1862 Vanderbult, George WI 1914 3/30/2020 Century Archives - The Century Association Archives Foundation THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION ARCHIVES UNDATION EST.1997 About the CAAF CENTURY ASSOCIATION BIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE Important Materials Earliest Members of the Century Association Publications < Previous Result 1404 of 1531 (view results) Next > Online Reference Shelf Collection Access GEORGE W. VANDERBILT Board of Trustees How to Donate Gentleman/Art Collector Centurion, 1889-1914 Century Association Biographical Archive Full Name George Washington Vanderbilt Born 14 November 1862 in Staten Island (New Dorp), New York Finding Aid to the Collection Died 6 March 1914 in Washington, District of Columbia * Finding Aid to the Platt Buried Vanderbilt Family Cemetery and Mausoleum , New Library Dorp, New York Centurions on Stamps FDR: A Man of the Proposed by Henry Codman Potter and Brayton Ives Century (Audio File) Elected 2 February 1889 at age twenty-six Hot Buttons: Presidential Campaigns and the Century Archivist's Note: Brother of Cornelius Vanderbilt II; uncle of Cornelius Vanderbilt III Association Century Association Century Memorial Nobelists When the Clubhouse Was New (Photo George Washington Vanderbilt, of studious tastes and a munificent patron of the fine arts: the Gallery) Vanderbilt Gallery in the American Fine Arts Society building was his gift. He was the owner of the estate of Biltmore, North Carolina, which his inherited wealth enabled him to assemble and his constructive perseverance enabled him to complete. Henry Osborn Taylor 1915 Century Association Yearbook Questions, comments, corrections: email caba@centuryarchives.org C 2012-2020 Century Association Archives Foundation Following an appendectomy, Myocardial infarction resulted due to a pulmonary enholism following surgery. 3/23/2019 Vanderbilt houses - Wikipedia WIKIPEDIA Vanderbilt houses From the late 1870S to the 1920s, the Vanderbilt family employed some of the United States's best Beaux-Arts architects and decorators to build an unequalled string of New York townhouses and East Coast palaces in the United States. Biltmore Many of the Vanderbilt houses are now National Historic Landmarks. Some photographs of Vanderbilt's residences in New York are included in the Photographic series of American Architecture by Albert Levy (1870s). The list of architects employed by the Vanderbilts is a "who's who" of the New York-based firms that embodied the syncretic (often dismissed as "eclectic") styles of the American Renaissance: Richard Morris Hunt; George B. Post; McKim, Mead, and White; Charles B. Atwood; Carrère and Hastings; Warren and Wetmore; Horace Trumbauer; John Russell Pope and Addison Mizner were all employed by the descendants of Cornelius Vanderbilt, who built only very modestly himself. Contents Houses Gallery References External links Houses Cornelius Vanderbilt II (1843-1899) Townhouse, the "Cornelius Vanderbilt II House" (1883) at 1 West 57th Street, New York by George B. Post. Enlargements by George B. Post and Richard Morris Hunt. This mansion was, and remains, the largest private residence ever built in Manhattan. Demolished. "The Breakers" in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1892-95, which was also designed by Richard Morris Hunt. [1] "Oakland Farm" (1893), mansion and stables on 150 acres in Portsmouth, Rhode Island Demolished Townhouse (1882), part of the Triple Palace at 2 West 52nd Street, provided to them by her father and shared with her sister Emily Thorn Vanderbilt and their families. Demolished. Woodlea (1892-95), a Stanford White (of the firm McKim, Mead & White) designed country estate in Scarborough, New York, now the Sleepy Hollow Country Club. William Kissam Vanderbilt (1849-1920) had three houses designed by Richard Morris Hunt. "Petit Chateau", the New York City townhouse at 660 Fifth Avenue, built in 1882 with details drawn in part from the late-Gothic Hôtel de Cluny, Paris. Proved an influential example for other Gilded Age mansions, but was demolished in 1926. "Idle Hour" country estate in Oakdale, Long Island, New York was built in 1878-79 and destroyed by fire in 1899. A new "Idle Hour", designed by Hunt's son Richard Howland Hunt, was built on the same property from 1900-01 of brick and marble in the English Country Style and is now part of the Dowling College Campus. [2] "Marble House" summer home in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1888-92. [3] "Château Vanderbilt", a Louis XIII style manor house built in 1907 along with three thoroughbred race tracks in Carrières-sous-Poissy, France. Designed by M. Henri Guillaume. Emily Thorn Vanderbilt (1852-1946), (Wife of William Douglas Sloane) Townhouse (1882), 642 Fifth Avenue, part of the Vanderbilt Triple Palace, provided to them by her father. Demolished. "Elm Court" in Lenox, Massachusetts, in 1887. It is the largest shingle-style house in the United States. The 1919 "Elm Court Talks," held at Elm Court, led to the creation of The League of Nations and The Treaty of Versailles. Florence Adele Vanderbilt Twombly (Mrs. Hamilton Twombly) (1854-1952) Townhouse at 684 Fifth Avenue, New York (1883). Designed by John B. Snook, who also designed her sister Lila Webb's townhouse next door. Demolished. [4] "Florham" in Convent Station, New Jersey, in 1894-97. Designed by McKim, Mead and White as a summer estate, it is now used for classrooms, faculty offices, and administration at Fairleigh Dickinson University [1] (http://view.fdu.edu/?id=196) "Vinland" in Newport, Rhode Island. Renovated by Ogden Codman, Jr.. Now part of the Salve Regina University Townhouse, her second, a 70-room house at 1 East 71st Street, New York. Designed by Whitney Warren. Demolished. Frederick William Vanderbilt (1856-1938) "Hyde Park" in Hyde Park, New York. Designed by McKim, Mead and White and built in 1896-99, it is now the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site. "Rough Point" in Newport, Rhode Island designed by Peabody and Stearns built in 1892. [2] (http://www.nps.gov/vama/vamahome.html) "Pine Tree Point", Adirondack Great Camp on Upper St. Regis Lake in 1901 "Sonogee" (1903) in Bar Harbor, Maine purchased and renovated in 1915. Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt Webb, a.k.a. Lila Vanderbilt Webb (1860-1936) "Shelburne Farms" in Shelburne, Vermont built in 1899. Townhouse (1883) at 680 Fifth Avenue, New York. The house was a wedding gift from William H. Vanderbilt to his daughter. Demolished. [4] "NaHaSaNe" (1893), the 115,000 acre Great Camp located on Lake Lila in the Adirondacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanderbilt_houses 2/9 3/4/2015 2.24.11 I VANDERBILTS UNDER THE PINES I New York Social Diary TEFAF 4 MAASTRICHT Subscribe to NYSD GO New York Social YOUR iary LINK TO SOCIETY SOCIAL DIARY PARTY PICTURES DIARY FEATURES GUEST DIARIES CALENDAR ARCHIVES Type name or keyword SEARCH 2/24/2011 VANDERBILTS UNDER THE PINES DISCOVER THE SPORTING LIFE AT CASA DE CAMPO CASADECAMPO SPORTING LIFE Mr. & Mrs. William Henry Vanderbilt at center on the porch at Devilstone on their 1884 trip, with Consuelo and George on step to Mrs. Vanderbilt's left. Alva is on the step at Mr. Vanderbilt's right. VANDERBILTS UNDER THE PINES by Brad Emerson, The Downeast Dilettante Special to the New York Social Diary One forever associates the Vanderbilts with Newport and the opulence they created there. However, many of the family preferred the (relatively) simple pleasures of Bar Harbor, the Maine resort once considered second only to Newport. Patriarch William Henry Vanderbilt first took the family up to Maine in the early 1880s. He leased Devilstone, the George Bowler cottage on the Shore Path (Bar Harbor's equivalent of the Cliff Walk at Newport). In a photograph of the family assembled on the porch at Devilstone that summer, one can spot Alva, the most socially ambitious of the family, with a determined set to her face - - as if to say, 'Get me out of this nature-infested hell hole and get me back to civilization and Newport.' However, her brother-in-law George was smitten with Bar Harbor and leased 1935 a small cottage there the next season. Mountains obviously agreed with George Vanderbilt, as would be seen in his subsequent purchase of several tp://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/the-way-they-live/2011/vanderbilts-under-the-pines 1/13 3/4/2015 2.24.11 I VANDERBILTS UNDER THE PINES I New York Social Diary in North Carolina. The Fair that Defines Excellence in Art MAASTRICHT ETHERL ANDS 13-22 MARCH 2015 Devilstone, the Robert Bowler cottage on the Shore Path in Bar Harbor, leased by William Henry Vanderbilt. A TEFAF MAASTRICHT I I Neiman,Marcus SHOP THE TRENDS ONLINE AND IN STORES SPRING 2015 THE NM LIST Another view of Devilstone. p://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/the-way-they-live/2011/vanderbilts-under-the-pine 2/13 3/4/2015 2.24.11 I VANDERBILTS UNDER THE PINES New York Social Diary angela mortimer Realize your (unique) lifestyle for 2015 I Consult with Stephen - foremost private staffing expert Vanderbilt family out for drive at Devilstone. PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL STAFFING CLICK HERE or CALL 1-866-282-7729 eat, drink & remarry margo howard An early postcard of Devilstone, C. 1900. He happily roughed it, making do with a chef and waiters sent up from Delmonico's to ensure that he didn't starve, and even invited his father up for Howard manages a visit - 'to the elder Mr. Vanderbilt's surprised delight' wrote The New York to be wise and Times. It was the last summer before William Henry Vanderbilt died and outrageous at the unleashed his fortune on his eight children and their architects. same time - a trick that few people, aside from Oscar For the then extravagant sum of $200,000, George Vanderbilt purchased the Gouverneur Morris Ogden cottage, designed by Charles Coolidge Haight. Wilde, manage to pull off. And George Vanderbilt immediately doubled the size of the house, which he she knows how renamed Pointe d'Acadie. He commissioned Frederick Law Olmstead to to tell a landscape the grounds, which included Bar Harbor's first private swimming whopping good pool, naturalistic in style, ocean fed, with Adirondack style log cabanas. story. The two men were to continue the collaboration started in Bar Harbor at - Rebecca Goldstein, Biltmore house a few years later, and even through that larger project, George author of Plato and Olmstead continued to make expensive improvements at Pointe d'Acadie. at the Googleplex For the rest of her life, his mother, Mrs. William Henry Vanderbilt summered with him at Bar Harbor. CLICK TO BUY http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/the-way-they-live/2011/vanderbilts-under-the-pine 3/13 3/4/2015 2.24.11 VANDERBILTS UNDER THE PINES I New York Social Diary SHOP THE TRENDS ONLINE AND IN STORES SPRING 2015 Il HE NM LIST The estate built in 1868-69 for Gouverneur Morris Ogden, which was designed by Charles Coolidge Haight. George Vanderbilt bought it in 1889, immediately doubled its size, and renamed it Pointe d'Acadie. It was torn down in 1956. Courtesy of Maine Historical Society. After George's marriage to Edith Stuyvesant Dresser, he was not as often at Bar Harbor - Mrs. Vanderbilt liked Bar Harbor, but also liked being near her family, including her sister Mrs. John Nicholas Brown, in Newport. During their absences, Pointe d'Acadie was leased to appropriate tenants, including the Andrew Carnegies and the Otto Kahns. Kahn shipped his horses up to Bar Harbor by private railroad car to compete in the horse show, one of the major events of the social season. As for George and Edith, their prestigious presence was sorely missed during their ALSO IN NYSD HOUSE absences and social columnists in The New York Times as well as the local NYSD HOUSE papers cheered whenever they returned, predicting the liveliest summers 7.28.01: NYSD House ever. DECORATOR SERIES 1.16.15: Katie Ridder A generous supporter of cultural activities, George Vanderbilt was a moving force behind the Building for the Arts, a Greek temple designed by Guy 10.31.14 Shawn Henderson Lowell at the edge of the Kebo Valley Golf course. A bold venture, the only of its sort in the major resorts, it was not a financial success, despite 10.24.14 Robert Couturier performances by such stellar artists as Galli-Curci and Padrewski - the golf 10.10.14 Peter Stamberg course outside was a greater draw on summer afternoons. When George and Paul Aferiat Vanderbilt died, his estate still contained promissory notes for the Building of 8.15.14: Patrick Gerard Arts, appraised as worthless. Carmody THE WAY THEY LIVE 3.3.15: Big Old Houses: The Marquesa de Who? 2.27.15: Malene Barnett 2.24.15 Big Old Houses: Persia on the Mountaintop 2.17.15 Big Old Houses: A Park Avenue Story 2.10.15: Big Old Houses: East Seventies Sophistication More NYSD House >> http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/the-way-they-live/2011/vanderbilts-under-the-pines 4/13 3/4/2015 2.24.11 I VANDERBILTS UNDER THE PINES I New York Social Diary Malvern Hotel Bar Harbor ME. The 1903 season found Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt and daughter Gladys away from the Breakers, staying at the Malvern Hotel on Kebo St. Ray Bratlation Mr, 103. Building of Arts at Bar Harbor, funded in part by George Vanderbilt. Older brother William Kissam Vanderbilt, smarting from his divorce from Alva, who by now had her palace and had married her daughter to the Duke of Marlborough, mostly avoided Newport that 1895 season, and sailed up to Bar Harbor on his yacht Valiant, at the time the largest in the world, spending much of the summer moored off Pointe d'Acadie, avoiding the press and returning to Newport only for the yacht trials and races. The rest of the family came too - Emily Vanderbilt Sloane and family before going to the Berkshires for the fall, the young widow Florence Twombly Burden, whose son would later build an iconic modern house at Northeast Harbor, even her mother, the stately Florence Vanderbilt Twombly would occasionally venture that far north - and the social columns duly took notice. Margaret Vanderbilt Shepard was also devoted to Bar Harbor, as were her three daughters. In the mid-1890s the Eliot Fitch Shepards leased Mossley Hall, one of the resort's most admired houses, owned by railroad executive W.B. Howard. Designed by William Ralph Emerson in 1887, and loosely based on English architect Norman Shaw's Cragside in Northumberland, Mossley Hall was considered one of the finest designs of the shingle style http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/the-way-they-live/2011/vanderbilts-under-the-pines 5/13 3/4/2015 2.24.11 I VANDERBILTS UNDER THE PINES I New York Social Diary Mossley Hall, built for W.B. Howard of Chicago. Designed by William Ralph Emerson, leased variously in the 1890s by both W.C. Whitney and Eliot and Margaret Vanderbilt Shepard. More views of Mossley Hall. http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/the-way-they-live/2011/vanderbilts-under-the-pines 6/13 3/4/2015 2.24.11 I VANDERBILTS UNDER THE PINES I New York Social Diary Margaret Shepard's daughters followed their mother to Bar Harbor, and in 1902, Uncle George had A.W. Longfellow (nephew of the poet), design Islecote house on the Pointe D'Acadie estate for his niece Mrs. William Jay Schieffelin (Louisa Shepard). One of Bar Harbor's favorite sights was the entire Schiefflin family riding out the gate on horseback, each young Schiefflin on a successively smaller horse, with the youngest bringing up the rear on a pony. Mrs. Shepard's daughter Alice married Ambassador Dave Hennan Morris, son of the Louisiana lottery King, and built Bogue Chitto, a rambling shingled affair on the cliffs on fashionable Eden Street, between Hull's Cove and Bar Harbor. Left: Mrs. Fabbri's brother in-law Egisto. Right: Mrs. Fabbri with Mrs. William Ordway Partidge (mother- in-law of another Vanderbilt descendant, Wm. A.M. Burden). Below. Ernesto Fabbri and Edith Vanderbilt Shepard. Closer to town on Eden Street, Grosvenor Atterbury designed Buonriposo for the third sister, Edith Vanderbilt Shepard, married to Morgan Partner Ernesto Fabbri. When that house burned a few years later, it was replaced with a more elegant version designed by Mrs. Fabbri's aesthete brother-in-law Egisto (rumored also to be the very proper Mrs. Fabbri's lover), who also collaborated with Atterbury on the Fabbri's new town house on 94th St., which replaced her previous Beaux Arts mansion on East 62nd Street. By 1916, brother Frederick of Hyde Park, who had given up his Newport cottage, Rough Point, several years earlier, arrived in Bar Harbor. He first leased Seven Acres, the estate of Pennsylvania Railroad president A.J. Cassatt (later purchased by E.T. Stotesbury), then bought Sonogee, the http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/the-way-they-live/2011/vanderbilts-under-the-pines 7/13 3/4/2015 2.24.11 I VANDERBILTS UNDER THE PINES I New York Social Diary former Lyman Kendall estate, with its lavish renaissance interiors and marble staircase. Sonogee adjoined his niece Edith Fabbri's Buonriposo to the North, and the two properties shared a most elegant Italianate garden wall. Buonriposo, designed by Grosvenor Atterbury, the summer home of Mrs. Ernesto Fabbri (Edith Vanderbilt Shepard), known after her divorce as Mrs. Shepard Fabbri. From the August 1951 issue of Holiday Magazine. Buonriposo burned a few years after construction, and its replacement was designed by brother-in-law Egisto Fabbri, who also collaborated with Atterbury in the Fabbri townhouse on 94th Street. p://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/the-way-they-live/2011/vanderbilts-under-the-pines 8/13 3/4/2015 2.24.11 I VANDERBILTS UNDER THE PINES I New York Social Diary Seven Acres was the estate of A.J. Cassatt, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad (and brother of Mary). It was the first house leased in Bar Harbor by Frederick Vanderbilt before eventually purchasing Sonogee. It was designed by Chapman and Frazer of Boston (who were also the architects of what is now the Bush estate in Kennebunkport). The severe and earnest decor of the arts and crafts den at Seven Acres must have seemed very hair shirt to the Frederick Vanderbilts. Clockwise from top: Sonogee, built for Amos Eno and later owned by Frederick Vanderbilt, who later sold it to Atwater Kent; Sonogee hall; Sonogee gate. http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/the-way-they-live/2011/vanderbilts-under-the-pines 9/13 3/4/2015 2.24.11 I VANDERBILTS UNDER THE PINES I New York Social Diary Sonogee in 1974. Marble staircase at Sonogee. 3/4/2015 THE DOWNEAST DILETTANTE: July 2011 2 More Next Blog Create Blog Sign In THE DOWNEAST DILETTANTE Tales & Opinions From Maine Regarding Architecture, Art, Books, Design, Landscape, & Occasional Whims 8.7.11 Receive the Down East Dilettante by Email OLMSTED AND A GATE Email addres Submit This gate is a footnote in landscape history. Subtle, deceptively simple, it is only as one examines it that one realizes how good it really is. It is the main entrance to Pointe d'Acadie, the long demolished George Vanderbilt estate at Bar Harbor. Like all of his family, Vanderbilt was an inveterate builder, and in 1889, even as he was Search This Blog acquring the 146,000 acres of North Carolina that would become the Biltmore estate, he had Frederick Law Search Olmsted at work landscaping this smaller (by Vanderbilt standards) project at Bar Harbor. Olmsted's work at Pointe d'Acadie, a prelude to his final great work at Biltmore, would include new roads, carefully composed clearing and tree plantings, a new stone terrace and stairs that would enhance the transition of the large shingled house to the landscape, and the damming of a small cove to be used as a naturalistic swimming pool, Bar Harbor's first, complete with rustic Adirondack style cabanas. All this even as George Vanderbilt was embarking on the largest private building project of the era at Biltmore. The site of 'Pointe d'Acadie', which Vanderbilt had purchased for the then large sum of $200,000 (Approximately $7,000,000 in today's dollars) is a spectacular little Peninsula jutting 1889 into Frenchman's Bay, views of water and mountains on all sides. A VERY SOCIAL DILETTANTE New York Social Diary is one of the Dilettante's favorite guilty reads, and now he can be read there too. Click on the pictures below to read some of Down East Dilettante's latest articles at NYSD. Thanks to David Patrick Columbia for the kind invitation to his Swell Party. This Week in New York Social Diary: Artists on Ironbound Picasso & Pie Down East Manservants Behaving Badly http://thedowneastdilettante.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.htm 1/10 3/4/2015 THE DOWNEAST DILETTANTE: July 2011 Vanderbilts at Bar Harbor Blog Archive 2014 (3) 2013 (21) 2012 (26) 2011 (60) December (3) November (4) October (2) September (1) August (3) July (1) OLMSTED AND A GATE June (4) May (7) April (9) March (9) February (10) January (7) 2010 (96) 2009 (21) Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain The Down East Dilettante is an antiques dealer and part time writer in Down East Maine, a bit ADD, whose amateur enthusiasms dance around architecture, design, landscape, style, history, arts, and more. Occasionally amusing, more often amused. To email the Dilettante, click on the email link in my extended profile View my complete profile Favorite Blogs A Discourse on the Arts and Sciences Aestheticus Rex Another Jacques Doucet html 2410 3/4/2015 THE DOWNEAST DILETTANTE: July 2011 Treasure Surfaces at Auction All Things Ruffnerian, a Design Blog and More Pompeii No.45: Refinished Regency Chairs An Aesthete's Lament Au Revoir, Bébé An Open Book Informative And Educative Details About The Truth About abs Ancient Industries Later highway construction has partially submerged the gate, but it is nevertheless a classic example of Olmsted's Summer of 13 approach to designed elements in the landscape, subtle, with materials and shapes carefully considered in relation to the landscape. The sweep is broad and gentle, the granite coping carefully rounded and shaped. It is almost in rebuke to the massive Beaux Arts gate of Vanderbilt's neighbor, railroad tycoon John Stewart Kennedy of Kenarden Lodge (below). ArchiTalk Dracula's Denizen architect design TM Renaissance palace of Charles V, Alhambra, Granada BIG OLD HOUSES Persia on the The driveways at Pointe d'Acadie, carefully constructed to Olmsted's exacting specifications, although today not maintained to the manicured, daily raked, standards of the Vanderbilt era, have rarely needed major work since. Mountaintop Chairs and Buildings Hi There! I hoopla moved CHAIRS and BUILDINGS Assembling House Church Cinema Style And the Oscar Goes To.. 867 http://thedowneastdilettante.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.htm 3/10 015 THE DOWNEAST DILETTANTE: July 2011 Corbu's Cave REARSTRANCH Meanwhile Back At The Ranch Daytonian in Manhattan Alfred Zucker's 1892 No. 12 Waverly Place Decor Arts Now DESIGN DICTIONARY: Etagere W Design Matters Shop Geometry that won't make your eyes bleed Diary of a Wandering Eye If Were a Girl: Marais The terraces of Pointe d'Acadie with their broad shallow stairs to the lawns, with stonework and coping matching that of the gate, were similar to other examples by Olmsted, and typify his approach to integrating house and landscape. The terraces survived for many years after demolition of the house---| regret never having photographed them. Dovecote Decor Stanley Furniture Redefined Early American Gardens--a museum in a blog 1743 Benjamin Franklin on making wine from grapes Emily Evans Eerdmans All About Louis M Enfilade Exhibition I American Neoclassic Sculpture at the Boston Athenaeum FortHillStudios Another Day, Another Frame Gervais de Bédée Lunch with Goti Half Pudding Half Sauce After the house was demolished, the lawns, seen above in the 1920's looking across to the Kennedy estate on the next point, were left to meadow, which probably would have pleased Olmstead, and the effect of nature, as enhanced by Olmsted, was gorgeous. ://thedowneastdilettante.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html 4/10 3/4/2015 THE DOWNEAST DILETTANTE: July 2011 OLIDGE, MAGNOLIA, MASS. D Historic Houses 2013 in review How to be a Retronaut Best Skin Care Tips for Beach Holiday If The Lamp Shade Fits Your thoughts, please (IN)DECOROUS TASTE REDUX It Is About Time Wife Selling in England & 17C- 18C early America JCB the first of march assage little augury How They Decorated Lucindaville Following in my footsteps in Mansions of the Gilded Age Lost Vanderbilt's naturalistic swimming pool started something of a trend at Bar Harbor, and several other estates featured them. Above is are early spring views from the ruined cove side pool (nature reclaims her own) at Old Farm, the George Dorr estate, looking across to Pointe d'Acadie. Mansions of the Gilded In recent years a new house was built on the Pointe d'Acadie site, which is private property. Old Farm is now part Age: Lindenhurst, of Acadia National Park, which was founded by Dorr. Jenkintown, Pennsylvania You might also like: Mr.Michael Henry Adams' Style & Taste Mrs. Blandings Time to Waiting for MONEY USED TO Faulkner Farm Summer--Follies in GO FURTHER, # 3: Medicate New England Bar Harbor http://thedowneastdilettante.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.htm 5/10 Untitled Document Page 1 of 10 Biltmore Estate Pathfinder Biltmore Estate, aerial view, Asheville, North Carolina and Biltmore Estate, interior: Tapestry Gallery, Asheville, North Carolina Photos courtesy of the Frances Loeb Library, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University Table of Contents Introduction Subject Browsing Scope Headings Areas The Estate -- Books, Vanderbilt F.L. Olmsted R.M. Hunt Articles, Family and and and Cookbooks, Social Architecture Landscape and Other History Architecture Media http://www.unc.edu/~ferrr/ 2/7/2005 Jerry. E. Patterson. The Vanderbilts N.Y. : Harry N. Abrams, 1989. VI A Barony in North Carolina GEORGE, VANDERBILT was the first intellectual produced by his family. His three older brothers, Cornelius II, William K., and Frederick, were businessmen, much involved in finance and man- agement and sitting on the boards of numerous corporations; George was a shy scholar. Yet in combination with a serious interest in art and literature, he had more than a dash of the hereditary financial acumen. Frederick Law Olmsted, the land- scape architect, who knew him well and often adopted a paternal attitude toward him, called him "a delicate, refined, and bookish man with considerable humor, and shrewd, sharp, exacting, and resolute in matters of business." He was born in 1862 on Staten Island, where his parents were still farming. He was educated privately and from very early in his life was absorbed in books and the study of languages. When visitors were first allowed to inspect 640 Fifth Avenue in 1882, when George was twenty, it was noticed that his suite of rooms was the only one, including the library, that was lined with books. "The effect of the whole is sober and serious," wrote an awed reporter on seeing George's quarters. He eventually read eight languages and accumulated a library of 20,000 volumes. 