Longleaf-Slash Pine Forest After Fire,” Ecology (1949) 30:135-145. Thomas A. Waldrop, David H. Van Lear, F. Thomas Lloyd, and William R. Harms, Long-Term Studies of Prescribed Burning in Loblolly Pine Forests of the Southeastern Coastal Plain. General Technical Report SE-45 (Asheville, NC: USDA Forest Service, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, 1987). 65. APSAF History Committee, “Notes,” 9-10. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 237-239. Membership Directory, 1948, 45. 66. APSAF History Committee, Notes,” 5, 10. Anonymous, “Annual Meeting, Appalachian Section,” Journal of Forestry, v31, n5 (May, 1933) 623. Kauffmann, “The Southland Revisited,” 39. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 198, 214. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 70-146. Alison T. Otis, William D. Honey, Thomas C. Hogg, and Kimberly K. Lakin, The Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corp: 1933-1942 (Washington DC: USDA Forest Service, August, 1986). 67. Anonymous, “Resolutions,” Journal of Forestry, v29, n2 (February, 1931) 278-279. 68. Hosmer, “The Society of American Foresters,” 849. I.H. Sims, Secretary, Society of American Foresters, Appalachian Section, to Professor H.H. Chapman, President, Society of American Foresters, Washington, D.C., March 8, 1934 (Society of American Foresters Papers, Forest History Society, Durham, N.C.). 69. Maughan, Guide to Forestry Activities, 14, l8, 22, 24, 26, 35, 47, 54-55, 62, 65, 71-72, 76-87, 101, 123, 136, 139-140, 152153, l62, 165, 181, 192, 197, 203, 205-206, 211, 218, 223, 237, 244, 251, 253-258. 70. J.H. Buell, “Pisgah Forest Aids the Unemployed,” American Forests, V37 (1931), 734-736, 764-765. USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Bent Creek web page, http://www.srs.fs.fed.us/bentcreek/early.htm . Mastran and Lowerre, Mountaineers and Rangers, 32-37. Will Sarvis, “An Appalachian Forest: Creation of the Jefferson National Forest and Its Effects on the Local Community,” Forest and Conservation History v37 (October, 1993) 171-172. APSAF History Committee, “Notes,” 11-15. 71. Franklin W. Reed, “Conference on Article X,” Journal of Forestry, v31, n8 (December, 1933) 891-896. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 226-227. Maunder, ed., Voices from the South, Oral History Interview with Elwood L. Demmon, 162-169. APSAF History Committee, “Notes,” 10-11. “Tentative Program for the Society’s Annual Meeting,” Journal of Forestry (November, 1931) v29, n7, 988-989. 72. Maunder, ed., Voices from the South, OHI with Demmon, 145, 162-166, 168. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 226-227. Chapin Collins, “Industrial Forestry Associations,” in Trees, 666-675. 73. Stephen J. Boyce, oral history interview. Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1987) 60-66. Anthony J. Badger, Prosperity Road: The New Deal, Tobacco, and North Carolina (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1980). 74. Richard Lowitt, “Tennessee Valley Authority,” in Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, eds., The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989) 365-367. J.B. Smallwood, “Water Use,” in Wilson and Ferris, eds., 368-371. Richard C. Sheridan, “Fertilizer,” in Wilson and Ferris, eds., 36-37. Germaine Reed, Crusading for Chemistry, 99-101.
75. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 133-146. APSAF records, 1938. 76. F. W. Grover, “Other Federal Forests,” in Trees, 381-39. Sheridan, “Fertilizer,” 36-37. 77. APSAF History Committee, “Notes,” 11-12. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 139, 140, 283. Philip C. Wakely and G. Willard Jones, “The Job of Planting Trees: A Survey,” in Trees, 206-209. Steen, The US Forest Service, 215-216. 78. Hosmer, “Society of American Foresters,” 851. A.C. Cline, Philip W. Ayers, H.H. Chapman, H.A. Reynolds, “Political Activities in the Civilian Conservation Corp: Committee Report to New England Section, Society of American Foresters,” Journal of Forestry, v31, n8 (December, 1933) 914-919. Society of American Foresters, “Political Wrecking of State Forestry Department of Kentucky Condemned by Society of American Foresters,” October 27, 1934 (SAF Papers, Forest History Society, Durham, NC) APSAF History Committee, “Notes,” 11. 79. APSAF History Committee, “Notes,” 12. Steen, The US Forest Service, 217-218. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 150-189. Graham V. Chamblee, Bladen Lakes State Forest (North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development, November, 1958. Delorme Mapping Co., North Carolina Atlas and Gazetteer (Freeport, ME: Delorme, 1993). Delorme Mapping Co., South Carolina Atlas and Gazetteer (Yarmouth, ME: Delorme, 1998). J.P. Andrews, Project Manager, Land Utilization Division FSA, Farmville, Virginia, to C.F. Korstian, SAF President, Washington, DC, January 6, 1938 (APSAF Papers). George W. Dean, “Virginia Forests,” in Richard C. Davis, ed., The Encyclopedia of American Forest and Conservation History, v2, 672. 80. Alison Otis, et al. The Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corp, 1933-1942 FS-395 (USDA Forest Service, August, 1986) 51-56. Will Sarvis, “Jefferson National Forest—Rich in History,” Virginia Forests (spring, 1990) 13-22. Will Sarvis, “Fisheries and Wildlife Management: Part of the History of the Jefferson National Forest,” Virginia Forests, Summer, 1992) 6-8. Terry Lewis, “Great Game Preserve Proposed in Virginia,” Virginia Forests (Spring 1988) 21-22. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 88-91, 112, 145-146. 81. Hepting, “Forest Pathology in the Southern Appalachians,” 11-13. Verrall, A History of Forest Pathology Research, 69-76. George H. Hepting, “Eastern Forest Tree Diseases in Relation to Stand Improvement,” Emergency Conservation Work Publication 2 (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934). 82. Theodore C. Fearnow and I.T. Quinn, “Action on the Blue Ridge,” in Trees, 586-592, quote from 588. Pomeroy and Yoho, North Carolina Lands, 207-208, 356. Lewis, “Great Game Preserve,” 21-22.. Sarvis, “Jefferson National Forest,” 13-22. Sarvis, “Fisheries and Wildlife Management,” 6-8. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 14-16, 24, 109-110, 145-146. Otis, et al., The Forest Service and the CCC, 51-56. Chamblee, Bladen Lakes State Forest, 5, 19. 83. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 20, 28. Susan Power Bratton, “The Effect of the European Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) on the High-Elevation Vernal Flora in Great Smoky Mountains National Park,” Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club v101, n4 (July-August, 1974) 198-206. Susan Power Bratton, “The Effect of the European Wild Boar, Sus Scrofa, on Gray Beech Forest in the Great Smoky Mountains,” Ecology, v56, n6 (Autumn, 1975) 1356- 1366. Laurence C. Walker, The Southern Forest: A Chronicle (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991) 129, 192-194. Jill Baron, “Effects of Feral Hogs (Sus scrofa) on the Vegetation of Horn Island, Mississippi,” The American Midland Naturalist v107, n1 (January, 1982) 202-205. 84. Otis, et al., The Forest Service and the CCC, 51. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 128-132, 162. 85. Otis, et al., The Forest Service and the CCC, 51. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 98, 106, 112-113, 128-132, 174179, 86. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 163, 178-179, 188- 189. Otis, et al., The Forest Service and the CCC, 53. South Carolina Forestry Commission, Internet site, http://www.state.sc.us/forest/scpast.htm “Early Fire Towers.” Clarence F. Korstian, Forestry on Private Lands in the United States (Durham, NC: Duke University, 1944) 77. A.W. Hartman, “Machines and Fires in the South,” in Trees, 527-532. Stephen J. Boyce, oral history interview. Will Sarvis, “The Great Anti-Fire Campaign,” American Forests (May/June, 1993) 33-35, 58. Maunder, Oral History Interview with Robertson and Demmon, 29. 87. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 46-69, 109-112. Korstian, Forestry on Private Lands, 81-82. papers, Sims to Forest History Society, Appalachian Section, 1934, I.H. Franklin W. Reed, August 16, 1934. W.J. Damtoft to Franklin W. Reed, July 24, 1934. G.H. Lentz to Franklin W. Reed, July 24, 1934. E.L. Demmon, “Historical Highlights of the Appalachian Section,” 52. 88. “Minutes of the 16th Annual Meeting, December 11 and 12, 1936, Asheville, N.C.” (APSAF Papers). APSAF History Committee, “Notes,” 12-13. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 140.
