Journal of Forestry November 2000

Celebrating 100 Years of Professional Forestry

Forestry and Foresters by Theodore Roosevelt page 4 Excerpted from an address to SAF on March 26, 1903

Looking Back 100 years by Rebecca N. Staebler, editor page 4 Happy 100th anniversary, SAP! This is indeed a great time to be editor of the Journal of Forestry and a member of the SAF staff and community. I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to work on some wonderful projects highlighting the past 100 years of forestry in America, and I am thrilled to cap off the experience with the centennial convention in Washington, DC, and with this commemorative issue of the Journal of Forestry. I'd like to express my sincere appreciation to Char Miller, who reviewed the many history papers we received this year and served as guest editor for this issue. We close out our first century with a look back‐not for the sake of recalling fond memories but to see how far we've come in reaching our goals, and to see if and how those goals have changed through the decades. A great place to start is with an address by President Theodore Roosevelt, given in 1903 to the nascent Society of American Foresters and excerpted here. Through the eyes and words of our authors this month we invite you to become reacquainted with — and perhaps learn some new things about‐a few of your forestry forebears — Fernow, Hough, Sargent, Zon; to revisit two sites‐in North Carolina and Alaska — of early forest management activities; to listen in on some decades‐old forest management debates in Oregon and Massachusetts; and to recall the exciting days of the forest ranger‐as depicted by the writers of popular fiction. I think all will agree that for the past 100 years, foresters and SAF have strived to carry out Roosevelt's charge‐to practice forestry on a large scale, to ensure that the forests of this nation are not depleted, and to provide the materials and resources for prosperous homes and communities. As we look forward to our next century of forestry, his closing words bear repeating: You have made a good beginning, and I congratulate you upon it. As was done on the occasion of SAF's Golden Anniversary ... This issue of the Journal of Forestry is dedicated with respect and affection for those founding members whose vision and labors created the profession of forestry. It is dedicated also to the younger generation of foresters and those now entering the profession, in the confident expectation that they, no less than their elders, will advance the objectives and standards of forestry for the national welfare.

The Pivotal Decade, American Forestry in the 1870s by Char Miller — page 6 In the late 19th century timber companies were cutting their way west, fueling the Industrial Revolution with America's forests and leaving behind vast tracts of cutover land in the Northeast, Mid‐Atlantic, and Midwest. In Prussia and France, forest advocates found national forestry schools and examples of legislation to regulate

1 resource exploitation. Although Marsh, Hough, and Baker lamented their inability to effect large‐scale change, their efforts did lead to federal recognition of the problems associated with uncontrolled timber harvests and thus paved the way for the second generation of forestry leaders.

Raphael Zon and forestry’s first school of hard knocks by Kames G. Lewis page 13 [Education and Communication] When he enrolled in the New York State College of Forestry in I 899,Zon‐later editor of the journal of Forestry‐‐found a struggling program. But the difficulties did not prevent faculty and students alike from learning. In some cases, they provided greater lessons than success might have taught. Fernow, the college dean, espoused the European ideal of forestry and emphasized economic return over silviculture. Unable to get along with the school forest's Adirondack neighbors, to retain both professors and students, and to secure steady funding, the program was dissolved in 1903; aided by Pinchot's money and maneuvering, Yale then assumed preeminence in forestry education for the century's first four decades. Zon's diary provides a student's view of the forestry school in 1900

The Old Orchard White Pine Plantation at Biltmore by W. Henry McNab and Brian Ritter page 18 [Silviculture History] A pioneering case study in the Old Orchard Plantation on Biltmore Estate near Asheville, North Carolina, considered current yields and the effects of periodic thinning on height and basal area growth, as well as cubic volume and board‐foot yields. Established in 1899, one of three plots of this eastern white pine stand was first thinned in 1916. Beyond providing growth‐and‐yield data, the Old Orchard Plantation demonstrates the value of maintaining permanent forest research plots for long‐term ecological and silvicultural studies.

Unalaska, Alaska: Revisiting North America’s Oldest Afforestation Effort by Vernon J. LaBau and John N. Alden. LaBau is a NMFSH member page 24 [History] The first North American attempt to grow a stand in a treeless area was an 1805 Russian planting of Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) in Unalaska Bay in the Aleutian Islands. Although the Russians envisioned a future timber supply for fur traders and other settlers, the trees grew slowly, regeneration was absent until after 1950, and over the years many trees died. Several other afforestation efforts have been made in the area, but because the challenges of latitude and climate dictate careful selection of seedlings and site, results have been mixed. Today the 180S planting, with its three surviving trees and their offspring, is a national historic landmark.

When Sound Science Is Not Enough: Regulating the Blues by Nancy Langston Page 24 [Policy History] In the Blue Mountains of the inland West, early foresters attempted to use the best sci‐ ence of the day to transform old growth into regulated, productive forests. Managers of the 1920s thought that maximizing outputs from public forests would avert a timber famine.

2 In the effort to reshape the forests into scientifically efficient producers of timber, old growth had to be liquidated quickly. But the plan backfired, helping to create a forest health crisis across the West as well as a policy nightmare. Understanding the motives of those early foresters and the forest history of the region can help those who seek effective strategies for restoration today.

History, Work and the Nature of Beauty: A Massachusetts Community Forest by Brian Donahue Page 36 [Urban and Community Forests] Logging in a Massachusetts community forest upsets local residents who believe that the forest should be left in its natural state. A detailed history of a stand of pine and oak in this forest, however, illustrates the ecological propriety of an ecosystem management approach. Community forestry can protect biodiversity, educate and employ young people, and sustainably harvest wood products. The author's investigation of this small tract also reveals the inadequacy of "reading the landscape" simply by walking through it.

The Making of a New Western Hero: The Forest Ranger in Popular Fiction, 1900- 1940 by Jeff LaLande Page 43 [History] The first foresters of the west faced a reluctant and even hostile public. But as the Old West waned, popular authors like Zane Grey chose the Forest Service ranger as a protagonist in their stories. More than simply another romantic and courageous hero, the steadfast forest ranger — as portrayed in numerous novels published during the early 20th century — popularized notions of conservation and scientific forestry among a national audience. The fictional ranger brought the “gospel of forest conservation” to countless readers, just as he converted most of his fictional antagonist to the very same principles.

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