162 George was only in his twenties and a bachelor when he began to build Biltmore. Gifford Pinchot, his young forester, described him thus: "George was a lover of art and of the great outdoors, a slim, simple, and rather shy rich, unmarried, but without racing sheltered by female relatives, enormously young man, too much and too long stables or chorus girls in his cosmos. Biltmore was his heart's delight. To his very great credit, considering his associations and his bringing up, he had a real sense of social responsibility and on his money." was eager to do more than merely live George was twenty-six when his father died. Under to terms the of the will, he inherited $6,250,000, a pittance the Louisa's legacies of Cornelius II and William K. After compared "the lots death, he was to inherit for his life 640 Fifth Avenue Maria well "all and stables on Madison Avenue and 52nd and of as my [William Henry's] pictures, statuary, Street," and as bequeath to my son Cornelius." art, except the portrait and marble bust of my father which works I George was philanthropic, and with this inheritance influence was able to make gifts to his favorite causes. He gave the land for he EBD. 163 the campus of Teachers College, the site between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, West 120th and 121st streets. Richard Morris Hunt built for him a small public library building at 251 West 13th Street, called the Jackson Square Branch, which he gave to the city, books and all. Opened in 1888, it became a branch of the New York Free Circulating Library, later absorbed into the New York Public Library. No longer a library and re- modeled in 1971, the building, one of the few by Hunt remaining in New York City, still exists. Like most of his generation of Vanderbilts, George was fascinated by architecture. While still a young man, he began to commission work from Hunt. In 1886, Hunt remodeled for him a house at 9 West 53rd Street, although George was still living with his mother at 640 Fifth Avenue. He had inherited under the terms of his father's will the old Vanderbilt homestead at New Dorp, Staten Island, where he had been born. He kept it as a working farm mainly to supply produce and flowers for 640. In 1887- 1889, Hunt designed some new farm buildings there. Supported by his inheritance, George decided to build a house outside New York City and the fashionable watering places of the East Coast where his relatives congregated. Al- though he had a house at Bar Harbor, Maine, which he had bought in 1889 from Mrs. Gouverneur Ogden and had the thirty acres of grounds landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted, he deter- mined to go farther afield for his principal country seat. In the mid-1880s he and his mother visited Asheville, North Carolina, then a new winter resort because of its relatively mild mountain climate. The region was remote - it did not have passenger rail- way service until 1880-and George was much struck by the beauty of the heavily forested region. Using agents SO that the price would not go up on the rumor that a Vanderbilt was the purchaser, he began buying land near the town; by 1888 he had acquired about 2,000 acres. That was only a tentative beginning. In 1895 he bought the entire Pisgah Forest, comprising about 80,000 acres. By the turn of the century, he owned some 100,000 acres in the North Carolina mountains. The land was cheap because it lay in a poor and backward part of the country. Ideas of land ownership were primitive: the deed for one of the farms that George bought gave as a boundary "the mud hole in the road." Roads were terrible, mere tracks in RETURN TO most cases. Although it had an extraordinary range of species of In 1889 Richard Morris Hunt began trees, the forest was in a deplorable state, "burned, slashed, and drawing plans for Biltmore, such as the west elevation from which the house overgrazed," in the words of Gifford Pinchot, George's chief overlooked the North Carolina forester. mountains. He also had constructed a wood-and-plaster model 5 feet long and Having accumulated a vast tract of land far from any large 3 feet wide. When it was completed, it town, George now decided to build the largest private house in was brought by wagon to Hunt's offices on Nassau Street in New York. Crowds America, establish a model dairy farm, revive the forest, and along the way gaped as the model of the establish a forestry school and an arboretum. It was an as- huge house passed. It is still at Biltmore. tonishing decision for a young man only twenty-eight years old, a During the building of Biltmore and bachelor, and without ties to the region, even though as a member the laying out of its grounds, Richard of one of the richest families in the world he was able to do pretty Morris Hunt, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Gifford Pinchot lived off and on much what he pleased. He called his new estate Biltmore, loosely with George in modest circumstances at deriving the name from Bildt, the town in Holland where his a farm called The Brick House, opposite above left. There they were cared for by ancestors lived, and from an old English word, more, meaning a small staff and spent daylight hours in rolling, upland country. the saddle inspecting the property and the works and evening hours discussing To help him in his immense project, he chose three re- plans. markable men: Richard Morris Hunt, then age sixty-two, as While Biltmore was under construction, architect; Frederick Law Olmsted, sixty-seven, as landscape de- its creators were photographed on the signer; and Gifford Pinchot as forester. Hunt he had known from grounds, opposite above right: second from left is Richard Morris Hunt, sitting childhood since he was practically the official family architect. is Frederick Law Olmsted, and standing Olmsted was the head of his profession in the United States, with beside him is George. the triumph of Central Park behind him; Biltmore was his last major work. Pinchot was close to George's age, having been born in 1865. He was a well-connected New Yorker, his maternal 170 The architecture of the early French Renaissance inspired Richard Morris Hunt at Biltmore. The grand staircase to the left of the entrance to the house was modeled on that at the Château de Blois, although the spiral is in the opposite direction. Paul R. Baker, the leading authority on Hunt, says of Biltmore, "It is a highly romantic building evoking much beyond what immediately strikes the eye." dreds of workmen labored on the house. Labor was very cheap: The entrance tower at Biltmore shows wages were from fifty cents to a dollar a day; and a mule could be how Hunt skillfully adapted the hired for about the same price! architectural forms of the early French Renaissance. A little town called Biltmore Village was built at the front gates to accommodate some of the workers. In addition to houses for the staff, it held offices, a railroad station, shops, sawmills, and a brick factory capable of turning out 32,000 bricks a day. In the Billiard Room was exhibited part of George's vast collection of prints. He All Souls Episcopal Church, designed by Richard Morris Hunt's began collecting when he was in his son, Richard Howland, who worked alongside his father at twenties, and by 1892, when the collection was first exhibited at the Biltmore, was built for the workers. American Fine Art Society in New Biltmore House, although a pretty faithful reconstruction York, it already included 251 etchings by Rembrandt, 175 woodcuts by of an early French Renaissance château, in particular the Château Albrecht Dürer, and 122 mezzotints de Blois, was up-to-date with internal conveniences: it had cen- after Sir Joshua Reynolds. In the Billiard tral heating, plumbing, refrigeration, elevator and dumbwaiter Room he hung some of his sporting and theatrical prints. 166 grandfather, Amos R. Eno, having made a fortune in New York City real estate. His family and the Vanderbilts moved in the same circles. Educated at Yale, he had gone to Europe to study forestry, then unknown as a science in America. He never had to work for a living and was delighted to join George in 1891 as chief forester of Biltmore. On the broad acres he had acquired George thought at first that he would build a large frame house along the lines of those in the Berkshire Mountains, such as sister Emily Sloane's at Lenox, Massachusetts. But he was soon converted to other, more grandiose plans by his friend Hunt. In May 1889, when Hunt was already sketching plans for Biltmore, he and his wife went to Europe with George. They visited stately homes in Britain, having lunch, for example, at Knole, one of the largest houses in Great Britain. In Paris, they found William K. and Alva Vanderbilt in residence and ready to take them to the races. At the great château of Chantilly, they were entertained by the Duc d'Aumale, son of King Louis Philippe. He had rebuilt Chantilly in the 1870s along its original sixteenth-century lines and then donated it and its incomparable collection of medieval and Renaissance art to the Institut de France in 1886. George developed under the influence of Hunt the same preference for French art and design that his relatives showed in New York and Newport. Biltmore, as com- pleted, was little influenced by the great houses of Britain. Every- where he went George bought furnishings for Biltmore; in Lon- don he astonished a rug dealer by purchasing at one time three hundred Oriental rugs for his new house. Having decided on a French château, Hunt went to work with a vengeance. This was the first Vanderbilt assignment in which he was able to work within a large space: previously he had had to build on either a cramped New York City lot or within the narrow confines of oceanfront property in Newport, on little Aquidneck Island. Biltmore is enormous: it has about 255 rooms. The Banquet Hall, the largest room in the house, is 72 feet long, 42 feet wide, and 75 feet high. The work was planned and carried out like a military operation. A private railway spur nearly three miles long and costing $77,500 was constructed to carry building materials from the main railroad line to the house site. The principal material was limestone, brought 600 miles from Indiana. Hun- Most of the meals for the family and guests were prepared in the main kitchen. The large cook stove was heated by coal or wood. Beside it stands a silver-plated server on wheels. The copper cookware shown is all original. Nearby are a pastry kitchen, a rotisserie kitchen, a canning pantry, and walk-in refrigerators. Biltmore was furnished throughout with a mixture of antiques and later reproductions. The Chippendale Room is furnished with a mahogany full tester bed in the Chippendale style but made in the 19th century. The seating furniture is both 18th and 19th century. equipment, and it was lighted by electricity. Even with all mod- The South Bedroom was George's, decorated in deep reds and dark woods. ern conveniences, the house and the stables, which had stalls for The dressing table, also used as a forty horses, required a staff of eighty servants. Several hundred writing desk, is believed to have been more worked on the grounds. designed by Richard Morris Hunt in the 17th-century Italian style. The walls are The interiors of the house were a combination of antique hung with old Northern European and reproduction furniture, some of it made for the house. Hunt engravings. From the windows at right is an extraordinary view of Mount himself designed the table in the Banquet Hall and a pair of throne Pisgah. chairs, which were carved by the Vanderbilts' preferred sculptor, Karl Bitter. Other furniture and decorations were in various "revival" styles, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Louis XV, Sher- aton, and SO on. Scattered throughout the rooms were nineteenth- century paintings and sculpture, many of them depicting family members, and Oriental objects of art, souvenirs of George's travels in the Far East. Unity of period, even in a single room, does not seem to have entered into the planning of the decor, with the exception of a "Chippendale Room" and a "Sheraton Room," and even in those, most of the furnishings were nineteenth- century reproductions. For all Hunt's faithfulness in recreating the Renaissance past in the exterior of his houses, he seems to have 179 The Old English Room's seating furniture is based on pieces found at Knole, in England. On the floor are Persian carpets from George's vast collection. On the wall at left hangs Federico Zuccaro's portrait of William and Frances Cecil, ancestors of John Francis Amherst Cecil, who married Cornelia Vanderbilt, heiress of Biltmore, in 1924. George owned a few Impressionist paintings: Renoir's Child with an Orange hangs in the Chippendale Room over the fireplace. been undisturbed by the mingling of styles in the interiors. In that respect, Biltmore is a very Victorian house. The Billiard Room- - all large houses of the time had one, not SO much because billiards was popular as because the gentlemen were allowed to smoke there - for example, has leather settees and chairs made by Mor- ant & Co., London, in 1895, copies of a famous set at Knole. But it also has Flemish, American colonial, Italian, and even seventeenth-century Portuguese furniture. The most important artist to work on the Biltmore inte- riors was Karl Bitter, a protégé of Richard Morris Hunt, who was born in Vienna in 1867. He came to the United States when he was twenty-one in order to escape Austrian military service. He had almost immediate success as a sculptor, due in part to his commissions from the Vanderbilt family. His work was to be found at Oakdale, Cornelius II's New York house, Marble House, The Library at Biltmore was designed and The Breakers. From his studio on East 53rd Street, in the for George's vast collection of more than midst of Vanderbilt New York houses, he poured out a stream of 20,000 volumes concentrating on art, architecture, and landscape gardening. decorative objects for the family. Karl Bitter carved the vast fireplace. The At Biltmore, Karl Bitter was responsible for carving fig- furniture is Italian and English. The pair of two-tiered tables holding lamps is ures of Joan of Arc and St. Louis on the exterior of the spiral believed to have been made in about staircase; copies were placed in the Banquet Hall. He made iron- 1910 by Biltmore Industries, the furniture workshops set up by George to and-steel andirons representing Venus and Vulcan and figures of train local North Carolina craftsmen. Hestia, goddess of the hearth, and Demeter, goddess of the earth, On the ceiling of the Library is a above the fireplace in the library. But his masterwork at Biltmore classical allegory entitled The Chariot of was the carving of a scene from Richard Wagner's opera Tan- Aurora, painted by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini and bought by George from nhäuser on the panel of the organ gallery in the Banquet Hall. the Pisani Palace in Venice. Above the mantel of the triple fireplace in the hall, he carved a limestone frieze approximately twenty-five feet long, The Return from the Chase. The Biltmore sculpture was among the last of Karl Bitter's private commissions; after that, he devoted himself to public monuments, of which the Pulitzer Fountain at the Plaza in New York (1914-1915) is perhaps the best known. He was killed in an automobile accident on Fifth Avenue in 1915. 183 The Oak Sitting Room is paneled in the Jacobean style and has an elaborate strapwork ceiling. The portrait is Mrs. Walter R. Bacon (a cousin of George's on the Kissam side) by John Singer Sargent. The pair of brass and copper objects with lions' masks and feet are 19th-century reproductions of 17th- century wine coolers. The bronzes on the center tables are all by the French 19th-century artists Antoine-Louis Barye, Constantin-Emile Meunier, and Pierre Jules Mène, known as Les Animaliers because they specialized in sculpting wild and domestic animals. The Winter Garden near the entrance was filled at all seasons with flowers, palms, and ferns from the gardens and greenhouses. A trapdoor in the floor was used to bring plants up from the basement. Karl Bitter made the marble and bronze fountain with a statue of a boy struggling with geese. With the house under construction, George began plan- ning with Frederick Olmsted the landscaping of his vast tract. Olmsted wrote of "the exacting, yet frank, trustful, confiding, and cordially friendly disposition toward all of us which Mr. V. manifests." When Olmsted arrived at Biltmore, he found to his astonishment that George wanted him to make the entire place into a park surrounding the house. Olmsted's realistic advice, which George followed, was "to make a small park into which to look from your house, make a small pleasure ground and garden, farm your river bottom chiefly to keep and fatten livestock with a view to manure, and make the rest a forest " Olmsted had difficulties with the terrain, but he met the The Swedish artist Anders Zorn was at the height of his popularity as a painter challenge beautifully. The house site was open to the northwest, of fashionable life when he showed The from which a bleak wind often blew down from the mountains. Waltz at the World's Columbian Olmsted suggested that a terrace be built on the southeast and Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The dancer in the forefront is a self-portrait provision made below it for a sheltered ramble for outdoor exer- of the artist. George saw the painting in cise in blustery weather. The entrance court on the west side could Chicago and bought it for Biltmore. be protected from the wind by extending the range of offices and stables eastward and partially concealing them by a walled court. For the entrance to the house and grounds he designed a new road to follow along the ravines through the natural forest without distant outlooks or open spaces. As one does today, the visitor would suddenly come into an open space in front of the house and would be struck by both the grandeur of the house and the beauty of the surrounding mountains. When, in December 1891, young Gifford Pinchot took charge of Biltmore Forest at an annual salary of $2,500 and subsistence, he was anxious to put into practice the theory of forestry that he had learned in Europe. He wanted "to prove that trees could be cut and the forest preserved at one and the same time." He made Biltmore the first piece of woodland in the United States to be put under a regular system of forest management whose object was to pay the owner while improving the forest. Pinchot entered into his, task with great enthusiasm, at ease with his employer and enjoying the social life of the family. He was handsome and eligible and attracted the interest of Adele Sloane, George's niece, the daughter of Emily Vanderbilt Sloane, who made frequent trips to Biltmore. Her crush on him is charm- ingly chronicled in her diary, but it came to nothing. Pinchot's devotion to his work did not prevent his taking a clear-eyed view of the Biltmore enterprise. It was, he wrote: a magnificent château its setting was superb, the view from it breath-taking, and as a feudal castle it would have been beyond criticism and perhaps beyond praise. But in the U.S. of the nineteenth century and among the one- room cabins of the Appalachian mountaineers, it did not belong. The contrast was a devastating commentary on the injustice of concentrated wealth. Even in the early nineties I had sense to see that. The first public knowledge of Biltmore's forestry program came at the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893. Pinchot showed greatly enlarged photographs of what the forest was like and what had already been done to improve it while making it pay. Pinchot said this was "the first exhibition of practical for- estry ever made in the U.S." George also visited the Chicago exposition and while there bought The Waltz, a painting ex- hibited by the Swedish artist Anders Zorn. Pinchot also planned an arboretum to gather plants from all over the United States and most of the temperate world. A nursery for the arboretum was begun, but it was washed away during a major flood in 1902. Work on the arboretum was never resumed. However, a Biltmore Forest School to train foresters operated between 1897 and 1913. In the meantime, George's model farm was also winning ac- colades: he held sales of pedigreed hogs, and his Jersey COWS were well known for their record-breaking milk production. In 1895, the house was completed. The architect did not live to see it finished; Richard Morris Hunt died early that year. George had John Singer Sargent come to Biltmore and paint portraits of Hunt and Olmsted. Hunt's son Richard Howland, who had worked with his father from the beginning, supervised the completion. The housewarming began on December 26, In limitation of medieval architects, Richard Morris Hunt embellished the 1895. Only members of the Vanderbilt family were invited, in- outer walls and roofscape of Biltmore cluding Maria Louisa, Frederick and Louise, Florence and with gargoyles and human figures, Hamilton Twombly, and Lila and Seward Webb. The party trav- including miniature workmen with the tools of their trades, musicians, and eled down to Asheville by private railroad car attended by, as a scholars. newspaper put it, "armies of servants." The guests were as- tonished that from the terrace of Biltmore House they could see fifty mountain peaks with summits over 5,000 feet. Between 300 and 500 employees on the estate were entertained at a party of their own, with a Christmas tree, gifts, and a dinner. Even when the house was opened, work continued on the grounds. Olmsted, who was growing old and cranky-he was soon to retire-now - had some complaints about his employer. He said it took "constant vigilance" to keep George in line. His The conservatory was designed by disinclination to methodical planning was matched by a hap- Richard Morris Hunt and rebuilt in hazard method of financing the work. He was spending about 1957 consistent with his original plans. In the foreground is the rose garden, $250,000 a year for improvements and maintenance, but he which now has over 3,000 varieties. rarely made a specific appropriation for a specific operation; he George, anxious to honor the two men who had done the most to create Biltmore, asked John Singer Sargent to paint portraits of Hunt and Olmsted. In May 1895, Hunt and his wife, George, and Sargent traveled to Biltmore from New York in George's private railroad car. Sargent depicted Hunt standing outside in the front court of the house, but the weather was chilly and the posing was actually done indoors by the fire. The portrait shows Hunt frail and tired; he died two months later in Newport near some of his greatest buildings. ordered it done and then paid whatever expense the department heads incurred in doing it. Olmsted said, "The worst feature of this casual and informal fiscal control was that inevitably much that was done proved to be wasteful and disappointing in the long run, when Vanderbilt found himself unable to maintain in a really satisfactory manner, indefinitely, what had been accomplished." In fact, George was spending too much money on Bilt- more. Hamilton Twombly, who kept an eye on the business c 11 l 111 Sargent wasn't too happy during the month he spent at Biltmore painting the portraits of Hunt and Olmsted, largely because Mrs. Hunt and Mrs. Olmsted insisted that he show their elderly and ailing husbands as they had been in their prime. Nor did he much like the settings: he referred to the forest background for the Olmsted portrait as "red earth stuck with specimen vegetables." Both portraits are still at Biltmore. over his head. "The trouble with you landscape architects," wrote Twombly, "is that you don't protect your clients from their own ignorant impulsiveness about matters in which they rely on your experienced judgement." Olmsted wrote back sarcastically that he had never anticipated that a Vanderbilt could run out of money. But soon after the turn of the century, maintenance at Biltmore was reduced from $250,000 a year to $70,000. George made Biltmore his principal residence and enter- tained a succession of distinguished acquaintances: the guest book shows that the American novelist Paul Leicester Ford came in 1899, Edith Wharton in 1902, and the ubiquitous Chauncey Frederick Law Olmsted and Gifford Pinchot created between them a Depew in 1903. Vanderbilts, Sloanes, Webbs, Twomblys, remarkably varied landscape at Biltmo Kissams, and other relatives and their friends visited. They lived using both formal and informal elements. The stone bridges, opposite, as they would have in an English Edwardian country house. on the grounds resemble those Olmste Gertrude Vanderbilt, soon to become Mrs. Harry Payne designed for New York's Central Park The azalea garden, above, today Whitney, wrote from the opening festivities to her friend Esther contains the world's most complete Hunt, "We have walked and ridden and when we were at home sat largely many collection hybrid azaleas of Chauncy azaleas. well Delos It of native as as Asiatic and wa about together and fooled and I have seldom enjoyed anything as the creation much." In the evenings they were entertained by "darkey musi- Beadle, who came to work at Biltmore cians." In truth, it was necessary for Biltmore guests to find all under Olmsted in 1890 and remained for 60 years as superintendent of the their amusement in the house and grounds; there were no neigh- estate. bors to call on or invite in return. The extreme isolation of the house meant that it had to be self-contained. Not all visitors were pleased with George's creation. John Singer Sargent, when he came to paint the Hunt and Olmsted por- traits, found it lonesome and cold. The most discontented guest was the easily fussed Henry James, an old friend of George's, who arrived in February 1905 in a snowstorm, suffering from gout. His highly critical letters from Biltmore are often cited because of the eminence of their writer and their irresistible quotability. He wrote to his nephew of vast sequestered remoteness huge freezing spaces and fantastic immensities of scale that have been based on a fundamental ignorance of comfort and wondrous deludedness as to what can be the application of a colossal French château to life in this irretrievable niggery wilderness And he told Edith Wharton that " the climate is well nigh all the company in the showy colossal heartbreaking house and the desolation and discomfort of the whole thing-whole - scene-as 192 in spite of the mitigating millions everywhere expressed [is] indescribable " Calling the house "a gorgeous practical joke," he soon fled to Palm Beach. George also maintained his house at Bar Harbor. He inherited 640 Fifth Avenue after his mother's death in 1896. Across the avenue at 645 and 647 Fifth Avenue, he had Richard Howland Hunt build for him the "Marble Twins," two Beaux- Arts town houses that he apparently never intended to live in but built in order to prevent something less desirable from facing 640. Number 647 survives and is a New York City landmark. Since he was seldom in residence at 640, George leased it in 1904 to Henry Clay Frick, who lived there for ten years until he built his own mansion at 70th Street. In 1898, he married in Paris at the age of thirty-six. His bride was an American living in Paris, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser. George and Edith had met in Paris while he was on a trip around the world with his friend Osgood Field, who a few years later would marry Lila Sloane, George's niece. The civil ceremony was held on June 1, 1898 at the town hall of the 8th arrondissement, with Cornelius II and Hamilton Twombly as witnesses. At the religious ceremony the following day at the American (Episcopal) Church, various Vanderbilts were present, including Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough. The only child of the marriage, Cor- nelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt, was born in 1900. George and Edith bought a house at 1612 K Street, Wash- ington, D.C. from the estate of Senator Matthew S. Quay of Pennsylvania in 1912, and for a short time they became leading Edith Stuyvesant Dresser, who married hosts in the capital. But George died in 1914, at the age of only George in 1898, was the daughter of a general and a direct descendant of Peter fifty-two, after an emergency appendectomy. Stuyvesant. Two years after her marriage Edith entered into the life of Biltmore, where she made her she was painted by Giovanni Boldini, home. She continued George's work with an industrial school for one of the most fashionable portraitists of the time. After George's death she boy and girl weavers. She was president of the North Carolina married Peter Goelet Gerry, senator Agricultural Society and State Fair and won glowing encomiums. from Rhode Island. One newspaper wrote, "The action of Mrs. Vanderbilt in exclud- During his long sojourns in Paris ing all gambling outfits and doubtful shows from the State Fair is George became acquainted with many prominent artists. In 1897, his portrait receiving general approval. North Carolinians who love decency was painted by the expatriate James A. will have additional reason to be proud of the Lady of Biltmore." McNeill Whistler. But the period of expansion at Biltmore was over: in 1917 J. A. M. Whistler. Portrait of George W. Vanderbilt. C. 1897-1903. Oil on canvas, Edith sold Biltmore Industries, and in 1920 Biltmore Village and 82 1/8 X 357/8". National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Gift of Edith Stuyvesant 230 acres were sold for a residential park for $1 million. Edith Gerry deeded about 100,000 acres of the estate to the federal govern- In 1926, when the house was occupied ment, and it became the Pisgah National Forest. Later, portions by Cornelia and her husband, the Halloween Room was painted by were sold for the Blue Ridge Parkway and some acreage developed houseguests, each assigned a section of into the town of Biltmore Forest. Eventually, the estate shrank to wall to decorate; the decoration took three weeks to complete. Nearby are th about 8,000 acres around Biltmore House. bowling alley, the swimming pool-with In 1924, Cornelia, heiress of Biltmore, married John Am- 17 dressing rooms on separate hallways herst Cecil, son of Lord William Cecil and Baroness Amherst of for ladies and gentlemen - and the fully equipped gymnasium. Hackney and a descendant of Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth I's Lord Treasurer. The bridegroom was First Secretary of the British Legation in Washington. The wedding took place in the church at Biltmore Village. In 1930 Biltmore opened its doors to the public, and today it is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the southeastern United States. During the Second World War Biltmore sheltered the art treasures removed from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., SO as to escape possible enemy action. BIBLIOGRAPHY Soon after the death of William Henry Vanderbilt, W. A. a sincere and engaging autobiography. Cornelius IV wrote Croffut published The Vanderbilts and the Story of Their frankly - too frankly, according to his relatives- of himself Fortune (Chicago: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1886), the first and his family in Farewell to Fifth Avenue (New York: Simon book entirely devoted to the Commodore and his children. and Schuster, 1935). He wrote an equally frank and absorb- Although generally eulogistic, it was not entirely uncritical. ing biography of his mother, Queen of the Golden Age: The All later writers on the Vanderbilts draw on its wealth of first- Fabulous Story of Grace Wilson Vanderbilt (New York: hand facts. Another view by a contemporary is Henry McGraw-Hill, 1956). Gloria Vanderbilt has written two vol- Clews's Fifty Years in Wall Street (New York: Irving Pub- umes of memoirs, Once Upon a Time: A True Story (New lishers, 1908). The Commodore's best biographer is York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985) and Black Knight, White Wheaton J. Lane, who wrote Commodore Vanderbilt: An Knight (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987). Shirley Burden's Epic of the Steam Age (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942). The Vanderbilts in My Life: A Personal Memoir (New Haven The origins and history of the Vanderbilt fortune are and New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1981) is a book of photo- chronicled, not always fairly, by Gustavus Myers in his His- graphs with a brief text. In On Record: An Autobiography tory of the Great American Fortunes (New York: The Mod- (New York: Summit Books, 1977) John Hammond gives ern Library, 1964) and The Ending of the Hereditary glimpses of his Vanderbilt relations. American Fortunes (New York: Julian Messner, 1939); by B. H. Friedman's massive biography, Gertrude Vanderbilt Ferdinand Lundberg in America's 60 Families (New York: Whitney (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1978), is not easy The Citadel Press, 1946); and by Frederick Lewis Allen in reading- - it is inexplicably written entirely in the present The Lords of Creation (New York: Harper & Brothers, tense- but it contains valuable extracts from Gertrude's di- 1935). aries and letters. The story of the custody trial of Gloria has The best histories of the New York Central Railroad are been told with skill and verve in Barbara Goldsmith's Little Alvin F. Harlow's The Road of the Century: The Story of the Gloria Happy at Last (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, New York Central (New York: Creative Age Press, Inc., 1980), which is well researched and compulsively readable. 