89. SAF papers, Forest History Society, W.C. Lowdermilk, Chief of Research, SCS, Washington DC to C.F. Korstian, Durham, NC, February 15, 1938. C.F. Korstian to Lowdermilk, February 17, 1938. 90. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 267-287. Swift, and Swank, eds., Annotated Bibliography of Publications on Watershed Management and Ecological Studies at Coweeta Hydrological Laboratory; 1934-1994, iii-iv. C.R. Hursch, “Watershed Management, 1931-1946,” in Annual Report of the Appalachian Experiment Station (Asheville: USDA Forest Service, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station) 43-50. C.R. Hursch, “The Eastern Forester and His Watersheds,” Journal of Forestry, V44, 1037-1040. George W. Craddock and C.R. Hursch, “Watersheds and How to Care for Them,” in Trees, 603-609. APSAF History Committee, “Notes,” 12-14. H.H. Biswell and J.E. Foster, “Forest Grazing and Beef Cattle Production in the Coastal Plain of North Carolina,” North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 334 (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, 1942). 91. Otis, et al., The Forest Service and the CCC, 53. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 152, 157-158, 168-169. “Public Forest-Tree Nurseries,” in Trees, 893-895. 92. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 167-171, 184-189. “Public Forest-Tree Nurseries,” in Trees, 893-895. C.L. Perkins, “Reforestation on the Monongahela National Forest,” Journal of Forestry v28, n3 (March, 1930) 388. Frederick H. Claridge, “Successful Use of Woods-Lifted Seedlings of Southern Balsam,” Journal of Forestry v28, n3 (March, 1930) 389-391. 93. APSAF History Committee, “Notes,” 14. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 82-83. Henry Clepper to Board of Directors, TVA, 7/30/37 (APSAF Papers). 94. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 224. Hosmer, “Society of American Foresters,” 851. 95. APSAF History Committee, “Notes,” 14. Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 237-244. APSAF records, N.D. Canterbury to C.F. Korstian, February 19, 1940. 96. Smyth, Capitol Forestry, 10-11. Luke Popovich, The SAF at 75 (Washington DC: Society of American Foresters, 1975) 6-8. SAF papers, Forest History Society, Appalachian Section, 1934, I.H. Sims to Franklin W. Reed, August 16, 1934. W.J. Damtoft to Franklin W. Reed, July 24, 1934. G.H. Lentz to Franklin W. Reed, July 24, 1934. E.L. Demmon, “Historical Highlights of the Appalachian Section,” 52. 97. SAF papers, Forest History Society, C.F. Korstian to SAF members, January 3, 1938. 98. SAF papers, Forest History Society, Lowell F. Baker, Jackson, MS to C.F. Korstian, Durham, NC, January, 1938. W.C. Lowdermilk, Washington, DC to C.F. Korstian, Durham, NC, February 15, 1938. 99. Hosmer, “Society of American Foresters,” 850-851. APSAF History Committee, Notes,” 12. Dana and Johnson, Forestry Education in America, viii, 55-58, 360. APSAF records, 1938. Forestry Membership Directory, 1948, 73. 100. APSAF Bylaws, 1937. SAF papers, Forest History Society, E.G. Wiesehuegel, Norris, TN, to H.H. Chapman, October 25, 1937. F.H. Claridge, chairman APSAF, to H.H. Chapman, October 27, 1937. H.H. Chapman to SAF Executive Council, October 29, 1937. 