1947) and Edward Hungerford's Men and Iron: The History The important sources for William Henry's art collecting of the New York Central (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, are Samuel P. Avery, The Diaries, 1871-1882, edited by 1938). For the history of the Vanderbilt railroads and Grand Madeleine F. Beaufort et al. (New York: Arno Press, 1979), Central Terminal, I have also relied on Carl Condit's un- and George A. Lucas, The Diary An American Art Agent rivaled two-volume History of the Port of New York (Chi- in Paris, 1857-1909 edited by Lillian M. C. Randall (Prince- cago: University of Chicago Press, 1980-1981). For the ton: Princeton University Press, 1979). decline and bankruptcy of the New York Central a good Some of the Vanderbilt houses have been well chronicled, source is Peter Lyon, To Hell in a Day Coach: An Exas- others have had little written about them. Undoubtedly the perated Look at American Railroads (Philadelphia: J. B. most complete study ever made of a Vanderbilt house, its Lippincott, 1968). interior, and objects was commissioned by William Henry Quite a few Vanderbilts have spoken for themselves. The from Edward Strahan, who wrote under the name Earl Shinn. youthful diary of Florence Adele Sloane was edited, with a He prepared a four-volume study of the house at 640 Fifth charming commentary, by Louis Auchincloss as Maverick in Avenue entitled Mr. Vanderbilt's House and Collection (New Mauve: The Diary of a Romantic Age (Garden City: Double- York: privately printed, 1883-1884). Wayne Andrews's Ar- day & Co., 1983). Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan's The Glitter chitecture, Ambitions and Americans (New York: The Free and the Gold (New York: Harper Brothers, 1952) is one of Press, 1978) is a good overview. Paul R. Baker's Richard the best firsthand accounts of life in the Gilded Age as well as Morris Hunt (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1980) is the definitive 298 study of the architect who built SO much for the Vanderbilts. Frederick Law Olmsted (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Uni- The Architecture of Richard Morris Hunt (Chicago: Univer- versity Press, 1973). sity of Chicago Press, 1986), edited by Susan R. Stein, is also On the social activities of the Vanderbilts in this century useful. The work of the Vanderbilts' favorite sculptor is de- Eve Brown, in her Champagne Cholly: The Life and Times of scribed by James M. Dennis in Karl Bitter: Architectural Maury Paul (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1947), is lively and Sculptor, 1867-1915 (Madison: University of Wisconsin knowledgeable. For the Vanderbilt interest in horse racing, I Press, 1967). have used Bernard Livingston's Their Turf: America's Horsey Contemporary photographs accompanied by a detailed Set & Its Princely Dynasties (New York: Arbor House, and extremely well-written text are found in Arnold Lewis, 1973). And all students of American society must rely on American Country Houses of the Gilded Age (New York: Dixon Wecter's superb The Saga of American Society: A Dover Publications, 1982), and Arnold Lewis et al., The Record of Social Aspiration, 1607-1937 (New York: Opulent Interiors of the Gilded Age (New York: Dover Pub- Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937). lications, 1987). Two books on an architectural firm that did The American press has been fascinated by the doings of much work for the Vanderbilts are Leland M. Roth's McKim, the Vanderbilts for over a century. Hundreds of articles have Mead and White, Architects (New York: Harper & Row, appeared, but they must be used judiciously. I found the best 1983) and Richard Guy Wilson's McKim, Mead & White, to be those in the New York Times, Life, and Vogue. Architects (New York: Rizzoli, 1983). Thomas Gannon's By far the best of the older books on the dynasty is Wayne Newport Mansions: The Gilded Age (Dublin, N.H.: Fore- Andrews's The Vanderbilt Legend: The Story of the Vander- most Publishers, 1982) has been useful. Joe Sherman's The bilt Family, 1794-1940 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and House at Shelburne Farms: The Story of One of America's Co., 1941), and I have relied heavily on that scholarly and Great Country Estates (Middlebury, Vt.: Paul S. Erikson, entertaining work. 1986) is one of the few books devoted to a single Vanderbilt The most complete genealogy of the family to have ap- house. Gifford Pinchot described his work at Biltmore in his peared was compiled by Verley Archer: Commodore Cor- autobiography, Breaking New Ground (New York: Har- nelius Vanderbilt, Sophia Johnson Vanderbilt and Their court, Brace and Co., 1947), and Olmsted's work there is Descendants (Nashville: Vanderbilt University, 1972). described by Laura Wood Roper in FLO: A Biography of ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many descendants of Commodore Vanderbilt have talked to Arnold Ehrlich, John Cantrell, and Lois Taylor. me about the history of their family. They include William My editor at Abrams, Mark Greenberg, and my picture A. V. Cecil, Iris Smith Christ, Serena Van Ingen McCallum, editor, John Crowley, have been everything editors should be, Alexander F. Milliken, Consuelo (Mimi) Russell, Timothy P. and the book is better for their help. Also at Abrams I have to Schieffelin, Alexander S. Webb, and J. Watson Webb. The thank Dirk Luykx, who designed the book, and Margaret interpretations of family history and personalities are, of Kaplan, Paul Gottlieb, and Elizabeth Robbins. course, my own. My agent, Susan Zeckendorf, possesses the best of all At the Vanderbilt houses I am indebted to Craig Jessup, agent's qualities, enthusiasm, and I am grateful to her for Vanderbilt Mansion, Hyde Park; G. Carroll Lindsay, Vander- support since the book was first proposed. bilt Museum, Centerport; Susan Ward, Michael K. Smith, Thanks also to Terry Ariano, Museum of the City of New and Travis Ledford at Biltmore; and John A. Cherol and York; Susan E. Linder, New York Public Library; Waldo Monique Panaggio at the Preservation Society of Newport Maffei, Robert Nikirk, Thomas E. Norton, Elizabeth Sims, County. Karen Sinapi, Mr. and Mrs. James Van Alen, Mr. and Mrs. I am most grateful to James F. Carr for locating rare books William Van Alen, and Professor Barbara Welter, Hunter and periodicals dealing with the Vanderbilts. College. Mary Louise Norton of Town & Country aided the Most of my research was done at the New York Society project from the beginning and I am most appreciative. Library, and I am appreciative, as I have been for years, of the Also at Town & Country I want to thank Frank Zachary, staff of that great New York institution. A Brief History of Biltmore Estate Biltmore Estate was the country to build Biltmore House. A three- Biltmore&state home of George Washington mile railway spur from the Biltmore Vanderbilt (1862-1914), youngest station was constructed to transport HOUSE + GARDENS + WINERY son of William H. Vanderbilt and materials to the site, including grandson of "Commodore" Cornelius limestone shipped from Indiana. Vanderbilt, one of the wealthiest A brick factory turning out 32,000 men of the 19th century. In 1888, bricks daily and a woodworking George Vanderbilt and his mother shop were built nearby to meet the Student Resource Guide visited Asheville, N.C. to enjoy the demand for materials. healthful mountain climate. He was As the house was being built, captivated by the natural Vanderbilt issued a beauty of the Blue Ridge challenge to landscape Mountains and decided architect Frederick Law to build a grand country Olmsted (1822-1903): estate in the area. transform bare, over- George Vanderbilt worked farmland into bought 125,000 acres of beautiful gardens and land, stretching all the parks befitting the grand way to Mount Pisgah, house. Olmsted, the and hired the prominent designer of Central Park architect Richard Morris in New York City, and Hunt (1828-95), who the campuses of Cornell, had designed homes for Amherst, and Stanford other Vanderbilt family universities, advised members, to create his Vanderbilt not to create a home. It was modeled after three huge park around Biltmore, arguing C. The Biltnere Company 16th-century French Renaissance that the land near the house should châteaux in the Loire Valley. be farmed and the extensive wood- Vanderbilt and Hunt travelled lands scientifically managed to sup- throughout Europe to collect furni- port the estate. ture, artwork, and architectural Biltmore House was a modern pieces for the property, which interpretation of a classic château- Vanderbilt named "Biltmore"- it featured central plumbing with from Bildt, the Dutch town where hot water on demand, central his ancestors originated, and heating, mechanical refrigeration, a "more," an old English word for sophisticated electrical system open, rolling land. powering Edison & Co. light bulbs, Beginning in 1889, hundreds of and the first electric passenger artisans worked more than six years elevator in the state. 2 BY THE NUMBERS also very much a family home. In Biltmore House: 1898, Vanderbilt married Edith 375 feet long by 192 feet wide Stuyvesant Dresser (1873-1958); (not including terraces, stables) after honeymooning in Italy, the 250 rooms, including: couple came to live at Biltmore. 35 family and guest bedrooms Two years later, their only child 43 bathrooms Cornelia (1900-76) was born; she 65 fireplaces grew up on the estate. 3 kitchens Biltmore Estate was an economic 1 indoor swimming pool blessing for the Asheville area. In Estate Grounds in 1895: 1898, Vanderbilt purchased the 100,000 acres of forest nearby town of Best, renaming it 250-acre wooded park Biltmore Village, which grew to 5 pleasure gardens include cottages for estate employees, Currently owned: a school, church, hospital, and 8,000 acres shops. He introduced innovative The Vanderbilt's employed farming methods to the rural emergency appendectomy in In 1925, Edith Vanderbilt mar- 150-200 people at the turn region, and championed the Washington, D.C. Following his ried Senator Peter G. Gerry, divid- of the century; founding of the Biltmore Forest burial in the family's New York mau- ing her time between Rhode Island, Biltmore Estate currently employs School in 1898-the first institute soleum, Mrs. Vanderbilt returned to Washington, D.C., and Asheville. more than 1,000 for scientific forestry in America. the estate and to community A year earlier, at All Souls Church In 1901, the Vanderbilts started involvement. Management of the in Biltmore Village, her daughter Biltmore Estate Industries, an large property became overwhelming; Cornelia Vanderbilt married the On Christmas Eve 1895, George apprenticeship program to teach in keeping with her late husband's Honorable John Francis Amherst Vanderbilt welcomed family and woodworking, weaving, and other wishes to preserve Pisgah Forest for Cecil (1890-1954). Their sons, friends to his new home. It was the traditional crafts. Two years the public, she sold nearly 87,000 George Henry Vanderbilt Cecil first of many parties held at the later, Mrs. Vanderbilt set up the acres to the federal government in (1925-) and William Amherst estate, which hosted a number of School for Domestic Science, 1915, creating the core of Pisgah Vanderbilt Cecil (1928-) were both famous people, including President which trained young women in National Forest. In 1917, she sold born on Biltmore Estate. William McKinley and writers housekeeping skills. Biltmore Estate Industries and The estate opened to the public Henry James and Edith Wharton. George Vanderbilt was active in Biltmore Village in 1921; by the in March 1930 at the request of While Biltmore proved to be an the estate's operations until his late 1920s, the estate covered Asheville's leaders, who hoped such ideal place for entertaining, it was unexpected death in 1914, after an 11,000 acres. an attraction would increase Biltmore Estate Timeline Biltmore Estate Timeline 1888 1889 1895 1898 1900 1901 1914 1915 1924 1928 1930 1942 1945 1960 1976 1985 1995 1997 1999 2001 George Construc- Bilcmore Vanderbild Comelia Bilamore Vanderbilt Bilcmore's Comelia William Bilemore WWII Bilemore William Music Winery Bilamore Conservatory Artists' Innon Vanderbild tion of House marries Vanderbild Estate dies in land sold Vanderbilt Cecili is House closes House Cecil Room opens Estate's restoration Suite Biltmore visits Bilemore officially Edith is born Industries Washington, to U.S. marries born opens to Biltmore reopens returns to completed Centennial begins opens Estate Asheville, House opens Dresser opens D.C. Forest John public House, Bilemore N.C. opens begins Service Francis estate Amherst stores Cecil 3 4 tourism during the Depression. Estate Winery, which has become Gardens of Biltmore During World War II, the estate the most-visited winery in America. was closed and priceless artworks In the past three decades, from the National Gallery of Art additions and related ventures have The beautiful gardens and woods of Walled Garden-a classic in Washington, D.C. were stored maintained Biltmore Estate's Biltmore Estate did not always exist. English garden with patterned in Biltmore House for safekeeping. success. In keeping with George When Frederick Law Olmsted was flower beds that are in bloom from During this time, the Biltmore Vanderbilt's vision of a self- hired as the estate's landscape early spring's daffodils and tulips to Dairy enterprise grew into a sufficient, working estate, there are architect, much of the 125,000 acres fall's bright chrysanthemums. thriving business. agricultural enterprises producing was bare farmland. He transformed Rose Garden-the lower half In 1960, William Cecil left a beef, lamb, vegetables, and herbs the site to complement the magnifi- of the Walled Garden is planted banking career in New York City for the estate's restaurants. cent house, take advantage of the with about 2,300 roses in more and Washington, D.C. to join Selective timber harvests keep native plants and rolling than 200 varieties. his brother, George, in managing forests healthy while providing terrain, and provide for Conservatory- the family property. Biltmore economic support. Vineyards recreational activities. Richard Morris Hunt Dairy became a separate business produce more than 300 tons of Beginning with formal designed this glass in 1979 under George Cecil's grapes each year for the winery. In lawns and manicured and steel building, direction. Under William Cecil's 2001, the estate opened its first gardens around the house, which was restored in leadership, renovations to hotel the 213-room Inn on the grounds become 1997-99. It provides Biltmore House have opened Biltmore Estate. Retail and increasingly natural- flowers and plants for more than 90 rooms to the public. restaurant sales, in addition to looking, spreading out Biltmore House. The estate's original calving barn the sale of more than 900,000 to forests that look Spring Garden- was renovated into Deerpark admission tickets annually, keep untouched by the hands of named for two small Restaurant, and the dairy barn was America's largest home operating man. The gardens include: springs (now under- remodeled for use as the Biltmore without any government funding. The Approach Road- ground) and features a variety of this three-mile road begins at the spring-blooming shrubs. Lodge Gate and ends near the Azalea Garden-acres of native Front Lawn of Biltmore House. and hybrid azaleas, assembled by Esplanade-the forecourt of Chauncey Beadle, Biltmore Estate's Biltmore House, including the first superintendent, make up one Front Lawn, the Rampe Douce of the nation's largest collections of ("gentle incline"), and the Vista. native azaleas. Terraces-the Library Terrace Deer Park-250 acres of wooded and the South Terrace. areas designed as a game preserve. Italian Garden-with three Bass Pond & Lagoon- symmetrical pools and classic created for both beauty and statuary, this garden was designed recreation, these water features as an outdoor "room" used often reflect the beauty of the for recreation. surrounding land. Shrub Garden-the four-acre Farmland-devoted to crops garden, also known as the Ramble, is and grazing. filled with year-round color from na- Forest-hundreds of acres of tive and imported shrubs and trees. woodlands have been replanted. 5 6 Biltmore Estate Winery Seasons of Splendor Opened in 1985, Biltmore Estate Morris Hunt as part of the estate's Winter Michaelmas Winery has become the most dairy operations. The 96,500 The year begins at Biltmore Estate As the mountain breeze hints of visited winery in America and one square-foot structure opened in with appreciation of the treasures cool days and nights, it's time for of the most honored, earning more 1985 after a three-year renovation, found within the house. Biltmore Michaelmas: An English Harvest Fair. than 200 awards for its wines. and now houses visitor areas, a House's staff continues to work on Interpreted in late-19th-century wine tasting room, and production the conservation and preservation style, this festival commemorates the Vineyards facilities. Cellars that once stored of paintings, tapestries, books, abundance of the land and its people Biltmore's first vines were planted in ice for the dairy now keep wines sculptures and other objects within with traditional music, arts and crafts, 1971 near the Conservatory, with constantly cool during aging. the house. lively entertainment, and Biltmore's the first wines produced in 1977. In Production begins when crushed own harvest. Fall foliage and thou- 1978, approximately one acre was grapes and their juices are placed Festival of Flowers sands of chrysanthemums draw guests planted of Vitis vinifera, the European in giant fermentation tanks, each Spring brings the powerful color of to scenic trails and breathtaking grape species from which all world- holding 3,000 to 5,000 gallons. flowers celebrated with Festival of vistas around every turn. class wines are made. These vine- Depending upon the type of wine Flowers. From early spring into fall, yards are no longer in production. desired, fermentation may take up to Biltmore's gardens are filled with Christmas By 1984, Biltmore cultivated 160 a month. Then, white wines are aged blooms. During Festival of Flowers, Christmas at Biltmore Estate brings acres along the estate's west side. In in the tanks and red wines are aged Biltmore House is elaborately dec- splendor like that of Christmas Eve January 1985, the Southeastern in oak casks in the Barrel Room. orated with turn-of-the-century floral 1895, when George Vanderbilt U.S. experienced a record cold Biltmore's wines are bottled on arrangements, and the opened the doors of snap; the-20°F degree temperature site, with sparkling wines made gardens feature week- his new home. killed 50-80% of the vines and the by methode champenoise-the end entertainment. Adorning the house vineyards had to be replanted. traditional French method of are dozens of trees, Currently, more than 72 acres making champagne-and bottled Summer including a towering support nearly 51,500 vines, with by hand. Ever-changing colors 35-foot Fraser fir in an annual harvest nearing 300 tons. mark the gardens' the Banquet Hall, Among the varieties grown in summer displays, while hundreds of wreaths Biltmore's vineyards are Chardonnay, Biltmore Estate and poinsettias, and Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, Winery offers music evergreen roping Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, and fun on holiday weekends. In measured by the mile. Merlot, and Viognier. June, Roaring 20s at Biltmore Estate, Holidays also bring Candlelight focuses on the Jazz Age, when the Christmas Evenings-available by Wine Production 1924 wedding at Biltmore Estate of reservation only-with unique views The winery produces about 85,000 Cornelia Vanderbilt and John Cecil of Biltmore House's elaborate deco- cases of wine each year, combining set the stage for parties and lively rations, rare art, and medieval tapes- state-of-the-art technology and Old entertainment. Saturdays and tries lit by the gentle glow of can- World techniques. The production Sundays in June offer 1920s music dles and firelight. Choirs, ensem- takes place in the renovated winery and dance, with modern jazz bles, and the Banquet Hall's 1916 building, designed by Richard enlivening the winery. pipe organ add to the holiday spirit. 7 8 Visiting Biltmore Estate School Programs Biltmore Estate is open to the includes a self-guided visit to Escorted school programs are available Monday-Friday public from 8:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Biltmore House, Gardens, and by reservation only, and require a minimum of 20 students. every day except Thanksgiving and Winery. Hosts are stationed Christmas Days (January-March, throughout Biltmore House to Each program lasts approximately 1.5-2 hours. the estate opens at 9:00 A.M.). The answer questions. admission price varies depending Specialty guided tours are avail- Christmas at Biltmore Estate upon the season-call 800-543-2961 able at additional cost by reservation. The holiday warmth and charm of Christmas Eve 1895, when or check www.biltmore.com for The Behind-the-Scenes Tour George Vanderbilt formally opened Biltmore House, is re-created with more information. includes unrestored areas of the spectacular turn-of-the-century Christmas decorations, holiday music, Groups of 20 or more, including house, with emphasis on the ser- and more than 35 Christmas trees throughout the House. School student groups, receive discounted vants' lives and on the advanced groups receive an escorted tour of Biltmore House. admission with advance reservations. technology that eased life for the Reservations are required at least Vanderbilts, their guests, and two weeks in advance; during employees. The Rooftop Tour offers Biltmore Stories peak seasons in spring, fall, and dramatic views of Biltmore's grounds During winter months, Biltmore Estate's student program focuses on Christmas, early reservations are rec- and surrounding mountains. The the young people who once lived and worked in Biltmore House. ommended as group reservations fill Legacy of the Land motor coach This escorted tour features talks drawn from estate archives illustrating up on a first-come, first-serve basis. tour covers history of the land, what life what like for young people on the estate who helped build Special activities are offered to structures, and former residents. Biltmore House, cared for the Vanderbilts and their guests, and worked adult groups at additional cost, on the farm and in the stables. Presentations are given in the including guided candlelight tours School Groups Halloween Room. of Biltmore House, dining options, Biltmore Estate conducts several special wine tastings, and other programs for students (see School events. Call the Group Sales office Programs). Each student group is Festival of Flowers at 828-274-6230 for details. greeted by a Biltmore Estate host, Biltmore Estate welcomes spring with this annual celebration, featuring who provides a brief overview of elaborate turn-of-the-century floral arrangements in Biltmore House, Planning Visit Vanderbilt family history, Biltmore and gardens filled with springtime color and scents. School groups It takes nearly a full day to make House construction, major points receive an escorted tour of Biltmore House. the most of a self-guided visit to of interest, and the estate Code of Biltmore House, Gardens, and Behavior. The escorted visit lasts Winery. When planning a visit, approximately 1.5 hours. One adult School Group Reservations please keep in mind that driving chaperone per 10 students is distances on the estate are signifi- required. Boxed lunches, by 828-274-6230 cant; a minimum of 15 minutes is advance reservation only, are avail- e-mail: groupsales@biltmore.com necessary to get from location to able for groups of 15 or more. location. Peak seasons may add For more information and to 30-45 minutes to driving times. make reservations, call the Group Biltmore Estate admission Sales office at 828-274-6230. 9 10 Fast Facts about Biltmore Estate Notes Completed in 1895 by George Specialty guided tours (Behind- Vanderbilt, Biltmore House is a the-Scenes Tour, Rooftop Tour, 250-room French Renaissance Legacy of the the Land Tour and château. It is the largest private Guided House Tour) are residence in the United States and available at additional cost. a National Historic Landmark. Daytime visits include a self- More than 900,000 people visit guided visit of the Biltmore Estate Biltmore Estate each year. Winery, the most visited winery in America, where Biltmore's award- Richard Morris Hunt designed winning wines are made. Biltmore House and surrounding structures. Frederick Law Olmsted, The estate is open daily 8:30 landscape architect of New York's A.M.-5:00 P.M. (opens at 9:00 A.M. Central Park, landscaped the origi- January-March). Biltmore Estate nal 125,000 acres. Approximately is closed Thanksgiving and 8,000 acres remain. Christmas Days. For information on admission The estate remains family owned. prices and special events, visit Vanderbilt's grandson, William our Web site at www.biltmore.com A.V. Cecil, is the owner. His son, or call 828-274-6333 or William Cecil, Jr., serves as chief 800-543-2961. executive officer of The Biltmore Company. The self-guided visit to Biltmore House features thousands of priceless antiques and art objects, de including original works by Pierre Auguste Renoir, John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, and Albrecht Dürer, collected by Vanderbilt during his many travels. Outside, guests enjoy more than 250 acres of gardens and formal grounds surrounding Biltmore House. 11 12 Selected Bibliography of Biltmore-related Subjects Auchincloss, Louis. The Vanderbilt Era: Profiles of a Gilded Age. Huggett, Frank E. Life Below Stairs. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989. 1977 (Victorian domestic servants). Auchincloss, Louis. The Vanderbilts and the Gilded Age. New York: King, Robert B. The Vanderbilt Homes. New York: Rizzoli Press, 1989. St. Martin's Press, 1989. Lane, Wheaton J. Commodore Vanderbilt: An Epic of the Steam Age. New Andrews, Wayne. The Vanderbilt Legend. New York: York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942. Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1941. Patterson, Jerry. The Vanderbilts. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989. Baker, Paul. Richard Morris Hunt. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980. Pinchot, Gifford. Breaking New Ground. Seattle: University of Washington Balsan, Consuelso Vanderbilt. The Glitter and the Gold. Maidston, County Press, 1947. of Kent, Great Britain: George Mann Books, 1953. Rector, Mary H. Alva, That Vanderbilt-Belmont Woman. Maine: Dutch Brendel-Pandich, Suzanne and Dodds, Dennis R. "George W. Vanderbilt's Island Press, 1992. Collection of Oriental Rugs at Biltmore Estate." HALI: International Journal of Oriental Carpets and Rugs. Vol. 3, no. 4, 1981. Roper, Laura Wood. FLO: A Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. Bryan, John M. Biltmore Estate: The Most Distinguished Private Place. New York: Rizzoli Press, 1994. Schenck, Carl A. The Birth of Forestry in America: Biltmore Forest School, 1898-1913. Santa Cruz, CA: Forest History Society and Appalachian Dennis, James M. Karl Bitter, Architectural Sculptor. University of Consortium, 1974. Wisconsin Press, 1967. Sloan, Florence A. Maverick in Mauve. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1983. Friedman, B.H. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1978. Stasz, Clarice. The Vanderbilt Women. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. Girouard, Mark. The Victorian Country House. New Haven: Stein, Susan R., ed. The Architecture of Richard Morris Hunt. Yale University Press, 1979. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. Gray, Christopher and Boswell, John. Twenty-Six Extraordinary Structures. Stevenson, Elizabeth. Park Maker: A Life of Frederick Law Olmsted. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981. New York: MacMillan & Co., 1977. Hoyt, Edwin P. The Vanderbilts and Their Fortunes. New York: Doubleday and Co., 1982. 13 14 Order More Materials about Biltmore Estate Visit our online store at www.biltmore.com or call 800-968-0558 to order these Biltmore Estate items. Sales tax and shipping not included in prices. Item Order # Price A Guide to Biltmore Estate 000027 $18.87 hardcover Comprehensive guide book with 000026 $11.97 softcover extensive photography of Biltmore House, Gardens, and Winery Young Person's Guide to Biltmore Estate 000023 $ 6.57 Entertaining and informative guide for children ages 7-12 Biltmore Estate Video 046590 $21.95 A 30-minute tour of Biltmore House, its history, and the Vanderbilt family Biltmore Garden Video 011898 $19.95 Showcasing the gardens in bloom Biltmore at Christmas Video 011445 $19.95 America's largest home magnificently decorated for the holidays Posters Biltmore House front view 000030 $ 3.00 Vanderbilt Homes 000179 $ 4.50 Biltmore House at Sunset 000391 $ 3.95 Published by The Biltmore Company Postcards Mailing Address: General set of 12 cards 000043 $ 3.95 One North Pack Square Gardens set of 12 cards 000044 $ 3.95 Asheville, North Carolina 28801 Christmas set of 12 cards 000045 $ 3.95 Telephone: 800-543-2961 Bounty of Biltmore 036356 $22.95 Web site: Biltmore Estate cookbook, www.biltmore.com including recipes, seasonal menus, and wine information Biltmore Estate is a registered trademark of The Biltmore Company. 15 16 DECEMBER 5, 1908 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 35-54. THREE DAYS' FOREST FESTIVAL ON THE BILTMORE ESTATE. Extraordinary Outing of Representatives of All Concerned With Timber From the Tree to the Trade-Biltmore Estate, the Property of George W. Vanderbilt, Used Educationally in a Unique Celebration Under the Direction of C. Schenck, Ph. D. - Authorities Invade the Woods for Lectures by the Master Forester-Openhanded, Open Air Hospitality-A saries Signalized in an Unprecedented Beauti= ful Biltmore in Story and Verse. known as the Biltmore estate. The invitations, eagerly milling operations and surveying. They enter practically BILTMORE accepted, brought to Asheville, N.C., of which Biltmoreisa into the various methods of timber estimating, including suburb, many of the country's best known to professional the strip method, the "forty" method and Schenck's We are but borrowers of God's good soil, and business life as directly or indirectly interested in any method, and for ten continuous days they estimate on phase of timber growth, from its inauguration and some tract to be cut for an estate mill. Here they endure Free tenants of His field and vale and hill; preservation to its commercial utilization. These and the all he hardships of a timber estimator's life: working We are but workmen mid his vines to toil multitude of others who will be interested in these eight hours a day, cooking their own meals and sleeping To serve his purpose and obey His will. chronicles of the recent forest festival will be glad to learn in the open rolled up in blankets. Logging operations something of the Biltmore estate and, prefatorily, of the are part of the curriculum, and the students are taught How shall we use His bounty unto men? Biltmore Forest School. The story of the Biltmore estate the manipulation of logs on the deck and on the For private aims alone, His spreading lands? will occupy the greater part of these pages; a story of the carriage in all theoretical and practical ways, the latter Or shall we render service back again Biltmore Forest School follows: including the piling of the lumber and the arrangement For wealth he places in our eager hands? of the piles, study of the machines in the mills and the CHAPTER II THE BILTMORE FOREST SCHOOL placing of them in new positions. Road engineering is a part of the instruction afforded Biltmore, the answer ringeth from thy slopes; The Biltmore Forest School was established in the the Biltmore students. They survey and lay out the Biltmore, they forest voices answer raise- summer of 1898 by its present head, Dr. C. A. Schenck, roads and build bridges and tram roads, make log The public good the first of private hopes; who was inspired by his devotion to the science of practical chutes, run compass lines, establish boundaries and A future race the ward of present days. forestry and his desire to push it along and by a knowledge plane table surveys. Many of the wood roads now on that the demand for practical foresters was increasing and the Biltmore estate, all of which have been constructed Here use and future use have equal thought. would still further increase with the passage of the years. under the supervision of Dr. Schenck, are the work of his For time that is and time that is to be, Its faculty consists of seventeen lecturers, headed by Dr. students. Schenck, all in the van of the best known authorities on In a sense the Biltmore Forest School is a finishing Here Nature's grandest handiwork is wrought subjects with embrace forestry, botany, forest policy, school, for the candidate must have some practical In this, the planted and the guarded tree. timber preservation, prairie planting, geology, economics, knowledge of lumbering and be well grounded in the law, fungus diseases of trees, zoology, forest insects, higher mathematics and surveying. Pupils must be at Biltmore, thy name shall stand for many a year- sylvicultural problems, lumber inspection, farming and least 20 years of age and graduates of a high school ora Not for the wealth that you perpetuate, stock raising a nicely adjusted combination of the relatively similar institution in good standing, and must But for the lesson that is written here theoretical and the practical. have a knowledge of algebra to quadratic equations, the For individual and for the state. The school is located on the Biltmore estate from first five books of plane geometry and plane November to April of each year, when the working field is trigonometry. Good health, of course, is an absolute the Biltmore forest, a tract of 8,000 acres managed for the requisite, as hard physical labor faces the students, and To him, possessor of these ample miles, production of firewood for the markets of Asheville and he must understand that he will devote all of his time Shall come an equal and undying fame neighboring towns. In this timber the students are taught and all of his energy to study in the class room, in the And other woods shall echo with his name practical forestry in every aspect afforded by their field and in his own room. One year is the full course in Wherever forests rise and Nature smiles. environment. On the abandoned fields, of which the the Biltmore Forest School and the number of students Biltmore estate holds nearly 2,000, the students are taught to be admitted is limited to twenty-five. Dr. Schenck reforestation from the making of seed beds to the planting would prefer a larger number were it possible to give CHAPTER THE BILTMORE ESTATE. of the seeds, the care of the seedlings and the preservation personal attention to more than twenty-five, but upon of the maturing growth. They are taught at the Pisgah this point he is insistent, as he desires to confer upon From any one of the many picturesque eminences of forest station and at the planing mill on the estate sawing, each pupil some of the advantages of his own Asheville, western North Carolina, the eye can encompass a manufacturing, inspecting and the general phases personality. In lecturing he would prefer a much larger generally western area approximately twenty miles north and necessary to the education of practical lumbermen. class, but believes that in actual instruction he could not twenty miles south within which, due to an extraordinary Early in April of each year the school is moved to the do far justice to more than the number designated as the range of altitude in mountainous country, are to be found in mountains, with headquarters at the edge of Pisgah forest, limit of the school force. great numbers, specimens of every known variety of tree an 80,000-acre tract of virgin timberland. Field work is Diligence and gentlemanly conduct are about the only growth native to the sweep of country from Nova Scotia on pursued here for six weeks, particularly in tan bark phases of discipline upon which the school insists. All the north to the Carolina-Georgia state line on the south. operations, from which the estate supplies 1,000 cords of lectures and field work must be attended and no Obviously, a region so rich in sylviculture is extraordinarily chestnut oak bark to neighboring tannic acid factories. The vacations are given during the year. The school attractive to lumbermen generally and to those interested in students are taught all phases of the disposition of wood graduates are awarded diplomas, grating the degrees of forestry particularly, affording within comparatively compact used in the production of tannic acid. Bachelor of Forestry and Forest Engineer. area object lessons in variety and scope rarely if ever A region in Pisgah forest is known as the "pink beds," so Quoting from a publication issued by the Biltmore elsewhere to b encountered in so restricted a territory. called from the prevailing color furnished by Forest School: Approximately twenty years ago this region was rhododendron and laurel, which grow in profusion in that The instruction is limited to those subjects closely associated vicinity, and, in fact, throughout the estate. To this point in with technical forestry. Horticulture and landscape gardening abandoned by timber cutters as one practically denuded of the resources which they sought. A wealthy new Yorker of May the students are moved and enter into field work in are not included in the curriculum. The instruction in the aux- aesthetic taste and fondness for outdoor life found this a the estimating of standing timber, logging operations, wonderfully opulent section in all that appeals to the lover of the beautiful scenically, in all that satisfies a nicely appreciative appetite for the beautiful in nature, in all that caters to healthful outdoor life. This man, George W. Vanderbilt, bought the section, a principality in size, in larger or smaller tracts until he was owner of a domain of 200 square miles. Then he transformed it into the most beautiful single estate in America Contemporaneously with his ownership of this magnificent domain Mr. Vanderbilt was impressed with the necessity for its preservation and perpetuation as a region of natural beauty and as a game preserve, and incidentally with the possibilities of its development as a commercial proposition without interference with its aesthetic value. He brought to his aid the most noted foresters of their day and finally, ten years ago, secured the services of possibly the best known and concededly one of the most thorough exponents, technically, artistically and practically, of conservative forestry- Alwin Schenck, Ph.D., formerly an officer, on leave, of the Prussian army and its forest service. Dr. Schenck, forester of the Biltmore estate, established upon it in 1898 a school of forestry which has a worldwide reputation for efficiency, whose graduates are reputed to be, and are sought, as the most thoroughly grounded in their profession of any in the lumber world. In the last week of November last, to signalize the twentieth anniversary of the inauguration of practical forestry on the Biltmore estate and the tenth anniversary of the Biltmore Forest School, was inaugurated a celebration the like of which has not occurred before in forest history and will not be repeated, it is safe to say, before the lapse of another decade. Within recent weeks a favored few received invitations to Biltmore forests Biltmore village. Biltmore house. attend at Biltmore, N.C., a "forest festival." to be held THE BEAUTIFUL VILLAGE BILTMORE, N.C., ON THE FAMOUS BILTMORE ESTATE, ASUBURB OF ASHEVILLE November 26, 27 and 28, the scene of the festival that most AND ONE OF THE MOST PICTURESQUE HAMLETS IN THE "LAND OF THESKY." beautiful exposition of wood, mountain, valley and stream DECEMBER 5, 1908 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 36 tion in the auxiliary sciences as far as possible to topics pertaining to 'I have had a year's experience in the woods down here H. Harrington, Agricultural and Mechanical College, practical forestry and now I am ready to 'tackle' anything I can get hold of. College Station Tex. The botanical laboratory is equipped with compound microscopes Charles L. Tarbert, C A Smith Teimber Co., Minneapolis, The doctor has put us through quite a course of sprouts and with collections of woods. So far as possible, however, the usual Minn. laboratory work and experimental studies are conducted out of doors down here, in the woods, at the mill, on the yard and in Richard Wood Wood Iron & Steel Co., Conshohocken, Pa. The famous Biltmore herbarium and its library are open to the inspecting. Charles A. Keffer, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tenn students "Last spring the doctor wanted to make an experiment in Prof. John G. Jack, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass Divisions of the general science of forestry upon which planting hardwoods in the primeval forests, comparing the Otto Armleder, O. Armleder Co., Cincinnati, O. instruction is given at the Biltmore Forest School include results with other woods. He set a lot of us at work in A K. Orr, Southern Railway, Asheville N.C. sylviculture, forest mensuration, forest surveying, forest Pisgah forest. We had to take the plants out of the nursery, T. E Defebaugh, editor AMERIC AN LUMBERMEN, Chicago. packing them for shipment; then they were sent to the Judge J.W. Judd, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. working plans, lumbering and technology, forest finance, Carl Jentz, Champion Fiber Co., Canton, N.C. forest protection, forest policy, forest work of the federal forest and we planted them through the woods. That was E. D. Broadhurst faculty Biltmore School Greensboro, N.C. government, forest planting in the prairie states, which are a rough experience; not hard work but it taxed our E. M. Moffett, Moffett Lumber Co., Canton, N.C. supplemented by instructions in the auxiliary sciences, engineering skill or common sense to figure where this and W F. Decker, Brevard Tannin Co., Brevard, N.C. including seventeen general subjects, all closely related to that little tree should be put to get all the overhead light it Gen. T. F. Davidson, Davidson Bourne & parker, Asheville, forestry. needed, to determine the situation etc. Wehad to make the N.C. The tuition fee required by the school is $200, payable in holes, plant the trees 350 a day, and it was no fun to use an W. M. Johnston, Jr., Asheville, N.C. advance. Students are held responsible for breakage of old grub hoe in tough ground and several played out at it, Clinton Crane, Crane & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio. S. P. Ravanel Biltmore, N.C. instruments and are supplied at nominal cost with the but others of us got our plants in in good shape and I put Charles E. Waddell, faculty Biltmore School, Biltmore, N.C. requisite text books. Eachstudent is required to keep a horse, in 1,000 and have 990 left. Some of those little pines, not M. Burns, William Brownell PL Co., Biltmore, N.C. a sound animal suitable for the work, which may be obtained over six inches high, are now three feet high and in fine W. Griswold Biltmore, N.C. at a price ranging from $100 to $150. The students pay their condition. We put in on that all the time we considered Collier Cobb, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill N.C. own board and lodging, which are obtainable in Biltmore or necessary and where we thought the plantation needed nearby Asheville at prices ranging from $6 a week upward. weeding we weeded: I weeded my plantation five times In addition to the above listed as connected with the They conduct a club of their own in club house at Biltmore, last summer and then, in September, the doctor went over Biltmore Forest School, the following, graduates or the cost of which is borne by the students solely and amounts all the plantations to judge which was the best of the lot. pupils, were in attendance: to approximately $10 annually for each student. Exclusive of He gave a set of Schlich's works for the best plantation." J. McDonald, Biltmore. W. Armstrong Biltmore. Young Amadon's observations are quoted at length as S. C. Eaton, Biltmore. V. Rhodes, Biltmore the cost of his horse, which the student usually sells on leff Richardson, Biltmore. G. A. Schulze, La Crosse, leaving the school, the approximate net cost for one year's illustrative of the spirit of the students of the Biltmore H. Amadon, North Adams, Wis. enrollment at the Biltmore Forest School is $1,000 as a school. These young men impressed the visitors as Mass. R. Nash, Buffalo, N.Y. maximum, and it may be obtained without too rigid economy without exception a fine lot of enthusiastic, wideawake, A H King, Montclair, N.J. H. C. Johnston, Washington, for $750. intelligent, cleancut, embryotic foresters, superb horsemen A. C. Silvius, Sunbury, Pa D.C. The above is but an outline of the main features of the well grounded and practical woodsmen, well equipped as Louis Bolderweck, Chicago, III. W. H Dunn, Weston, Mass. Biltmore Forest School. It graduates annually robust, surveyors, engineers, inspectors, mentally and physically H Voge, Jr., Oconomowoc, Fla. P. H. Gearhart Buffalo N.Y. L.F. Pratt Buffalo, N.Y. E. W Meeker, East Orange, thoroughly well equipped, practical young lumbermen and fit, technically and practically, to enter tirelessly and R Mount Halesite N.Y. N.J. foresters who are naturally regarded as the pick of their kind intelligently into the handling of wooded estates the W. H. Euchner, Lime Lake, N.Y. H. Potts, Sheperdstown, for those desiring efficient services of this character. finished product of a thoroughly practical course of E. B. Dunning Buffalo, N.Y. W. Va. comprehensive instruction and experience. Hughes Lindsay, Richmond, Va C.W. Dunning Buffalo N.Y. Practical Aspects as Seen by a Student. T.J Weatherbee, Painesville, R.W. Orr, Michigan City, Supplementing the record of conditions imposed upon CHAPTER III THOSE WHO PARTICIPATED. Ohio. Ind. students of this school, hear the testimony, given H. G. Black, Houston, Tex. G. T. Withington, Painesville, In this kind of atmosphere, in environment superbly C. T. Rankin, Biltmore. Ohio. conversationally, by a prospective graduate, C.H. Amadon, fitted for the occasion, hosts and guests included the L. N Palmer, Stonington, Conn. the president of his class in the school and whose term of instruction will cease with the present year: following: CHAPTER IV THE START FOR THREE DAYS' "It is Dr. Schenck's idea primarily to give the young fellows ENJOYMENT. a working knowledge of forestry. He does not pretend to be Barre, botanist, Clemson College, S.C. at variance with Pinchot or Graves, though upon the one Ralph G. Burton, forest engineer, Pittsfield, Mass. Robert S. Conklin, commissioner of forestry, Harrisburg, Pa. An aggregation more in direct sympathy with the hand Mr. Graves says that he wants his foresters to be W.N Cooper, Asheville Lumber Co., Asheville, N.C. purposes of the festival would have been hard to select. scientific men, but Dr. Schenck wants them to be practical H. C. Crawford, Lidgerwood Manufacturing Co., New York, It will be noted that the list included the names of lumbermen from start to finish and he regards other things N.Y. members of the faculties of various agricultural and than that as side issues. So while we get everything practical J. Elwood Cox, lumber manufacturer, High Point, N.C. forest schools and those connected with related of any use in the scientific line, for instance in allied sciences Harry L. Eichelberger, H L. Eichelberger Lumber Co., Staunton, institutions, of officers of state and national forest like botany, he gives us practical instruction in conservative Va but not destructive lumbering. He teaches us to put in a tree J.L. English, English Lumber Co., Asheville, N.C. reservations, engineers, lumbermen and others directly John Foley, first assistant forester Pennsylvania railroad, interested. The Battery Park Hotel had been made where one has been torn out. he does not indorse the idea Philadelphia, Pa headquarters for the visitors and here Dr. Schenck had that forestry is mere planting where timber has been cut off or Miles A Goodyear, secretary C. A. Goodyear Lumber Co., thoughtfully arranged in advance for comfort and where it never has grown, but desires to get the public to Tomah, Wis. convenience. Aside from attending carefully to their understand that forestry in this county is conservation and L. Harris, Harris & Cole Bros. Inc., Cedar Falls, Iowa material needs, he had formulated, had printed in neat not new forestry or new planting; and that is one of the Rutherford P. Hayes, vice president American Forestry form and distributed to all of the appreciative a program objects, as I have gained it in my talks with him of the Association Asheville, N.C. of the three days' festival, which was exhaustively present celebration. He wants the public, particularly those C. H. Hechler, manager Harbor Hill Farms, Roslyn, L.I. Homer D. House, faculty Biltmore Forest School, Biltmore, N.C. explanatory and incidentally was characteristic of its in influence, to have a chance to grasp this intelligently; to B.F. Keith, B. F Keith Lumber Wilmington, N.C. compiler. Prior to the inauguration of the festival, have the celebration written about and published so that the John W. Logan, Wood Iron & Steel Co., Coshohocken, Pa otherwise designated the Biltmore Forest Fair, a fair idea of conservative forestry as he understands it can be J. R. Manson, Jr. Petersburg, Va. wherein the exhibits were the wares that Nature had circulated. W. B. McEwan, McEwan Lumber Co., Asheville, N.C. produced in exquisite form amid scenic beauty "Dr. Schenck requires ordinarily some knowledge by new M W. Otis, Clear Lake, N.Y. unrivalled on the American continent, Dr. Schenck had students of lumbering. He required me to work in the woods C.R Pettis, State Forester, Albany, N.Y. caused to be marked various stations on the vast and on the yard before he would entertain my application. I Dr M. Ray Powers, state veterinarian, Clemson College, S. C. F. W Rane, Massachusetts sta forester, Boston, Mass. Biltmore estate, denominating these "tips' and found a job in New York state and worked six months for Charles A. Scott, professor of forestry, Ames, Iowa. numbering then from 1 to 63, the stations encompassing hardwood manufactures there but handling spruce. My first Edmund Secrest, Ohio department of forestry, Wooster, Ohio. the greater part of the estate and of the features likely to work was on the yard. I tallied lumber as it went into the car Hon. James H. Stout, president Stout-Green Lumber Co., be of educational interest to the visitors. The program and then went into the woods as clerk, and after two months Menomonie, Wis. was clearly explanatory of each. of that I went into the woods with an ax. I built corduroy Frederick N Tate, Continental Furniture Co., High Point, N.C. In the bright sunshine and perfect weather which roads in the swamps in the coldest weather, when my clothes W. B. Townsend Little River Lumber Co., Townsend, Tenn. froze to me. Lamont Rowlands, vice president C. A. Goodyear Lumber Co., prevailed without interruption throughout the entire Tomah, Wis. three days, with eager anticipation of enlightenment on "After that work was over I went to a relative who ran a J.W. Allen, M Betts & Co., Philadelphia, Pa conservative forestry procurable in no other way, a gay little portable saw mill in Massachusetts and did everything Charles F. Whiting Boston, Mass. procession started from the Battery Park hotel at 8 but run the saw, and think I could do that. I even skidded Elwood Wilson, Laurentide Paper Co., Grand Mere, P. O. 