101. APSAF records, APSAF annual meeting minutes, December 11-12, 1936. APSAF History Committee, “Notes,” 13. APSAF records, Paul D. Long, secretary-treasurer, Association of Southern Agricultural Workers, Atlanta, GA to F.H. Claridge, chairman, APSAF, June 10, 1937. F.H. Claridge to H.H. Chapman, July 13, 1937. American Forestry Association, Is Public Regulation of Private Forest Operations Needed? Panel Discussion and Other Papers at the Sixty-Third Annual Meeting of the American Forestry Association (Old Point Comfort, VA, May 5-7, 1938) 12. 102. Hosmer, “Society of American Foresters,” 850-851. APSAF Records, C. F. Korstian to S.J. Hall, April 29, 1940. APSAF Records, Verne Rhoades to C.F. Korstian and reply, March, 1938. 103. Dana and Johnson, Forestry Education in America, 42-49, 78-109, 222,382-386. Membership Directory (1948). 104. Dana and Johnson, Forestry Education in America, 81. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 44, 202. Robert M. Allen, “Forestry at Clemson: An Interpretative, Chronological History From 1903 to 1991,” unpublished paper. 105. Maughan, Guide to Forestry Activities, 78-80, 202-203. Robert T. Sorrells, The Clemson Experimental Forest: Its First Fifty Years (Clemson, SC: Clemson University College of Forest and Recreation Resources, 1984) 6-17.
106. Sorrells, Clemson Experimental Forest, 18, 21-22. Allen, “Forestry at Clemson.” Maughan, Guide to Forestry Activities, 196-197. Membership Directory (1948). 107. Maughan, ed., Guide to Forestry Activities, 209-210. APSAF History Committee, “Notes,” 9. Dana and Johnson, Forestry Education in America, 385-386. Otto C. Goodwin, “Eight Decades of Forestry Firsts, A History of Forestry in North Carolina: 1889-1969,” North Carolina Forest History Series (January, 1969) v1, n3:6. Membership Directory, 1948:53. D.Y. Lenhart, “Initial Root Development of Longleaf Pine,” Journal of Forestry (1934) v32:459-461. 108. Membership Directory, 1948:14,l7,25,48,53,69. Otto C. Goodwin, “Eight Decades of Forestry Firsts,” 6. T.C. Evans, The Distribution of Commercial Forest Trees in Virginia (Asheville, NC: USDA Forest Service Appalachian Forest Experiment Station Forest Survey Release, 1942). George K. Slocum, “A Seed Study of Loblolly Pine,” Thesis, North Carolina State College School of Forestry, 1932. William E. Cooper, “Forest Site Determination by Soil and Erosion Classification,” Journal of Forestry (1942) v40, n6:709-712. 109. Maughan, A Guide to Forestry Activities, 209-215. Membership Directory (1948). C.M. Kaufman, “Forest Grazing in the North Carolina Piedmont,” Proceedings of the Society of American Foresters (1948) (1949) 2:39-244. 110. Robert F. Durden, “Duke University,” in Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, eds., Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1989) 281-282. Elwood R. Maunder, interviewer, Clarence Korstian: Forty Years of Forestry, oral history interview, Durham, NC, February 16, 1959 (New Haven, CT: Forest History Society, Yale University, 1969) 37-51. Maughan, A Guide to Forestry Activities, 204-209. Anonymous, “Duke Forest Honored by Swedish Union,” Journal of Forestry (1931) v29, n7:964. 111. 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