'clock on the morning of November 27. It consisted of lumber, supplying the mill with logs from peeled hemlock George Cahoon, Laurentide Paper Co., Grand Mere, P.Q. fifteen open carriages, horses and equipage decorated timber. I stayed six months in that work and then came L.D. Small Laurentide Paper Co., Grand Mere, Q. with the Biltmore Forest School colors, green and white, down here. CHARACTERISTIC SCENERY ON THE BILTMORE ESTATE. BILTMORE HOUSE, NORTH CAROLINA HOME OF GEORGEW. VANDERBILT. DECEMBER 5, 1908 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 37 and several more on horseback, the latter mostly students of bushels of nuts and acorns. The plants began to come up "The best Douglas fir I have ever seen was in Germany the Biltmore Forest School who had been appointed couriers fairly well and I would have succeeded in raising what I and it comes from Washington. They out-grow the and outriders for the visitors and who throughout the three wanted, a hardwood forest, had it not been for a little devil spruce in rapid development, yet at Biltmore when 16 days of unalloyed enjoyment and educational plentitude in the shape of rabbits, and they are still here. My attempt years old they are only of very small size. The treekind were constantly and courteously attentive to every need of here to raise hardwoods has been frustrated entirely by is like mankind; some boys do not develop well in their the party. Arrived at beautiful Biltmore village, a replica of rabbits. We have been battling with them continually, but first sixteen years, but afterward one may develop into a thigh class English rural life, a half hour was spent in it seems impossible to oust them. The weeds also covered president of the United States. If a species does poorly arranging the procession and at 9 o'clock it started on its first the hill and choked out the walnuts and the oaks, locally to begin with it is wrong to assume that it will do day's outing. depriving them of their foods. There were here many badly all its life. Frequently after they get a fairly good millions of sprouts of sage grass. start, particularly if they have plenty of good water, they CHAPTER LECTURES BY A FOREST EXPERT. thought it was easy to raise hardwoods here because start up well. I gave these the best slopes that I could nature told me that on the adjoining slope there must have fine northern slopes are the best for the trees yet they Dr. Schenck's main purpose in this forest fair was the been a hardwood forest originally. I looked up to nature have not done well at all. Some of them are only a foot delivery of a series of lectures upon conservative forestry and determined to plant hardwoods. But it would not high now; the highest is about seven feet. appropriate to and as illustrated at each of the individual work. If had had more sense I would have looked to "What we are doing here is experimental. I have no "tips. Through the handsome eastern gateway of the nature on the abandoned fields and found out that there is patterns by which I can work, and the experiment is Biltmore estate, their host in the lead. the party drove overthe no regeneration of hardwoods. Yellow pine everywhere somewhat expensive. From the investor's standpoint it first of the hundreds of macadamized roads winding takes possession of the abandoned fields and I should have is somewhat unwise to be the first experimenter. throughout the estate, past Dr. Schenck's office and school planted pine to begin with. planted here white pine with black cherries and the building and the estate's truck farm to a point about two "One thing proved very interesting to me right here: trees have done remarkably well. After the pines catch miles from Biltmore, on a steep hillside. Here all dismounted when the hardwood plantation proved a failure I doctored up am sure the black cherries will be safe. and Dr. Schenck delivered his first of many lectures. it up with pine and that made a good growth from their "Here are sugar maples planted in 1898 when 3 years It is to be regretted that under the circumstances fourth year and then the hardwoods took a spurt and their old. The sugar maples in the bottom of the cover, where accompanying the delivery of these lectures as exactly faithful life has been made easier apparently by the admixture with there is more moisture, have done best, showing their stenographic report of the lectures and of the innumerable the pines. We know very little of the life in the soil. We dependence on moisture in the soil. It is a pure questions and answers with which they were punctured was need a genius like Burbank or Edison to tell us of the plantation in sugar maple and it does well in pure not obtainable. This was made a mechanical impossibility by biology of the soil, because on this soil depends the life of stands. Dr. Schenck's rapid movements over hillsides and narrow the trees. Someone has counted the bacteria in a gramme "Here is where I planted bushels of chestnuts on top of mountain trails, the rustling of innumerable fallen leaves, the of soil, estimating them at 200,000 to the gramme. Of this the hill, and they are all gone. I was induced to plant crowding of eager listeners and other causes, but the report life we know nothing except that it is interwoven with the chestnut there because the original stand was chestnut. which will follow is a fairly faithful reproduction of the life of the trees. Professor Sargent induced me to make that experiment lecturer's discourses. at considerable expense, but it is the worst kind of Dr. Schenck's activity in the field is discouraging to the Interdependence of Different Species. experiment on abandoned fields. Of chestnut wood we tenderfoot, as it must have been in their earlier days on the "In my opinion the pines are influenced favorably in sell by retail 3,000 cords annually. Biltmore estate to his students, who now, however, reflect the growth by the ushering in of the hardwoods. I began to "I planted here white pine, ash, magnolia, leaving them tirelessness of their leader. Up and down mountain trails, plant the hardwoods in 1898 and doctored the woods up entirely to nature. This is experimental, to show that we over heartrending barriers, brushing aside apparently from that time until 1900. The work has been done from need not endure the wholesale destruction of the impassable thickets, with unwaried mountaineer's stride, Dr. time to time and hence you find a great irregularity, and forests." Schenck was always in the van of the party. At Tip no. 1,ona the expense bill has been much greater than if had started With his Dr. Schenck led his party to Tip No. 4, passing stiff hillside, he said to the eagerly attentive listeners crowded with the pines, which could have been done at $10 an acre Tip No. 3, which was a demonstration in "thinning." about him: Several of the "tips" were passed in this way as "This is an old cattle pasture of about twenty-twoacres. The relatively unimportant, especially in view of the time at whole tract was very badly eroded and there was not a blade the command of Dr. Schenck and his party. of grass on the place. The erosion was frightful and something had to be done. I did not think at that time that I could plant it successfully with a few white pines; I was quite sure that it would be eroded out, but I drove stakes and Further installments of this report will tell of additional interwove the ground at considerable expense, the little white lectures by Dr. Schenck, of luncheons eaten with zest in the open pines took hold quickly and the erosion was stopped air, of the climbing of stiff mountain sides, of the fording of absolutely. We planted the little pines in spade made holes rivers, of enlightenment for the most erudite foresters, botanists and there was no cultivation of the tract. The pines planted and lumbermen in this well informed party, of numerous other then were four years old, sturdy plants. They were planted features of a picturesque, educational outing the like of which is unprecedented in American forestall and lumbering history. close to prevent the formation of lower branches. sure that here in time lumber will be more high priced (To Be Continued Next Week.) than anywhere else in the world. We are figuring now for white pine plantations like this at $15 an acre, under normal conditions. On poor ground, stony and the like, the expense might be $20. The growth in a plantation like this will average about 500 feet board measure. When the plantation is twenty years old will have the investment back, without interest. I do not want to wait a thousand years but want early returns. "We handle the forest tree which pays best. and at Biltmore ONE METHOD OF HAULING LOGS IN THE NORTHCAROLINA intensive forestry pays best. The fixed charges are the same MOUNT AIN COUNTRY. and our investment is actually only $15 and our loss of interest is from 4 to 6 percent. This plantation is, I would say, as good as the best that I know of in this or in foreign but the expense has been more than $25 an acre. If get 30 countries. From eighty to ninety years will be the longest percent of hardwoods and 70 percent of pine I shall be glad.' period when any of the trees will stand. "The trees are the greatest water consumers in the world. Dr. Schenck here led his pupils farther up the hill, to an They drink more water than a North Carolina lumberjack obviously different growth of trees, and said: drinks whiskey." "This is a black cherry plantation. Some of the first planting which I did here was trees four feet high. The Human Foes of the Forest. pine has a splendid effect on the black cherry. I find very The speaker called attention to the thick layer of humus often that black cherry, after the pine has had a start of underfoot, a blessing to the forest and coppice "until about ten feet, begins to shoot up. In the old plantations fool comes along with a match and destroys everything. You that is wonderfully well demonstrated. I have never seen pure forests of black cherry; it requires apparently the can not prevent fires absolutely, because there is always sure to be some fool in the south, especially the pot hunter. These companionship of other species. believe in a scattering of set fires right and left to prevent my rangers reaching them, the pine and oak and a good proportion of black cherry. keeping the rangers busy fighting the fire. Though I am not a Black cherry goes very well also with hard maple." southerner by birth it hurts me to hear so much of the At a nearby point, illustrating by uncovering some of the lawlessness of the south, yet as illustrated here it is lawless. lower part of the trees, the lecturer said: "We do not clear off the lower branches on the little trees, "We have lost fully 50 percent of our locust plants by finding that the close planting will clear them up of itself. mice chewing below the ground. The seeding of locust is Yellow pine is more persistent in this respect than white pine. about the cheapest that we have We want here a variety of "Being close to the market have conditions here which you species." do not find anywhere else except in Europe, and the system Moving farther and stopping to apologize for what he you see here is very largely German especially in the matter called his "oratorical barrel organ," in which denomination of transportation. of his educational efforts he was in a lonesome minority. Dr. Schenck continued: "The best idea in pruning would be to prune off a branch immediately after it dies; otherwise you get a dead knot in the "These little oaks were planted when about one year old and about two feet high. They have done much better timber, and if you want to prevent that you should go into the woods every year and prune off every branch as it dies, because the slope is better. It costs us practically nothing for oak seed." which is impossible financially. I would prune the best After which Dr. Schenck illustrated the method of trees the trees of the ure-expending 3 cents on each tree for, say, 200 trees to the acre. On the others it would not be planting small oaks and proceeded to another point on Tip 2. worth the while." Western Woods in the East. Lessons for the Lecturer. At this point the lecturer urged his audience on to higher "This," said Dr. Schenck, "is Douglas fir from Colorado, ground, at Tip No. 2, overlooking the fertile truck farm of the the Rocky mountain variety. The fir from the state of Biltmore estate, to the east. Here he said: Washington does well, but Douglas fir from Colorado has "This plantation is in hardwoods of white oak, chestnut not done as well. This is the yellow variety and was oak, of ash, of white walnut, butternut and black walnut, planted in 1896 when 4 years old, so it is 16 years old from black cherry and maple. I planted on this slip to grow ten the seed, and none of it is higher than six feet. DECEMBER 12, 1908 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 43 THREE DAYS' FOREST FESTIVAL ON THE BILTMORE ESTATE. Representatives of American Business Life Attend a Practical Demonstration of Work for the Encouragement of the Forestry Idea-Splendid Estate of George W. Vanderbilt Thrown Open for Their Inspection Under the Guidance of C. A. Schenck, Ph. D., Forester in Charge, and His Assistants-Attractions of Asheville, in Whose Neighborhood Biltmore Lies Educative Explanations by Forester Schenck. CHAPTER -ASHEVILLE IN THE LAND OF THE SKY. tangible and intangible form have been reared; who was public benefactions were a public park and handsome great as a lumberman and greater as a man, was George library building and grounds, a club house for a golf "The Good Old Mountain Dew." Willis Pack, a sketch of whose life immediately following course and the erection at his expense of a monument to his death August 31, 1906, it was the melancholy duty of the Hon Zebulon B. Vance, formerly a popular governor Down under the hill there is a little still the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN to publish and United States senator. He established and And the smoke goes curling to the sky. George W. Pack was identified with steadily increasing maintained a free kindergarten and provided generously You can easily tell by the sniffle and the smell prominence with the lumber business from 1854. Michigan for the maintenance of a successful charity known as the was the scene of his early operations. At Sand Beach, that There's good liquor in the air close by. Mission hospital. Of a tithe of his private charities the state, he was a member of the firm of Carrington, Pack & public never will know. Co., which continued nine years. Other concerns with Public life had little charm for Mr. Pack, but when it It fills the air with a perfume so rare which he was identified and their respective periods of was evident that in office he might serve his fellows to That's only known to a few: activity were Pack, Jenks & Co., Rock Falls, Mich., eleven advantage he accepted the call readily. He was regent of So wrinkle up your lip and take a little sip the University of Michigan in 1856. In 1864 he was a Of the good old mountain dew. presidential elector and assisted in casting the vote of Michigan for Abraham Lincoln. While a member of So sang the students of the Biltmore Forest School at many prominent clubs of Cleveland and Asheville, Mr. Pack times and amid many scenes, reflecting their buoyant spent the larger part of his leisure time among the, to physical spirits but not their spirituous inclinations. And him, greater attractions of his home. these and other rollicking songs haunted their visitors Pack Square, the center of business activity of throughout their waking and even their sleeping hours and Asheville was named in honor of George W. pack and follow many of them yet, as they will for many a day. Amid the expense of its establishment was borne by him. such good cheer the preceding installment of this report left Indicative of the general esteem in which Mr. Pack was Dr. C. A. Schenck and his party in the beautiful woods of the held, his death and the subsequent memorial services Biltmore estate, where in thoroughly congenial environment, were made the occasion of extraordinary public this installment may leave them fro the present while some demonstrations. Asheville and Cleveland, by civic reference is made to Asheville, the immediate point from bodies and as communities, paid him and his memory which the pilgrimages to the Biltmore forests started and tributes of respect in which he entire populace of both which is entitled to special mention. Little reference need be cities joined. The name of George Willis Pack will be held in affectionate reverence in Asheville and made here to the commercial or political aspects of Asheville; this article is concerned with those phases of the little city Cleveland as long as the cities shall endure. directly complementing the forest festival held in its vicinity CHAPTERIX-INOAK, PINE AND POPLAR three days of the last week of November, 1908. In its significance to the lumber trade and, secondly, to the tourist, the artist and the health seeker, Asheville is more Rejoining those enjoying the forest fair, upon reaching immediately of interest to those who participated in the ever Tip No. 4 Dr. Schenck called attention to the marking by memorable forest fair. different colored labels of the various growths of timber, Stating briefly that Asheville is a well governed little city a scheme which was followed throughout the estate with metropolitan airs and metropolitan accessories in wherever visited in order that the party determine compact form a community of energetic, uptodate citizenry at a glance the character of the respective growths. Here Dr. Schenck said: living in an altitude of approximately 2,350 feet above sea level, and that it is the capital of the "Land of the Sky," its THE LATE GEORGE WILLIS PACK. "This hollow, in my opinion, is particularly fertile. It more apposite relation to this story commands present was stocked in 1905 with poles and trees of little attention. prospective value. The proof of the pudding is seen in years; Woods, Pack & Cos., Alpens, Mich., ten years; the yellow poplar wherever they regenerate as these did, CHAPTER VII SUMMER RESORT PRE-EMINENT. Woods, Perry & Co., Cleveland, Ohio, twenty-three years; and where the white oaks are as big as those that are Pack, Woods & Co., Cleveland, over fifty years, and last shown here it is very good soil. The 10,000 acres were Asheville is located in what was once one of the most but lately out of existence Pack, Gray & Co., Cleveland. regenerated pine forests and the pines were cut be the densely wooded sections of the southeast and yet indirectly His companies were in their day among the largest timber railroads to help in the building up of Asheville. It was tributary to it are large and active lumbering operations. In it cutters and lumber manufacturers of their respective a yellow pine forest, towering yellow pine--North and through it much lumber history has been made; it has localities, owners and operators of great mills, trams, Carolina pine- which some relics are left over there been the home of some of the largest lumber interests of docks, lake craft, etc., and of all these usually he was the yet. In these hollows hardwoods were growing with earlier days, as it is now of some relatively but little less dominating spirit. great fertility, notably those with northern aspect. This important. As a point for the exploitation and study of After along residence in the more western cities Mr. Pack cover had a heavy growth of poor hardwoods among forestry Asheville presents indisputable claims to moved, in 1885, to Asheville, influenced by consideration good ones and these had taken out, misshapen woods consideration. As a summer resort, for those seeking health, for his wife's health. His public spirit and effective energy of no particular value, and I made them into money, the study of nature or mere pleasure, it is known to far too were at once recognized and from the early days of his getting over $47 an acre. This was largely due to the fact few in proportion to its superb attractions. residence in it he was a foremost citizen of the North we are but a step from the road and I had good Within a region immediately tributary to Asheville are to be Carolina city. Among other evidences of his high character transportation by wagon. We get for our hardwoods found specimens of the timber growth of this continent in frankly and spontaneously given by his fellows was the $5.60 a cord and consequently I made good money out greater number than can be found in any other section within bestowal upon him of the rare distinction of placing his of it, and it seemed to be a pity at the same time to allot a similar area. Its sweep of mountain, valley and stream and portrait in the county building in Asheville among those of this good soil to an inferior group. its famous sunsets and cloud effects, are unrivaled. Its governors of the state and other dignitaries. "Where we get one of the restricted areas nature equable, bracing atmosphere is a continual blessing to the Mr. Pack was ever among the foremost in practical efforts reafforests the best, particularly where we cut clean, strong as well as to the weak and its climate is unsurpassed, for the general advancement of his city. The site of its though not as quickly as I can through the aid of the the last fact one that Asheville, for some occult reason, has county building was a gift from him, and among his other nurseries. Here I have clean succeeded too well in hiding under a bushel. The average cutting doctored up by planting northerner, and even those within easy reach of the city hardwoods, a few chestnuts, oaks territorially, have visions of annoying and debilitating heat and yellow poplar, to get results when reference is made to a southern point as a summer quicker and a larger variety of resort. As a matter of fact, Asheville enjoys one of the mildest growth in the reestablishment. climates of any point in the United States. During the The tendency of nature to summer and fall months it revels in cool temperature when reestablish itself is shown in these such cities as St. Louis, Chicago, New York, those along the yellow poplars and no tree do I lakes and even far northern St. Paul are numbering by scores hold more dear than the yellow their victims of sunstroke. Accessible to Asheville, within poplar. In the primeval forests it easy riding and walking distance, are hundreds of the most is the prettiest tree by far and the beautiful spots of the scenically most attractive section the most valuable where the country east of the Rocky mountains. conditions are much better for a The more pretentious hotels of Asheville, of which the city fine second growth of yellow has a number evidently out of proportion to its size, are large poplar. I love to cut the big roomy, admirably equipped and admirably managed poplars, but I love also to have Perhaps the most picturesquely situated is the Battery Park them replaced by thousands of hotel, on a historic hight which commands on all sides seedlings. magnificent views extending to the Smoky mountains tc "In this hollow we have Mount Pisgah, with altitude of 5,757 feet to Mount Mitchell, approximately per acre 6,000 the loftiest peak in America east of the Rocky mountains specimens of poplar. Some of 6,717 feet high; and to lesser but impressive eminences, and you boy students go in and shake the intervening vistas of valley and stream the latter them." The attentive students including the famous French Broad and Swannanoa rivers fled at the master forester's and numerous other streams. command and executed his orders, after which Dr. Schenck CHAPTER VIII HONOR TO HIS COUNTRY. continued: Of those who have made famous this section of the "The straight saplings with yellow bark were numerous here. southeast, one whose name will be there revered for all time, SQUARE, BUSINESS CENTER OF ASHEVILLE, N.C. Yellow poplar has few foes. The for his sterling personal character, his benefactions public rabbits do not chew it, and insects and private, his extraordinarily beneficial impress upon the institutions of the section; to whom lasting monuments in and birds and fungi do not inter- DECEMBER 12, 1908 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 44 fere with it, but it has to have the best soil, which I give it party were on keen edge. Dr. Schenck had made ample with pleasure. provision for this fact, timing nicely a short tide from Tip "Here were a few groups of white pine, my first planting, No. 6 to the Schenck home. and I hid them away in the woods because I was afraid I Here was afforded an illustration of hospitality such as would make a mess of it. There were 2,500 of them two years was repeated on several occasions on all the three days' old. outing. It was a combination illustrative of the best "If you come back in ten years, as I hope you will, I shall traditions of open handed German hospitality and show you a splendid growth here of spontaneous yellow American hospitable customs. A lunch was provided of poplar. Here is one of the typical groups of yellow poplar of substantials and delicacies, sandwiches, meats, dessert, spontaneous growth entirely from seedlings that cost nothing coffee, in almost embarrassing profusion, and was eaten in and better than I could plant it." and around Dr. Schenck's home without regard to ceremony. CHAPTERX-COAXING TIMBER GROWTH If envy ever may be justifiable, the attitude of the visitors toward the Schenck home was well warranted. It is one of In movements from tip to tip, or plantation to plantation, the handsomest frame buildings on the Biltmore estate; big, the carriage were utilized mostly, but Dr. Schenck's roomy, built with an idea to comfort and apparently indifference to the exertion of high climbing induced him on equipped with every modern appliance devoted to that several occasions to ignore the other means of locomotion end. Its situation is admirable and from it from all sides provided and to lead his sometimes winded party rapidly to one can get views of some of the most entrancing scenery the next point of interest. It was so in this case when he on the beautiful Biltmore estate. reached Tip No. 5, where with eager audience around him he Dr. Schenck was assisted in serving his guests by friends said: of her sex of Mrs. Schenck, and prominently by Mrs. "Here we have North Carolina pine and opposite some Schenck, a lady to whom his guests, never perfunctorily groups of North Carolina pine spontaneous growths. When but always spontaneously and with deepest respect, doffed knew them first they were about half as high as they are now their caps. For this lady, a transplanted, most attractive and were badly suppressed by other growths of poor timber product of the Fatherland is one of those of her sex to trees of no prospective value. I came in here with my little ax whom the thoughtless and the thoughtful alike pay to free the pines from the poor timber and incidentally to homage instinctively. Mrs. Schenck is a worthy helpmate, NATURAL REPRODUCTION OF YELLOW POPLAR make revenue, because we get for fire wood here as much as in physique and mental attainments, of her husband. Her $5.60 cord. SHOWING HOW TTAKES POSSESSION OF attractive personality, her thorough but never obtrusive "I recollect very well how the hardwoods kept back the hospitality, her graceful tact, made for her a stanch friend THE GROUND AND FORMS STRAIGHT, CLEAN BODIES. yellow pine, how misshapen the pines looked under the of every member of the forest fair contingent, as long ago it superstructure that deprived them of light. Since the poor did of the pupils of the Biltmore Forest School, all of whom sunlight. What it needs is water, moisture and sunlight. timber has been thinned out the others have done remarkably swear by and would gladly fight for the master forester's Suppose we have an acre covered with a certain amount well. We kept some poor stuff growing in here because it is wife. of growth; is it not best to feed it all so as to get the beneficial to the better timber. It keeps the soil moist and helps to make a supply of humus and helps to keep these CHAPTER XII SOME GENERAL AND VALUABLE timber quickly and of the best character? pines free from limbs rubbing against them and brushing off OBSERVATIONS "What is the use of feeding 10,000 trees when we can get just as good results from feeding 1,000, getting as a the dead branches and so the understuff is very welcome. consequence timber of logable size more rapidly? We From the standpoint of the sylviculturist I think it is far better After luncheon Tip No. 7, on what is known as the reduce the number of messmates, providing thereby to preserve them. At the time of the first thinning we reduced "Ridge road." was visited. Commenting upon this Dr. better environment and opportunity for the remaining the number of plants to give the individual more to eat-food Schenck said: good messmates, and at the same time obtaining, as we and moisture and soil and light and in the next three or four "If you will look about you will find on the ground a do here, a good deal of revenue, making here about $12 years we will make another thinning, taking out half the pine, number of yellow pine stumps, the remnants of trees six to an acre because of the firewood market thereby made and then the under forest will be found to be doubly ten inches in diameter. We made here a very heavy available by a good system of transportation, enabling valuable." thinning. We were cutting about ten cords to the acre here, me to practice sylviculture and make money by so According to the printed program referred to in the which is very heavy. Of course, we have to experiment in doing. previous issue of the LUMBERMAN, the primeval forest at Tip the line of thinning as well as in the line of planting. I car "In the mountains thinning is out of the question no. 5 consisted of oaks, hickories, chestnuts, sourwoods, and because there is no market for the wood. The mountain blackgums, which grew up in profusion up to the first timber is too far from the consumer and inadequate thinning in 1898. transportation makes its marketing a commercial At Tip No. 6 the lecturer said: impossibility. Do not offer to the market more than the "This little lot in front of us always interests me particularly. market can digest but less than it desires and you get a It had been cut over apparently preparatory to farming in better price. The firewood price here in 1895 was $2.50 a 1890 and was burned over the last time in 1894, when I came cord: it is now $5.60 delivered. All the delivering is to America. Then I looked it over and found it apparently done by our own teams. It is all retail business and very hopeless and bare, and I recall very well that when the intricate and a lot of trouble, but have no other choice. American Forestry Association paid me the honor of a visit I would rather somebody else would attend to that here I told them of the destruction of the forest by ax, stunt, but I have to do it in order to practice unintelligent cutting and burning. I thought it was hopeless sylviculture." and that it never would amount to anything. I have changed Here Dr. Schenck turned to one of the party and said, my mind, because one of the best wood lots we have is here. "If Mr. J.M. English (indicating the gentleman), the chief Here are yellow pine saplings kept free from brush. Fire lumberman of Asheville, will take the retail business out running over the ground will hurt the yellow pine the worst. of my hands I will be very glad, and will sell you Mr. They will not sprout even from the stumps, as hardwoods English, the firewood at 50 cents a cord, if you will offer will. Smoke will not hurt them, however, and sulphur fumes me that and assume all the trouble." will hurt them but little. It is particularly interesting to know that yellow poplar suffers less from sulphur fumes than (To be continued next week.) practically all other species. It is practically immune. Spring fires are the worst because in the spring the bark is loose and the effect of the fires is really an entire girdling of the trees all SERVING LUNCH DR. SCHENCK'S HOUSE. around, their life veins being destroyed. "The tops of the yellow poplar are absolutely free. The not foretell the results; do not know whether insects will poplar cleans itself of lower branches better than any other attack the trees which I have left after thinning, depriving tree that I know of. The small lower branches more easily me of all the pines, so it is all experimental. What have adapt themselves to good growth than those of any other tried to do is to leave all of the most promising pines, those species. Where the lower little branches are removed the spot which promise to develop into valuable timber, by which I is healed almost immediately. mean the trees particularly free from limbs and which form "By the time these poplars are fitted for thinning we will a good bole. The most prominent of the trees, the possibly get $8 a cord for the woods for fiber." aristocrats of these, have left. What the result will be can not say. This thinning was made only three years ago and CHAPTERXI-LUNCHEON AT THE FORESTER'S HOME. so far has grown to my entire satisfaction. "On an acre of ground there is a certain amount of food At this juncture, after long tramps in the open air and to be found in the soil and in the air. An acre of ground considerable strenuous climbing. the appetites of the entire obtains a certain amount of sunlight. Timber is formed out of moisture in the soil, moisture in the air and out of GROUP OF VISITORS AT DR. SCHENCK'S HOUSE. DECEMBER 19, 1908 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 43 THREE DAYS' FOREST FESTIVAL ON THE BILTMORE ESTATE. Continuation of the Story of the Unique Forest -Object Lessons in Conservative Forestry - A Radical Idea in Tree Pruning Costs of Starting Young Plantations Amateur Foresters at Work -Inspection of the Grounds of Biltmore House Sketch of the Career of Forester C. A. Schenck. CHAPTER XII INSECT FOES AND TRANSPORTATION are cleaned about to log lengths I give the most promising doned farm land and secured the earliest planting under of the trees the advantage of room and at the same time I Mr. Vanderbilt's personal direction. The hemlock, The preceding two issues of the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN get money by cutting the trees into firewood. This is a Douglas fir and black cherry were planted at the same published installments of a report of a three days' "forest thinning in progress. We are taking out per acre about five time. No trimming had been done at this point in five fair" held in the last week of November last on the Biltmore cords of pine and leaving about, say, fifteen of pine and years. The Douglas fir were found to be of poor estate of George W. Vanderbilt, near Asheville, N. C., under making a net revenue of about $6 by the sale of this little character, the only value of the timber on this tract being the initiative and guidance of Dr. C. A. Schenck forester of firewood stuff. The idea is to give each of the pines full its influence on the soil and the protective the estate. It related the eager following of Dr. Schenck by ground space so that when swaying in the wind they do companionship which it afforded the admixture of foresters and professional and business men as he lectured not rub each other and they get room to develop. After ten yellow poplar. upon the object lessons in conservative forestry afforded by years we repeat the thinning taking out the least "This," said Dr. Schenck, "was a washed out gulley his work on the estate. promising to the extent perhaps of about one-fourth. some time ago, but after my pines quieted the gulley The last previous installment of the great forest festival on "The hardwood undergrowth ] do not touch because down, stopping the erosion, the yellow poplars found the Biltmore estate left the participants eager listeners to the these hardwoods are subservient to the pines and their way in and formed a regular row." lectures of Dr. Carl A. Schenck at tip No. 7. The report is contribute to their food supply. The hardwoods contribute A walk mostly up hill of about one mile brought the resumed here at that point. to their food supply. The hardwoods contribute to the party to Tip No. 14, where was afforded an object lesson "This shows how a wood lot looks after heavy thinning. Let fertility of the soil, but the pines are dominant because they in the prevention or arrest of erosion by a growth of us go on a little farther. Here you see another thinning, a are prospectively of more value. I leave the slash for poplar and yellow pine, the latter about 25 to 35 years very heavy thinning, of the pines, all of the pines having been fertility." old. Some black cherry found at this point was planted taken off. Why? The pines were all dead. [Laughter.] during the last seven years. "The stand was a poor stand, but a wretched little bark CHAPTER WORK OF THE BARK BEETLE. beetle, millions of them capable of chewing down half as acre CHAPTER RETROSPECT. at a time of yellow pine, invaded this group. Our fight Arriving at Tip No. 8, Dr. Schenck said: against these beetles is continuous. Were it not for my good "This is a tract killed by insects. The stumpage value of Although passed over in rapid succession above, Tips this crippled tree is $3 for firewood; for lumber it would Nos. 10 to 14 inclusive are entitled to further comment in have been $10. It is more difficult to find out the workings line with the pamphlet descriptive of them. of these beetles than you imagine. They kill only those In the spring of 1900 at Tip no. 10 twenty-two acres of trees in which they are breeding. They invade them only fairly good farm land were planted with white pines 3 for breeding purposes. They attack the butt apparently ten years old a yellow pines 1 year old. The seedlings were feet above the ground. This beetle breeds in the yellow pine almost entirely. In the mountains we have 3,000 acres which have been destroyed by this beetle." In answer to a question Dr. Schenck said: "It costs to get firewood 60 cents a cord for the cutting only. My crews make three loads a day to Asheville. Every tree is marked before being cut. "The woodpeckers feed on the larvae of these beetles, and if we had watched the woodpeckers we might have done better with these trees than we have. What we lose is the difference between the prospective value of the tree and the present market value." CHAPTER IN RAPID REVIEW. Here Dr. Schenck called to his aid Capt. Cyrus T. Rankin, superintendent of the saw mill plant at Pisgah forest station, who has been an employee of the estate for nearly twenty years and who is one of its most expert woodsmen. He gave a demonstration in the practical work of marking SHOWING DR. SCHENCK'S METHOD OF PRUNING trees for felling. Dr. Schenck darted ahead from tree to HARDWOODS ON THE BILTMORE EST ATE. tree, designating the doomed individuals so rapidly as almost to deceive the eye, and in his footsteps followed YOUNG WHITE ASH THE BROWNTOWN PLANTATION Captain Rankin with a forester's huge clasp knife blazing ON TMORE ESTATE. transportation I could not make such stuff into money, but as the trees designated. it is wherever the beetle worked I made the pines into money The lectures last recorded included in effect the object at once. lessons afforded at Tip No. 9, where was passed an planted 21/2 feet apart in rows 41/2 feet apart. Theexpense The Importance of Good Roads. admixture of pines and oaks in which a number of was: For plants $332; for planting, $180.79. "One of the best, one of the most vital, means of resource improvement cutting had been made; Tip no. 10, a Quoting the pamphlet further, it says, in the language that we have is competent transportation with a steady plantation of white pines planted 4,000 to the acre in 1900 of Dr. Schenck: market. I told Mr. Defebaugh yesterday that it is my on farm land covering twenty-two acres and on which In the planting expense are included two items spent conviction that the difference between German forestry stood a small saw mill now in disuse; Tip No. 11, a (that is my present opinion) unnecessarily, to with: conditions and American forestry conditions lies in the plantation of 20-year-old white pines declared to be I have spent $51.16 putting a few handfuls of forest soil absence of sylviculture here and the presence of it there and objectionable on the ground that they are allowed too into each planting hole: the presence of good means of transportation in Germany much growing space to their individual specimens and I have spent $17 putting a stone over each hole when and its absence in America Here on the Biltmore estate we that early returns could not be obtained before thinning; the act of planting was finished. have these German conditions because we have spent a few Tip No. 12, at which was illustrated a feature of the At Tip no. 11 were found plantations of white pine thousand dollars to build these roads. Where the general character of the Biltmore estate which prevails throughout which, while attractive from an aesthetical point of view, conditions are like those here I am sure you would do the its extent: Dr. Schenck's department is allowed full sway Forester Schenck objected to on the grounds, first, that same thing because it pays the best. over the forestal growth of the entire estate except upon the the growing space of the individual specimen has been "In the last fourteen years the hardwoods have developed improved portion, where macadamized roads have been and still is too large; second, that early returns cannot be well here. I want to reestablish on this plateau the equivalent built, to the extent of 100 feet each side of the roads, which obtained through thinning. The plantations were made of what was the original forest. I think by imitating nature are under the care and command of the landscape on contract in 1890 by northern nurserymen and the we are safest in our investments. We do not want only a high gardeners of the estate. This point affords views of some of estate contains several hundred acres of this type of rate of interest of our investments but safe investments at the the most beautiful scenery on the estate. At Tip No. 13 was white pine forest. same time, and these are obtainable by profiting by the found a plantation of 20-year-old white pines which had Quoting the pamphlet again, in Dr. Schenck's lessons of nature. been planted at two years of age from seed, standing about language, the following is noted: "Here is a thinning that has just been made. After the trees 170 trees to the acre on average. Tip No. 12: Along the macadamized roads the Dr. Schenck advised his hearers that the land was aban landscape department of the estate rules supreme. Thus, for two miles of road, you may enjoy the landscapes, the sweeping views over the mountains; and you may take a nap, also, preparatory for a walk of one mile beginning at station No. 13. Tip No. 13: Another white pine plantation twenty years old, with a few hemlocks, Douglas firs (poor) and black cherries. The soil is covered with humus. If this plantation were denser I would like it better. By this tie you long to see some fine chestnut trees, or poplars of white oaks. There are none left, near Biltmore; they were removed before you were born; can show you the stumps only of big trees along our route; and I show you, in this booklet, some trees standing in my forest some fifteen miles from here. We shall actually see them on Saturday next; here is one of the finest and a fine girl, standing at its base on a log, holds her hat on a stick, so as to give you a chance to measure the size of the tree. The illustration shows a typical scene in the woods. EIGHTY-EIGHT PARTICIPANTS ARTING FROM BILTMORE VILLAGE FOR THE FIRST DAY'S INSPECTION The tall tree is a "yellow poplar," worth about $120 OF THE ESTATE. when converted into lumber. I shall cut it and saw it up within less than five years. If you want it saved shall save it upon receipt from you of $120. DECEMBER 19, 1908 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 44 Of Tip No. 15 the pamphlet says: was such that he could not see his milch cow one-half mile CHAPTER - BILTMORE HOUSE. This grove is produced by nature alone, absolutely without distant: today he could not see her fifty yards distant. help, on an abandoned field. It is yellow pine, some 25 to 35 have done nothing here but make money by cutting Biltmore house itself was closed and in charge of a years old. Within twenty years we shall obtain, by way of away the undesirable, low grade, misshapen, decayed caretaker, but the party inspected the immediate thinning, as much money from it as we have paid for the land hardwood in the last fifteen years. We have made here grounds for about an hour, the formal gardens, tennis originally. from cuttings per acre $20 and are making more now. I and croquet grounds, the magnificent lawn reaching A slope of this character should not be cleared and used could not plant as densely or as well as nature has planted perhaps 500 feet to the top of steep hill to the east, the this one was agriculturally. Look at these frightful gullies. yellow pine here. We have about 1,000 acres of this type, arbor, the beautiful, smooth driveways, the large, Erosion was rank in this lot prior to the time at which the all cut in 1886 at the same time, and by improvement the handsome stables, the artistically placed statuary, slope was left alone-left unburned, unpastured, unused! timber has been transformed into North Carolina pine, importations from European centers; the whole forming, We want conservatism, and we want conservation! with an undergrowth of hardwoods instead of an perhaps, by nature and by artistic adaptation, the overgrowth. We have cut here about twelve cords per handsomest home east of the Rocky mountains. CHAPTER XVII BROWNTOWN PLANTATION. acre." The view to the west was what captured most of the According to the records, at Tip No. 23 a field that had party. From the level of the ground floor of Biltmore Tip No. 15 was entered in the afternoon and dominated the been used for farm land up to 1894 had been planted in the house is a sheer descent into a valley perhaps 100 to 120 Browntown plantation, which was planted in 1905 at the winter of 1895 and 1896 at an expense of $43.34- feet, built of solid masonry, brought from Indiana following expense for work per acre: 4bushels red oaks; quarries. The prospect from this point was so 4 bushels white oaks; entrancing that none left the spot willingly. To the Lifting plants to nursery $1.50 10 bushels chestnut oaks; distance in the left was the French Broad river, which Hauling plants to plantation 1.00 4 bushels black walnuts; Healing in .25 5 bushels white walnuts; landscape artist had made more picturesque by the Demarkation of rows .15 8 bushels chestnuts; addition of a mirror-like lagoon dotted with miniature Making holes and planting 5.90 In March 1897, were planted in the middle section near islands, this giving the effect of a broader river. In the the old cabin, in rows three feet apart far west rose hill after hill, 65,000 acres of which consti- Total $8.80 5.8 bushels red oak; 4.5 bushels white oak. Prior to planting in order to stop erosion $66.98 was spent. The entire area was subdivided into lots lettered A, B, Cetc. CHAPTER XIX - EXPERIMENTAL PRUNING. and, eliminating lot D, the details of planting are shown by the following table: In a fairly well thinned growth at about this section Dr. Lot. Acres Kind. Age. No Kind. Age No. Kind. Age No. A 10.8 2 30,000 P. strobus 4 14,000 B 5.5 P. strobus 2 8,000 Sugar maple 1 16,000 Cherry 1 8,000 C 0.8 P. strobus 2 1,400 Tulip tree 1 2,000 E 0.9 P. strobus 2 2,000 Tulip tree 1 2,150 Oregon ash 1 1,000 Oregon maple 1 500 THE AMERICAN LUMBERMAN" CARRIAGE IN F 1.5 P. strobus 2 2,300 Cherry 1 2,000 Cucumber 1 2,000 FRONT OF BILTMORE HOUSE. G 3.3 White ash 5 4,000 H &5 P. echinata 2 38,000 P. strobus 4 3,000 I 6.3 P. echinata 2 19,000 Sugar maple 1 19,000 P. strobus 4 2,000 tute a deer preserve. Farther to the west rose the Smoky J 3 P. echinata 2 13,000 P. strobus 4 1,500 mountains in a deep purple haze, the whole effect with K 4.2 P. strobus 2 10,000 Sugar maple 1 10,000 Chestnut 1 10,000 the setting sun being gorgeous. L 5.8 P. strobus 2 13,000 P. echinata 2 13,000 A land of vision it would M 3.9 White ash 5 20,000 A still, an everlasting dream o 1.5 P. strobus 2 3,400 P. echinata 2 3,400 The visit to Biltmore house concluded the outdoor Na 3 Coccinea 1 2,200 Prinus 1 4,500 P. echinata 2 9,000 enjoyment of the day and the party returned to Nb 5 P. strobus 2 7,500 P. echinata 2 7,500 Hard maple 1 15,000 Asheville in their conveyances and on horseback to At this point, among other things, Dr. Schenck said: Schenck said: "Here I have done a little experimental await the Thanksgiving dinner scheduled for the "In the springtime ash was planted in these boundaries. A pruning. Ihad here, the other day, the pleasure of a visit of evening. little higher up the ash has done remarkably poor. In the three of our good foresters, some of the best in the whole CHAPTERXXIL THE FORESTER OF THE BILT- same ground with the same species but as soon as the ash has country, and they were taken over this identical route, and MORE ESTATE. reached 11/2 to 2 inches in the ground it will strike the soil that when they returned to my office they said: 'You may will put it on a parity with the better growing ash. The know one thing or two but you do not know just one rabbits do not bother the ash. particular thing, because, how can a man prune Before proceeding with the story of the Thanksgiving can not state now definitely whether forty to fifty years successfully the trees and leave the stumps eleven inches feast at the Battery Park hotel it will be appropriate to introduce a sketch of the host of the occasion host from this time the white pine or the yellow pine will be the long? What is the use of it? will tell you. We prune out more valuable. If there should be a difference then of the entire forest fair and whose personality and in this way so as to avoid the little scars, resulting from the commercially between knotty trees and those without knots pruning, appearing in the bole. When the heavy branch accomplishments made that unique festival a notable the yellow pine will be worth the more. White pine contains event in the history of conservative forestry. breaks off it tears knots in the stem unless you leavea more resin than any other and it may be that North Carolina Few if any influences of an immaterial character are so I have come to the conclusion that it is best to prune the pine will in time be worth more that the other growths." conducive to accomplishment as enthusiasm in pursuit. dead limbs out about to that length from the stem so as to Pushing on across a little valley from this point the tired prevent affecting the tree bole itself, and after two years I It may be hazarded that no other immaterial influence is and thirsty party found a living spring, where all refreshed can come back and clean up right here- at the bole and as great a factor in accomplishment as pent-up themselves gratefully. enthusiasm for a desired purpose. Such enthusiasm, then we have a smooth scar, which in time will heal over. Tips Nos. 16 and 17 were passed with slight mention the released, augmented by thorough ability, is a force "The expense of pruning has been 3 cents a tree. To take former a thicket of yellow pine ground on what had been an irresistible. the stumps off here will make cents and by the time all of abandoned field in 1880 and which obviously needed thin- it is done the expense will be about 20 cents a tree. Where The history of notable commercial, professional and artistic accomplishments is replete with examples we plant close together the pruning is done mostly by illustrative of this force. Even the superficial observer nature. That is one of the reasons why I plant close together, our hard maples or black gum or something of can upon reflection cite the names of many whose that kind with white pine acting as a natural pruner. Very forebears or early misguidance had destined them for vocations in which, had they not made marked failures, large scars indicate diseases. That explains these fresh stumps, and I think if we do prune it is the way to do it. It as more probably would have been the result, would at is expensive, but whether it is better to spend that money least have lived and died in obscurity but who, and get $20 back do not know. I am in favor of pruning following their own inclinations or forced into their judiciously. What the future will show about it do not proper spheres by accident, achieved success that has know. We are blind as to that, and may make mistakes made history. Given the antitheses of these here, but I try to avoid them. I leave the brush on the antecedents-enthusiasn for a given pursuit and with ground because it makes good humus." complementary, well grounded ability -- and the subject is destined for unqualified success. At this point the party returned to their carriages and horses and journeyed to the south. En route a diversion In an important German city, back in the early '70s was born an heir to a distinguished name who by parental was caused by the tempting sight of a full grown rabbit resting familiarly in an old stump by the wayside. A halt purpose was destined to bear arms in the Kaiser's service, following the traditional occupation of sons of was made and about eighty able bodied men endeavored REPAIRING A BROKEN BRIDGE, RPASSAGE OF to catch one rabbit, led by the colored driver of one of the the house of Schenck. The parental purpose was successful but in part, for while Carl Alewyn Schenck PART OF THE CAVALCADE ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE FAIR. teams armed with a whip, but against this mighty force became in time an officer in a distinguished German bunnie was too active and when he seemed within grasp of ning, for which purpose the "wolves," as objectional growth army corps and yet retains, in enforced submission but the foremost there was a sudden crack in the atmosphere, is denominated by Dr. Schenck, were blazed for destruction. the phenomenon of one-half mile stretch of brown rabbit, not in lessened vigor, the martial impulses of his No. 17 was a plantation of white pine 20 years old and forebears, an absorbing love of nature and masterful and he was gone from sight. A further diversion was considered a remarkably fine exhibit. With it were mixed scientific bent checked his career in the army whose caused just before reaching the next tip by the breaking of a some alder trees of doubtful value. purpose is destruction and transformed him into a bridge over a gulley, but this damage was overcome Tip No. 18 was the remnants of an oak nursery abandoned promptly and the cavalcade moved on. military leader in that army whose purpose is in 1905. production, later giving to America one whose impress Tip No. 19 was also an abandoned nursery, its value lying CHAPTER AMATEUR FORESTERS. upon the conservation of one of its greatest, and chiefly in the fact that it afforded a lane of protection against At Tip No. 25, by prearrangement, a large number of aesthetically and hygienically its greatest, natural fires. resources has already made his efforts famous and young pines had been laid upon the ground and each Tip No. 20 was a stand of yellow pine of about pole size, whose future influence is incalculable. present were invited by Dr. Schenck to plant one tree. with an admixture of hardwoods which had been recklessly Most of the party took advantage of the offer, a larger part For many successive generations numbering will back logged as far back as 1880. to the days of medieval Germany the house of Schenck of them showing more or less familiarity with the proper CHAPTER XVIII - IMPROVEMENT CUTTINGS AND THE OAKS. way in which to do it. The trees were young pines, one has been an important one in the grand duchy of Hesse Darmstadt, one of the twenty-six states which the year transplants, now 4 years old. The tallest of them was about fifteen inches. German empire, or what should be known as the At tip No. 21 Dr. Schenck showed the effects of three German federation of states. Here Carl Alewyn Schenck In response to a question from one of the party, repeated improvement cuttings; one on the right and two on the left. was born, one of a family of five brothers and two by Dr. Schenck to one of the laborers who had been Here the forester said: sisters. To the dim and distant days to which the family assembled at this point, the latter stated that an active man "All of this here is natural regeneration of North Carolina traditions hark back all of his ancestors were doing all of the work in connection with it could plant from pine; all is planted by nature, free of charge. The primeval 500 to 600 trees in a day. government officials. His great grandfather was a forest was cut here in 1886 and you will notice a number of framer of national constitution and is denominated Leaving Tip No. 25 the party rode for many minutes American flags that mark the stumps of the North Carolina beside the beautiful French broad river, and at the today the Hesse-Darmstadt Washington, a notably pine cut at that time. The man who owns the land has told conclusion of the ride drove up on to the level of Biltmore wealthy man in his day, one of those who financed his me that prior to that cutting the stand of pine and hardwoods house and all dismounted and viewed what could be seen country in its war with the first Napoleon and who was the father of a large family. One of his sons was a state of the magnificent immediate surroundings. official, minister of forests in Hesse-Darmstadt, which DECEMBER 19, 1908 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 45 accounts for early strains of forestry lore and love in his the English speaking nations, the founder of forestry and out of one hundred foresters in Germany could not tell grandson. The father of Carl A. Schenck was born in 1931, a the noblest of men," a man at 70 years of age who "walked how lumber is sold, by the cubic foot, the meter, or how, contemporary of Bismarck, and was secretary of war until through the forests like a deer and was an inspiration to though that condition is now changing for the better. 1866. in the German civil wars the southern states, including all." Sir Dietrich Brandis had been inspector general of The big mill proved a failure, through the fault of local Hesse Darmstadt, lost against the northern states, led by forests in India, and guided through the German forests conditions, as did the use of splash dams and other Prussia, and Hesse Darmstadt with other troubles, lost its young German students passing to and from India. Young experiments unsuited to conservative lumbering on the right of maintaining an independent army, which forced the Schenck knew little English at the time bet a strong Biltmore estate, by all of which failures, under Dr. elder Schenck back on to his own resources, a not altogether friendship grew up between him and Sir Dietrich Brandis Schenck's wise methods, the estate has profited vastly. unmixed evil, as among other not altogether negatively good which was a big factor in the student's later career. In this Dr. Schenck has had to contend with much that would results it enabled him to raise a large family. He took up the association he was assistant forester for several years, have thoroughly discouraged the average man of even practice of law and incidentally was president or vice having acquired governmental appointment, without the more vigorous in hi management of the Biltmore president of a number of commercial concerns, notably salary, after graduation from Geissen, after a previous estate, from local conditions, native unwisdom and chemical companies, which flourished well. rejection due to fear of physical incapacity. As previously prejudice, disheartening geographical and commercial Like his brothers, Dr. Schenck attended in Darmstadt the stated, an officer in the forestry service of Germany has conditions to threats of personal last of school which would correspond to the American high school, also to serve as an officer in the German army and which those who know this big bodied, high couraged, acquiring also the benefits of the gymnasiums and college. Lieutenant Schenck served one year in the horse artillery, virile man laugh, though the threats were made by From the Darmstadt establishment he was graduated in 1886, in the guard corps of the grand duchy. Another of his desperate men of tried determination. He took up work entering the university at Tubeingen, one of the three German instructors for whom he entertains a strong admiration under conditions most unpromising and turned a universities at which forestry is taught, though the country was Dr. Walther, the well known writer upon forestry wilderness into a practical, paying enterprise, into oneof supports a number of technical schools in which forestry matters, one of Germany's chief forestry inspectors and the most beautiful areas on the American continent and forms part of the curriculum. At Tubeingen Dr. Schenck was secretary of forestry, from whom he learned the lesson of a live lesson in conservative forestry, such as is not under the immediate instruction, in forestry, of the well the value of personal manual labor in the forest and with afforded elsewhere and which bears the enthusiastic known Professor Lorey and was a corps student, his career whom he walked, imbibing instruction and inspiration, indorsement of the state and federal governments and of marked by those escapades, intermingled with scholastic frequently to and from Darmstadt and the neighboring colleges of agriculture and forestry without exception, as industry, which seem inseparable from the high spirited, full forest, a distance of fifteen miles. was illustrated in the late extraordinary attendance of blooded student; as Dr. Schenck has expressed it in later Two years later young Schenck passed further accredited representatives of all those interests during years, "We did all that the good Lord has forbidden." It was governmental examinations, acquitting himself with the recent "forest festival" on the Biltmore estate, lasting difficult to attend lectures on sylviculture at 8 in the morning extraordinary credit, specifically a credit of 440 marks out three days, when under his guidance experts and when one went to bed at 4. of a possible 450. Aside from his intense study, Dr. authorities on forestry matters paid homage to and At Tubeingen the young student formed some of his most Schenck had had the advantage of open air instruction by learned from the master forester. lasting friendships and was brought into touch with the best the best equipped foresters in Germany. In the class room As formerly intimated in this article. Dr. Schenck's character forming influences, which he regards as of more he declares, he learned but little, as also through the impress upon the future of conservative forestry, and practical importance than rough with science. Here, too, instructions at the forest schools, but he acquired his upon all its ramifications, is already notably what promised grave disaster threatened to cut short his practical, exhaustive equipment through his excursions considerable, and its future effects are incalculable. One career. An accidental, sudden immersion in the river, of icy with Sir Dietrich Brandis, Dr. Walther and Dr. Schlich, one of the most striking phases of this is found in the cold temperature, resulted in symptoms of tuberculosis and of the best posted authorities on forestry, through the Biltmore Forest School, founded and personally young Schenck was sent by medical advice to a tuberculosis forests of Germany and Austria. conducted by Dr. Schenck. Here, after satisfying asylum, one of his lungs affected. After treatment lasting After passing the last government examinations recorded rigorous essentials precedent to admission the pick of about half a year he went to Geissen to study, wasting here, above young Schenck read for and later passed many vigorous young men-vigorous mentally, morally according to his estimate, two of his best formative years that successfully an examination for his degree of Ph. D., his and physically-an taught exhaustively the best and might have been devoted to scientific study, from his thesis on "The Financial Side of the Oak Forest" most practical lessons in the most approved and eighteenth to his twentieth year "doing nothing." It was his determining his status and the granting of his degree suma thoroughly proven conservative forestry and are turned father's idea that young Schenck should study law, his cum laude. Then he applied to Dr. Brandis for a position, as loose, practical foresters and lumberjacks, upon a physical condition, it was feared, incapacitating him for the he was aware that advancement in the German forest waiting constituency of timber owners and lumber rigorous physical examination which precedes admission to service was discouragingly slow. At about that time manufacturers and the government Forest Service to the army, an absolutely essential precedent to joining the George W. Vanderbilt had written Dr. Brandis applying for spread the influence of their school and conserve, as German forestry service, upon which young Schenck was a forester to take charge of the Biltmore estate, and Dr. never before the advent of this school and its graduates, intent. He followed the unpalatable study of the law fitfully, Brandis recommended Dr. Schenck, this occurring in the forestal growth of the country. but at the same time determinedly pursued his studies in March, 1895. Dr. Schenck was in Italy at the time and Dr. Dr. Schenck is president of the firm known as C. A. forestry, including botany, chemistry, mineralogy, surveying, Brandis, between whom and Dr. Schenck a genuine Schenck & Co., Biltmore, timber experts, who send their engineering and higher mathematics. His distaste for legal fondness existed, was much touched when the latter forces of estimators into all parts of the country. He also lore acted as a stimulus to his other studies and he worked telegraphed that he would accept subject to the former's has charge of the Highland forest, a 50,000-acre tract harder than any of the other 1,200 students. He attended approval. At Dr. Brandis' suggestion Dr. Schenck cameto adjoining the Biltmore estate and owned by English fifty-five lectures each week and broke the college record for the Biltmore estate, expecting a short stay; he has German and American capitalists, of whose directorate industry; incidentally he acquired a practical knowledge of remained, the stalwart, vigorously effective forester in he is president. shorthand, a marked advantage to him then and later in life. charge of the vast estate, fourteen years, excepting for short Dr. Schenck is in effect a king in a small kingdom, Upon the termination of his fourth year at Geissen young visits to the fatherland. He still retains his rank in the material and immaterial, 200 square miles in North Schenck made an enviable record for the examinations on German army but emains in America on continuous Carolina and the timbered areas of the continent and of forestry studies, his examiners, after noting that he had leaves of absence, the necessity for which he hopes will that larger kingdom, the future of forested growth. He secured the highest possible credits, standing up and saying, soon disappear. In that army two of his brothers are has administered his kingdom wisely and with present "Mr. Candidate, never since the university's existence has a commissioned officers of high rank. and future benefit to the country beyond calculation. candidate passed as uniformly well in all branches as you After his first year's residence in America Dr. Schenck This forestry enthusiast, expert and authority in his own have done.' returned to Germany and there married Miss Adele Bopp, section of North Carolina, wherever lumber and timber Dr. Schenck comments upon the disadvantages of practical daughter of the president of the Bank of Commerce and interests are a phase in the life of any section of America, study of forestry in Germany. In effect, the instructions are Industry in Darmstadt. In this lady he found an ideal in the founts of learning in this country and abroad, is confined to gardening and botany. He never was in a saw helpmate, one with intense, intelligently directed hailed as a savant and benefactor. mill in Germany nor had he or any of his fellow students sympathy with all his purposes and pursuits and who opportunity to investigate the lumber districts. One learned presides gracefully and most hospitably over his home, (To Be Continued Next Week.) well about sylviculture but little about actual forestry "Wolcote," a handsome and luxuriously furnished practice, and a student or instructor who actually planted a residence dominating one of the most beautiful views on seedling would have been laughed at: personal manual labor the Biltmore estate. was discountenanced. Dr. Schenck has usually spent some of the summer time At Geissen Dr. Schenck came into contact with one of the of each year since his first visit to America on German soil. dominating influences of his later life. Here he met, admired accompanied by some of the students of the Biltmore and became a stanch adherent of Sir Dietrich Brandis, whom Forest School, and there the editor of the AMERICAN he characterizes as "the man who introduced forestry to LUMBERMAN fraternized with him several years ago for a considerable period. He is familiar by personal visits with the eastern, northeastern and southern states and longs for a chance, at first hand, at the big forestal growth of the far west. "When I have two months to spare," he declares, "I will go with Mr. Defebaugh out west." Several years ago Dr. Schenck induced his mother, now aged 68, to visit him at Biltmore. His return visits to the fatherland are influenced primarily by the prospect of seeing her, of whom, like all big men, he is enthusiastically fond. His estimate of his mother is almost a deification and most worthily bestowed. When Dr. Schenck took charge of the Biltmore estate, that 200 square miles of North Carolina object lessons in the last possibilities in conservative forestry, he was made, against his protests, president of the Biltmore Lumber Company, a Vanderbilt enterprise that operated a huge, thoroughly PLANTING 4-YE ODL WHITE PINETREES AT "TIP No. 25" BY PARTICIPANTS INTHETHREE equipped band saw mill. At DAYS' FOREST FESTIVAL. that time he had no practical knowledge of the lumber business. The European forester is not so taught; ninety DECEMBER 26, 1908 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 50 THREE DAYS' FOREST FESTIVAL ON THE BILTMORE ESTATE. The Feast That Followed the First Day's Fair-Thanksgiving Diners Guests of Forester Schenck- Tribute in Speeches at an Informal, Sumptuous Banquet-Visitors' Variants on Phases of Forestry-An Appreciation of George W. Vanderbilt. CHAPTER THANKSGIVING DINNER. THE MAN WHO LOOKS LIKE THE KAISER. Nay, not for these alone We thank Thee, Lord. The last previous instalment of the AMERICAN Who is the man that is riding along; For there are other gifts LUMBERMAN'S story of the great three days' "forest festival," Singing the words of an old German song, Our eyes may see- held in November last on the estate of George W. Vanderbilt, Telling the boys that the road is run wrong? A greater treasure lifts at Biltmore, N.C., under the initiative and charge of Forester 'Tis the man that looks like the Kaiser. Our hearts to Thee. C. A. Schenck, concluded with a brief biographical sketch of Who is the man on the cold black steed, We thank Thee, Lord, for men that master of forestry and brought to a termination the That time reveals outdoor enjoyment of the day. The first day, Thanksgiving Riding along at the utmost speed, Who toil with voice and pen Day, was concluded by a banquet given at the Battery Park Little fur muff and a cap o' green tweed? For high ideals. hotel, Asheville, N.C., a courtesy extended by Dr. Schenck to 'Tis the man who looks like the Kaiser. We thank Thee, lord, for eyes his many guests. Those at the dinner included most of those That see the right, whose names were published in the list appearing in the Who is the man on the horse named Punch, For full-orbed souls that rise LUMBERMAN of December 5, augmented by George S. Powell, Riding along at the head of the bunch, Upon the night secretary Board of Trade, Asheville: H. Taylor Rogers, Don't even give us the time to eat lunch? Asheville; J. P. Sawyer, president Battery Park bank, 'Tis the man who looks like the Kaiser. A public purpose true Asheville; Owen Gudger, Asheville; Burt C. Mason, Mason- We thank Thee for, Featherstone Lumber Company, Asheville: Rev. R R Swope, Who is the man that juggles the chalk, A conscience made anew rector All Souls' Church, Biltmore. Tells us the freight rate from here to New York, On wrong to war, The dinner, for which an elaborate menu had been For greater victories prepared, began about 9 o'clock in the evening and was Than those of sword- purely informal, as was announced by Dr. Schenck, who For blessings such as these We thank Thee, Lord. presided at the banquet and who said that any who had speeches to make might preferably make them before the Protection of Southern Forests. conclusion of the feasting- for very good reasons; whereas after the dinner if the German has A call was made for D. T. Keith, of Wilmington, N.C., drunk one or two bottles of Rhine wine his mind and wit are not who responded by reading a paper on "The Future as clear as before the dinner is finished, consequently I am going Destiny of the South Depends Upon the Protection of Its to make my dinner speech now [applause], but it is not going to Forests." Mr. Keith paid his respects to the longleaf, be much of a speech, but simply the simplest kind to be made-d shortleaf and loblolly pine of the south, their durability thanks and on a Thanksgiving subject. and their immense value from various economical There are so many things for which we should be thankful and standpoints, during which he said: so many men to whom feel thankful that do not know where to begin, but begin with you, my friends. I thank the last one of Take the forests of North Carolina as a whole, comprising you for taking the trouble of coming down here. You honor me its cypress, ash, elm tupelo, sweet and red gum, poplar, by your presence and you give me your backing by your oak, hickory, basswood and hemlock, producing more than presence. Thank you, gentlemen, every one of you, for coming their proportion of the 300 species in the south and and helping me, and by your presence giving me that backing constituting a great portion of the wealth of our state and which we require. Living in the woods, never seeing anyone southland; it is estimated that three-fifths of the standing except perhaps the president of the bank when we are short of timber of the United States is now in the south and that one money, and never meeting any other civilized persons, we are half of the labor employed in the forests of the United States particularly glad and particularly thankful for your coming and is employed in the south, producing annually something helping us to celebrate in a humble and simple way the tenth "THE MAN WHO LOOKS LIKE THE KAISER." like $175,000,000, while the north and west have almost anniversary of my dear and beloved forest school [Applause]. depleted their supply. That being true, the main source of There are many gentlemen to whom I am particularly obliged Says 1.0p is the price of salt pork? supply of this product must come from the south in the and feel thankful today. There are above all the various chiefs of 'Tis the man who looks like the Kaiser. future. At the rapid rate at which it is being cut, the the other departments on the estate, of the religious department government report says, the supply will last only about headed by the Rev. Dr. Swope, and the electrical department and Who is the man that corrects our "exams," twenty-eight years longer. Isn't it time for every thinking many others. I am thinking of these gentlemen who helped me in Tells us our papers are not worth two damns; person to sit up and take notice of the merciless destruction these tasks, and I thank you all, gentlemen Saying our answers are nothing but shams? of our forests, which is destroying our agricultural as well as And then comes, not to be forgotten, my beloved old boys, little 'Tis the man who looks like the Kaiser. greatly affecting our manufacturing interests? boys who are now out in life and who came o share with us today in helping to celebrate and again to assure me that they are yet affiliated with the old-young institution ten years old. I thank After the jovial uproar had subsided J. E. Defebaugh, Mr. Keith referred to the piney wood "rooter," scrub you, boys! editor of the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN, spoke as follows, cattle and reckless lumbermen as the greatest enemies of the forest. He went into details of the destruction which And there is another man, last but not least whom I want to observing Dr. Schenck's request to the effect that each should speak "as the spirit moved him": they wrought. He referred to foreign methods of forest mention George Vanderbilt [Applause]. George is not here conservation as an object lesson for our own country and today and does not know anything of little fuss, but want to say The good old custom of conducting an affair of this kind in that George Vanderbilt is a nobly spirited American; as high concluded by saying: the German way is one which commends itself to all of us. I principled a man as I ever met; a man of high ideals; reticent if am sure, and in recognition of that custom feel as I did few For that reason it behoves every North Carolinian to you meet him but of splendid purposes, and who has given to me weeks ago when I visited Quaker meeting in Pennsylvania- all want of chance to develop, a chance to work, chances to put appeal to our present legislators to give us a statutory stock feel that the spirit is about to move me. I want to express law, and if they are statesmen worthy to represent the great in our ideas, and thank Mr. Vanderbilt [Applause]. And now, personally my thanks to Dr. Schenck for the many good things if you will all do me a favor, join me in three cheers for George state of North Carolina they will protect the future and its he has done to me in the last ten years, by counsel, by friendly unborn generations, rather than listen to the clamor of few Vanderbilt action of one kind of another in this country and abroad, for I who may not want to be restricted to slaughtering the forest, had the very distinguished pleasure of meeting him when he This was followed by all rising and cheering for the master and those who may have the piney woods rooter and scrub was abroad with his pupils- cattle which they want to run at large, destroying annually of the Biltmore estate. Dr. Schenck we met at the Hofbrau house in more than they would bring if they were put upon the The cheering was followed by an innovation as cheering as Munich market besides being distributers of disease, which makes it it was interesting. The strong, fresh voices of the attending Mr. Defebaugh-And I enjoyed his hospitality there. almost impossible for the progressive element in this state to pupils of the Biltmore Forest School rang out in their original During all these ten years I have hoped for the privilege of raise stock profitably. college songs, the apparent disrespect in one, "The Man Who meeting him here, and now having enjoyed with all of you Can't we all stand together and form one solid body Looks Like the Kaiser," being in reality intended as a mark of today's delightful experiences, and having in prospect another pleading the just cause before the legislature in January for respect and esteem and so accepted by him who, facially and day or two, I feel that I must express myself briefly, and the protection of our forests, which means more than most in virile strength, reflects the ruler of his native country, and particularly because it is Thanksgiving day and because Dr. statesmen can conceive of? If so, begin now the movement who beamed appreciatively upon his pupils as they sang. Schenck has sounded the keynote for speech making here we are advocating by writing your representative to give us They were rewarded with three cheers. The song is given tonight. So rather than say anything of a general character I state stock law, and our national forest reserve, that the here: am going to speak about men, for the one thing of all that nation, especially North Carolina, is looking to with so impressed me today was the beauty and utility of Dr. Schenck's work in the field and in his school and as exemplified in the work as we have found it In addition to the trees, the vistas of mountain, forest and stream which we have seen, the beauties of nature, which have interested us and which we expect will interest us in retrospect for many a day. I could not help but think of the men here in the making as phases of the many things for which we have to be thankful, and I recalled a little poem that I had in my pocket, written by the "Lumberman Poet" of the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN, of which have the privilege of being editor. It is Thanksgiving poem, and will read it: WE THANK THEE Not for our wealth of trees We thank Thee, Lord, Not for the victories Of our good sword, Not for our fruitful fields And sun and rain, Nor for their yellow yields Of garnered grain, C.A. KEFFER, W. B. TOWNSEND, J. E. DEFEBAUGH, Not for the builded stone C. RANKIN Our wealth to hoard B. L. ELLIOTT AND S. CONKLIN. DECEMBER 26, 1908 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 51 much favor, will be solved to a great extent by beginning it at For a number of years I have been quite interested in forestry Our planting up there amounts to $20,000 worth a year, home. and have read all that could get in that line that I had the but none of our planting compares in any respect with that A Pennsylvanian's Views. capacity to appreciate, but since this day's journeyings with Dr. which Dr. Schenck has done here. Another word I had The next speaker was B. L. Elliott, commissioner of forestry Schenck I appreciate that there has been so much to learn that I wished to say was that I had the pleasure of working for of Pennsylvania, who was called for by a score of voices and really feel that have not yet touched the surface. I would like nearly two years with one of the graduates of the Biltmore responded: to say something to show my appreciation of the wonderful school, and if all of the students are or will be of the work that the doctor is doing, and think I can best express standard that he was, I am sure there is no question about I do not know why you should call upon me to talk to you. I do myself by saying that I hope the good Lord will protect and the quality of the men graduated from Biltmore. not know much about forestry. True, I have worked at it more or care for him and allow him to see some of his high ideals less seventy odd years, and have been around today to learn realized. [Applause.] I hope will be able to come back twenty years from now something about it, and have learned a great deal. I have been and see Dr. Schenck and his work [Applause.] very thankful to Dr. Schenck for the mistakes he has made and The spirit next moved H. L. Eickelberger, of Staunton, the intelligence and sincerity with which he has admitted them. Va., who said: A short speech was delivered by one of its [Applause.] I came here because I thought I would get at the representatives on behalf of the engineering department I have nothing further to say than that I want to say that I truth I don't know much about forestry. of the school, in which high tribute was paid to Dr. thank you very much for the opportunity to be known to you Schenck and the extraordinary value of his work past Here Mr. Elliott related a humorous story illustrative of his I came especially to be with you. We have been interested for a and present. point and continued: number of years in our timber and hope to carry out some of The Asheville Spirit. your ideas as illustrated here. We need them in our business It is just that way with me. There are some things I do no know Another speech with local flavor was made by a citizen and I am sure all practical lumbermen who are looking to about forestry and one wish to learn about is, how are we going of Asheville, in part as follows: reforestation would much rather have in their employ Biltmore to reforest our country by annual reproduction? I cannot see the men than Yale men [Prolonged applause.] As a citizen of Asheville I wish to express my gratitude way to do it. When you destroy dil of the timber or let fire A Pennsylvania Forest Schoolmaster. and my appreciation of what the Biltmore estate has done destroy it and the seed you cannot expect something for nothing. for Asheville and western North Carolina. I believe voice A great percentage of our country will not be reforested. You Several of the banqueters called for Robert S. Conklin, of the sentiment of 90 percent of the people of this section must plant trees. I may be ignorant and I may disagree with Pennsylvania, who said: when I say that every influence that has been sent out from many of you but present methods do not seem effective. I have I desire to thank you personally for the opportunity which this magnificent estate has been for good and for the seen the second crop harvested, but that was the end of it There you have given me to see something that I do not think we uplifting of our people. [Applause.] We feel grateful to the never was to be third crop. How are we to exercise the police could see anywhere else in this country. I do not think any Biltmore estate for having Dr. Schenck in our midst We feel power to control the country and plant trees? It must be done in other place can show us the planting, the nurseries and the grateful to Dr. Schenck for having brought you gentlemen some shape, but how I am not lawyer enough to determine, but school that you have all within one area. on this occasion and we hope you will come again we have to control the forests in that way or we shall fail of our I was very much impressed today with the young men of [Applause.] intent your school. I suppose I noticed them more particularly I don't know how the lumberman should be blamed, charged E.P Broadhurst, of Greensboro, N.C., in charge of the because I am a director of little forest school in Pennsylvania with destroying the timber of the country when a man much cut in which we have thirty students endeavoring to teach them legal department of the Biltmore estate, made an address everything he can sell to make profit on it It is unreasonable to the same principles that you are re-practical it which from a humorous point of view was the gem of expect man to cut timber to sell for less than he could get out of pleased me very much to see that they were so attentive to ever the evening. It was largely a repetition of humorous it. The rod man takes all that he can, the railroad tie man and the work Dr. Schenck spoke and every motion that he made. stories one after another, told in inimitable style, pulp man and he leaves nothing as thick as my arm. I will not There did not seem to be anything that escaped them and they illustrative of conditions on the Biltmore estate complain of that man if he will replant the trees. Another thing I seemed to be perfectly in sentiment with you, which shows generally and in the Biltmore Forest School particularly, don't know: how you expect people to reforest the country and good judgment on their part. They have before them a life that with an undercurrent of seriousness. tax us for our land as we are taxed today. It can not be done. I think no other profession can equal They are going to do [Applause.] From an Instructor's Standpoint. work not so much probably for themselves as for the future Our state of Pennsylvania I boast of. It has done as much generations. Therefore the responsibility is all the greater on Collier Cobb, of the faculty of the Biltmore Forest probably as any state in the Union for forestry and, I believe, has them. School and of the University of North Carolina, the best organization, but it can not do much in the face of In Pennsylvania we have done a little practical work, but not followed. Pertinent portions of his remarks include the exorbitant taxes. what we should have done. While we have purchased 816 following: A Philanthropist's Impressions. acres of land we have done very little in the way of improving I have been greatly interested in the general trend of the A call was made for the Hon. James H. Stout, of it We thought that we would better get the land and in that remarks bearing on the saving of our forests, but there are Menomonie, Wis., who said briefly: way tie the state down b caring for it than to risk getting many difficulties in the way that even Mr. Keith may not enough appropriation to care for it at this time. I hope that in I am not at all accustomed to public speaking, but I can not have thought of. the coming season the legislature will give us enough money to forbear making a few remarks. After driving over small area of do some ork-something that we can in twenty years show This point Mr. Cobb emphasized by a humorous story the Biltmore estate am deeply impressed with the spirit that the you as you have shown us here today. I would like very much and continued: students of this school seem to have, and trust that as they go on if I were living twenty years from now and in the forestry with the work it will be a constant inspiration to them to serve In state like ours Mr. Keith would have some difficulty in ranks to be able to show each one of the gentlemen here today their country along that line. I am also impressed with this fact getting stock laws passed that would keep the razorback our what Pennsylvania will have done by that time and I believe while the work being done here by Dr. Schenck and by his school of the roots of our trees, and yet that is one of the important that we would equal what you have done here, and you, Dr. is very valuable it is of advantage 6r you to think of the things to do and it is a problem that will have to be solved Schenck, have done better than any other person yet that I influence that grows out of the work here, that you and and all know of in this country. somewhere. taking my cue from him, I would like to of us will carry to our homes. emphasize a few things that he brought out in his paper. I thank you for the opportunity to be present today and to see I desire now to thank the doctor very kindly for having given what I have and learn what have, which is a good deal, and I Here Mr. Cobb emphasized some of the points of Mr. me an opportunity to be present and to go up and look over the hope you will continue in your work-continue to educate Keith's address by comparison with conditions abroad fine work they are now doing, and hope this may be only the young men for the work you are doing here today. beginning of many more forest festivals. [Applause.] urging particularly the necessity of keeping stock off of Praise from the Pastor. Mr. Rowlands here proposed three cheers for Doctor forest land, and saying: Schenck, which were given by all present. They If we can have laws of that kind passed in all the states the Responding to a popular call. Rev. R P. Swope, of Biltmore, accentuated the compliment by rising, after which the problem of reforestation would soon solve itself. It has N.C., rector of All Souls' Church, said in part: diners joined generally in singing "For He Is a Jolly Good shown that right here in this forest We are seeing marked As the representative of the ecclesiastical department of the Fellow." changes wrought by Dr. Schenck along that line. He has not Biltmore estate I want to express my gratification at seeing such always succeeded in keeping the razorback out of the forest an assemblage here at this time, and incidentally to give my Dr. Schenck asked my neighbor here a question which he and those in his forests have become roley-poley porkers indorsement of the moral character of Dr. Schenck [Applause.] did not answer- what would he do if he were a peacock? I and are well worth while, as the bears and some of the forest The boys sang that he looks like the Kaiser, he has good many of told him if were a peacock I would have my tail feathers students have already learned. And yet it is very hard for the high qualities also that distinguish our own chief magistrate. spread out like this just now. [Laughter and applause. some of us to realize that this can be accomplished. As a He is an appreciative lover of nature; he also appreciates keeping Forestry in the Empire State. representative of the University of North Carolina I rejoice in touch with the younger generation that is coming into his Before the laughter and applause had subsided R. in the work that Dr. Schenck is doing here. hands and he is molding them to make of them successful Pettis, state forester of New York, was called. He said: Here the speaker referred in detail to the fact that foresters I was sent down here from New York to get the benefit of Dr. 125,000 acres of the Biltmore estate had at one time been I think the doctor has shown you a great deal today that is very valuable He will show you more tomorrow and still more on Schenck's lectures. I have only heard part of them yet but am legally an asset of the University of North Carolina but Saturday. You go through the estate and see what is being done more than doubly repaid for my trip. had reverted to the Biltmore estate, and he said: and think you will realize that he has here not merely vista of I would like to say just a word or so about our work in New York, and I can only say that by comparison. As to acreage, We have cause for thanksgiving that that forest has fallen scenic beauty but a good, sound business proposition which will our reserve land is about ten times the acreage of the Biltmore into the hands of such a good man as Dr. Schenck and I work out nicely for the community and the state and the nation estate, or 1,800,000 acres. The land we are planting there is not believe that the state is going to gain more from it as an and for generations to come. land that cost $30 an acre; it is land on which the people who object lesson to the state in Dr. Schenck's hands than if we Here Dr. Swope told a humorous story wholly in keeping owned it would not pay the taxes; it is almost like a sandy ourselves possessed it [Applause.] with the cloth and emphasizing his address. He concluded beach I was much interested this morning in another way; in The speaker stated that the accomplishments of the by saying: the thought of the difference in conditions, how you are Biltmore estate in the way of conservative forestry were planting here today while in the loose sand at Saranac lake we I trust that the circumstances which have brought us together on an object lesson of what the state in cooperation and the have little opportunity. The returns from our land are much this tenth anniversary of the forest school will work to bring you national government might accomplish on a larger scale. different from those Dr. Schenck receives. We have a together at the twentieth anniversary. [Applause.] constitutional provision prohibiting cutting on state land under North Carolina and Virginia Sentiment. Wisconsin's Appreciation. penalty of $10 a tree. This year I would not dare to say how J. Elwood Cox, of High Point, N.C., paid a glowing The next speaker was Lamont Rowlands, of the C. A. many thousands of dollars' worth of timber has been burned tribute to the work of the Biltmore estate generally and Goodyear Lumber Company, Tomah, Wis., who said: and killed and left on the ground which could have been to its high forester especially. He was followed by Mr. utilized but for the constitution absolutely prohibiting that Broadhurst, who introduced Frederick Tate, of High I feel deeply grateful for all the good I have been getting today. and it was left dead loss. Point, who said briefly: RAPID TRANSIT FOR NORTH CAROLINA MOONSHINER A GLIMPSE OF THE FRENCH BROAD RIVER IN THE BILTMORE ESTATE. DECEMBER 26, 1908 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 52 I am no speech maker and can only express my appreciation by sheds for the rivers and the waters for the cities. would see the value of it. The American farmer is not fool. thanking you and incidentally paying a compliment to Doctor In Tennessee we have more of the Tennessee and the I have heard it suggested that these landmarks be preserved Schenck's yellow poplar, with which we cannot hope to compete, Cumberland rivers as object lessons than any other state or and in ten years from now all who could attend be taken and I think that is quite a compliment to the doctor. states through which they flow. Suppose this watershed in the over the same ground to see what has been done in ten southern Appalachians is denuded; what becomes of those years. I offer that as a suggestion. [Applause.] J. B. Manson, of Petersburg, Va, said in part: rivers? What becomes of our wells and our springs? I merely Work of the Owner of Biltmore. I want to thank Dr. Schenck as a guest from the Old Dominion, want to suggest to you this thought I saw so much today that have not had time yet to digest it At this point remarks were made by Mr. Rowlands the mother state. I do not know whether there is anyone else here from Virginia, but I want to thank you for my presence here, I have been thinking about it and shall take it home with me. which met with popular sympathy. He said: which was unexpected I want to see all that I can tomorrow. I shall take that home I think there is one point that we as a body have I have been so interested today and so entertained and so with me. In due time when I get the subject more thoroughly overlooked and that is to provide some suitable way in impressed that I want to go back try to induce our legislators to digested I hope to be able to think out something else that will which we can best express our appreciation of the do something to establish a preserve in our state. I think the be of advantage to you, Dr. Schenck. wonderful work Mr. Vanderbilt has been sponsor for here. different states ought to work together a while and I hope to get The way came to be here is that was imprudent enough to He is no more than human and I think every man back and inculcate some ideas that you have enabled me to learn write little pamphlet on this subject and somebody, I suppose appreciates an expression of his brother's love and today. it was the publishers, sent Dr. Schenck a copy, and I received appreciation, and the last two of three years all we have from him very prettily expressed invitation to come here and A Harvard Teacher's Views. heard from the sources of government has been to conserve, be with him and celebrate this forestry fair. He said that he conserve. We have had a large Congress at Washington to Prof. John G. Jack, of the Arnold Arboretum, Harvard wanted to see the man who wrote that little pamphlet and get devise ways of protecting our forests and other natural University, was here introduced and said in part: personally acquainted with him. I wanted to see him and get resources, but Mr. Vanderbilt a man who perhaps has been The arboretum is not the forest school but it may be useful in personally acquainted with him left an unusual share of good things of life, has gone ahead connection with the forest school It is an institution started as a I was forty-two years at the bar, and I have enjoyed, if you practically and shown a large amount of good judgment, technical garden for the study of trees, and, of course, they have will pardon a personal allusion, a large part of it in teaching in incidentally building a monument to himself but showing to be trees adapted to our climate, and we find that the arboretum the law department of the Vanderbilt University, of which the what an American citizen should be; and think it would be was started something like thirty years ago; in fact, the first trees whole south is proud. [Applause.] The grandfather of the a graceful act that a committee be appointed to draft up owner of this estate, Cornelius Vanderbilt, founded Vanderbilt planted were put out in the spring of 1896, the spring first went some resolutions that would be fitting for this occasion, there, and it is really a section of trees as individuals and not University, the greatest educational institution today south of showing our appreciation under forest conditions. We have, however, in the last five years the Ohio river. I say that without detracting form any other, nor are there many north of the Ohio river superior to it The suggestion, or motion, met with many seconds, started a forest school that is quite distinct from the arboretum [Applause.] I do not believe that when Commodore but was held in abeyance for the time being. which is under separate management The forest school is not the scientific school and has been until Vanderbilt made his vast donation to the establishment of that Canadian Cooperation. this year an undergraduate school, students taking the regular great institution of learning he sensed the full force of what he course when finishing. This year we have started it as a was doing. I do not believe that he could have realized it, and One of this distinguished Canadian visitors, Elwood yet he was a man of wisest prescience. I do not believe that Wilson, of Grand Mere, P. Q., was the next speaker. He postgraduate course, taking in students from any college of this man here senses the full effect and wisdom of what he has said in part: school from which go out students who have passed the needed requirements. We have only thirteen students now. Last year done. I believe that the pebble that he has dropped into his I will ask indulgence to say that Dr. Schenck's work has ocean here will broaden and broaden and broaden. See these and in years before we had some undergraduates who were not spread not only in the United States but in Canada and has taking the full course; we have now thirteen who seem to be very young men here that are being taught forestry in this country; brought a few Canadians down here to learn something. promising young men. see these people assembled here from every part of this great One characteristic of the American people is viewed Of course, we had in the first four years to go out on private country of ours, riding over this land and getting an object sympathetically by the people of Canada. [Applause.] It is lands in the vicinity for field work. This summer we have had lesson of what can be done by a German citizen. Take this in, exemplified in a condition certainly fraught with great 2,000 acres of land given us. This forest is 2,000 acres, composed gentlemen, and you may have some conception of what will danger to the whole continent all of its progress and all its mainly of white pine and with a good deal of hardwoods also. happen in the next fifty, seventy-five, five hundred years from welfare. An unfortunate characteristic of the American They estimate about 10,000,000 feet of white pine ready for now growing out of this example. people in that they are lawless, especially lawless, where the marketing, and that will be gradually cut, furnishing Gentlemen, I predict the continued existence of the forests are concerned. To the man indifferent to the forests, opportunities for the students to study lumbering conditions to government of the United States and of the states. I admit no careless with his fires, with his matches, in his trespasses, an extent, this to be supplemented by further work in the field. promise of problem that assumes for a moment to doubt the the forest has been the great enemy of the people in clearing That is all should say about our forest school. It is not really a continuance of this government or the continuance of this the country, and that trait is still inherent in almost all our new school but, compared with the Biltmore school which has people. We are here to stay. We have a government; we have people. The foresters above all people should be been so well established and with Yale and even with Michigan a people; we have a country the like of which civilization has commissioners for the suppression of this lawlessness in and some others, it is comparatively raw, but we hope with all the never produced before us. [Applause.] But recently in this regard to the forests. advantages which Harvard has it will become a good school, not county one-half was at war against the other half and we The forester has a tremendous duty before him All only ethically and technically but a good practical school also, fought, as President Roosevelt recently said, until we were through the history of forestry in this country the movement because the practical work is what is valued. The Yale students "beaten to a frazzle." Down south look at us today. Not less has been carried on by men interested in the land who have ought to turn out pretty good men in some cases, but there, no than twenty-five years from the time that the war closed given their service and their work unselfishly, by men who doubt will be some failures as in others. confederate soldiers were upon the supreme bench of the have been not only idealists but eminently practical. It is I think the whole country generally and the forest schools United States, in both houses of congress, in the cabinet of the unnecessary to name them, but everyone knows Professor particularly owe good deal to Dr. Schenck for the example he presidents, I myself had the honor to be appointed judge by a Roth, Gifford Pinchot, C. A Schenck, what they have done has set. I have heard criticisms about German methods and president of the United States. I bow my head to a civilization for this country and what is being done through them in the American methods and how unsuited German and foreign that can produce that result [Applause.] Let us preserve our way of education And there are the embryo foresters of methods were to American forest conditions, but we must be forests. Let the states do their duty within their constitutional today, a magnificent body of young men going out and guided by the results of experiments and have always had full limitations. Let our government at Washington do its duty and carrying on great work, and Dr Schenck is certainly doing sympathy with these experiments because I have realized that there will be little left to be done but to employ intelligent an admirable part in it in training men to carry into the while American methods and commonsense lumbering were very agents to carry forward the work. forests the principles of the engineers. These be men to look valuable the time would come when German methods would be I thank you, gentlemen, for your attention. I thank you for up to the world over, men who will handle a problem so more appreciated in their exactness; that their statistical faculties your invitation calling me here. [Prolonged applause.] that it will pay, which is the secret of forestry. And it is to would be more developed, and I think that in the last half dozen Clinton Crane, of Cincinnati, Ohio, followed Judge Judd, be hoped that all the young men going out of here will bear years they have been advanced very much in this country and Dr. paying his respects to that gentleman and in a kindly way in mind that they must not only utilize these teachings but Schenck has no doubt impressed his views upon this country a must exercise them tactfully, be men of judgment, men of differing from him in regard to methods of forest good deal and they have become Americanized and American common sense, who will have all the good qualities of the conservation. He expressed his pleasure and teachers and others owe a great deal to the spirit he has infused in oldest woodsmen, our forefathers in this country. Germanizing to a certain extent American forests. acknowledged the advantages he had gained in visiting the [Applause.] I don't think that Dr. Schenck takes proper credit to himself. I Biltmore estate. He expressed and indebtedness to Dr. note this from one paragraph in his program. On the very last Schenck, saying: "I do not think another invitation could A motion was here offered and passed unanimously page, Tip No. 63, he says: "Do not talk to the conductor; the have taken me to Asheville at this time than yours." appointing Lamont Rowlands, of the C. A. Goodyear conductor is an ox; you will agree with me when you see him." The Fault for Denudation. Lumber Company, Tomah, Wis.; Defebaugh, editor but when you have seen Dr. Schenck hustle around as he has of the AMERICAN LUMBERMAN, Chicago, and Judge J. W. The next speaker touched a popular chord by saying: today you will concede that while he has the strength of an ox he Judd, of the Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., a has more responsibility and more initiative than the conductor, I have heard several of the speakers say this evening that the committee to formulate the resolutions offered by Mr. and he knows more about the forest than do the deer. lumbermen were destroying the forests. I say that, in this Rowlands appreciative of the services to his country [Applause.] region especially, it is not eh lumbermen but the farmers. In generally and to conservative forestry specifically of good many cases the lumberman is endeavoring to save a few From the Legal Viewpoint George W. Vanderbilt, of Biltmore, N. C. good trees while the farmer has rolled them into a heap and F. W. Rane, state forester of Massachusetts, addressed The next speaker was Judge J. W. Judd, of the University of destroyed them, also destroying the soil The lumberman cuts the banqueters, expressing his pleasure in the forest fai Tennessee, who after some remarks devoted courteously to out few good trees and leaves the rest, but the farmer uses it and its attendant festivities and his faith in the future of one of the previous speakers said: all up, and I would suggest that everyone here foresters, forestry. lumbermen and everyone aterested-wheneven they get a The little investigation that I have given this subject convinces The banquet closed at 11:55 p. m. with cheers for chance to talk to the small land owners and framers will tell me that the time has come in this country when we shall even up George W. Vanderbilt C. A. Schenck the Biltmore estate matters. They have denuded our forests, they threaten our soil, them of the great things that are being done here in the way of and the Biltmore Forest School. plantations. I have done it myself to a large extent and got and hence the food of our people. I have heard it suggested here tonight that there is probably some interested enough to say that they will try it, and if that (To be continued.) under our system of government no constitutional power in the could be done here and there it would soon grow, because they states and federal government to deal with this subject Now, gentlemen, I am from the state of Tennessee, though a child of North Carolina I am a democrat of democrats. I believe in the constitution of the government of he United States as it was written by our fathers. I do not believe in amending our constitution by judicial or legislative or executive construction [applause] nor do think it necessary. We inherited the common law from England and our constitutions, both state and federal must be constructed in light of this common law from which they were enacted. The highest law of all laws, that law that knows no superior, is that the safety of the public, the safety of the people, is the supreme law of the land. Our constitutions, as I say, both state and national, recognize in the mind of any constitutional lawyer that here is ample authority in the constitutions, both of the United States and of the states, to deal with this forestry question as it ought to be dealt with, nor can find any serious difficulty in constructing a proper principle upon which the tax laws for the forest lands can not be predicated so as to do equal and exact justice to all. It is a principle that is recognized by all constitutional lawyers that the legislature has the power to classify subjects for taxation It may classify corporations, railroads, it may classify the different subjects, and so it may classify lands for taxation and by that means so impose taxes upon forest lands & not only to do no injustice to their owners but to encourage the perpetuity of the forests and the constant growth of them so that their owners may get from them an income and at the same time preserve the forests and the water JANUARY 2, 1909 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 54 THREE DAYS' FOREST FESTIVAL ON THE BILTMORE ESTATE. Start of the Second Days' Outing-A Midstream Spectacle-Macadam Roads of Western North Carolina- Object Lessons on the Biltmore Estate-Commercial and Manufacturing Features of Asheville and Vicinity. CHAPTER XXIV - THANKSGIVING banks of the river. The other occupants of his carriage, perfect repair, and form a useful object lesson of which DINNER. with the exception of ecolored driver, discreetly used the advantage has been taken in other and even in distant ferry boat to cross. The driver of the AMERICAN sections. The last instalment of this chronicle of the great Biltmore LUMBERMAN carriage guided his team nonchalantly down forest fair-Chapter XXIII took leave of the guests of Dr. C. the steep bank and boldly out into the swift stream. The CHAPTER XXVII STOCK RAISING. A. Schenck on the midnight that closed Thanksgiving day, writer curled his feet under him and watched the rising amid sumptuous scenes of enjoyment in extreme contrast to water apprehensively. His eyes bulged as it passed higher The whole Vanderbilt estate has been an object lesson that depicted in an accompanying cut, of a freedman's than the axle. A few yards farther the bulge became more not only in road building but in agriculture and stock Thanksgiving which is racy of the soil in the poorer quarters pronounced as the waters rose to the level of the box and raising, a fact which was more or less impressed upon of Asheville, on the outskirts of the Biltmore estate and the carriage wobbled dangerously over the boulders in the the participants, and specifically by the visit to the throughout western North Carolina. The festivities of river bed. Still farther, past the middle of the stream, that Vanderbilt model dairy. Owing to the importation of Thanksgiving evening at the Battery Park hotel, Asheville, bulge became a grotesque facial phenomenon as the water blooded hogs the razorback has practically disappeared while in no case indecorous, had been so thorough in a entered the box of the carriage and it lurched violently from the mountains of that section. A decade ago he hospitable sense that most of the participants were from side to side; but the objective bank grew nearer and was practically the only representative there of the disinclined to rise at a reasonable early hour Friday morning; nearer, the horses pulled sturdily and the crowd on the porcine race. The contributing influence to this end was but the edict of Forester Schenck, who is of that class whom bank laughed, shouted and cheered derisively, the other the fact that one can buy in that section a blooded boar people obey instinctively, forced an early beginning of the side was gained and the writer, conscious of an pig at a comparatively small price. At one time the second day of the forest festival It began at the portals of the acquirement of "fisherman's luck," breathed more freely as Vanderbilt blooded hogs were sold at very fancy prices the big team dragged the carriage clear of the river and up but as they have been bought and bred throughout the a steep incline to safety. country there no longer remains a local market at such One of the carriages, with its team, became stalled in the figures. river and had to be assisted from the bank, but, aside from One progressive step in stock raising which is that mishap and the humorous side, the fording of the noticeable is the character of the milch cows. One can French Broad river was one of the most picturesquely hardly find a herd of cattle in western North Carolina interesting features of the three days' forest fair. that does not include numbers of the Jersey or Alderney blood, a result directly traceable to either Mr. CHAPTER XXVI LESSONS IN Vanderbilt's own herd or to his example in breeding GOOD ROADS blooded stock. Before Mr. Vanderbilt came to Asheville a good Jersey cow was something of a rarity; it was the At this point in these chronicles a digression may be show piece of the average farm and was exhibited with made in behalf of some of the numerous object lessons pride and the details of its cost and performances were acquired during the three days' forest fair that are not enlarged upon. A notable fact since that date is that no specifically treated of elsewhere. Among these object one pretends to raise cows in that section for dairying lessons that were prominently in evidence was one on purposes but that his herd is based upon thoroughly good roads. good stock. Many herds through western North Except upon the steep mountain sides and through the Carolina embrace a high percentage of full blooded forests, good roads are the rule throughout the Biltmore Jersies, Alderneys or some of the other high grade estate. They aggregate in the neighborhood of 200 miles, breeds. all macadam. Mr. Vanderbilt's road work may be said to The Vanderbilt estate has exploited extensively the have introduced macadam roads to that section of western raising of chickens. The poultry show held recently in North Carolina, and it was one of the main causes in Asheville included one of the finest exhibits of chickens inducing Buncombe county, in which Asheville and the ever seen in the south and they came largely from Biltmore estate are located, to start the system of macadam western North Carolina, including many entries from THE LODGE - ENTRANCE TO EBILTMORE ESTATE. road construction throughout the county. Specifications the Vanderbilt stock. Poultry raisers from all over the used by Buncombe county are almost practically identical state and many good judges from elsewhere declare that with those used on the Biltmore estate, though it is the recent Asheville poultry show was one of the best Battery Park hotel with the arrivals of open carriages and probable that the county roads are more heavily built on exhibits if its kind ever seen where-thoroughbreds account of the greater traffic that they have to bear. But, saddle horses and their departures, bearing the eighty or and chickens that lay big eggs. unequivocally, Mr. Vanderbilt's initiative is what started more fortunate ones who were to participate in a perfect Improvements in these matters of course are not the movement, and it had its advent at a time when the day's outing a smart, imposing pageant that enlivened the altogether due to Mr. Vanderbilt but are directly question of good roads was being agitated throughout the steep drives around the hotel and quickened the life of the traceable to his influence. At one time Mr. Vanderbilt country. The commissioners of Buncombe county adopted streets of Asheville. It moved quickly to Biltmore village, furnished free the services of a thoroughbred Jersey bull. the construction of macadam roads among the first in the whence, reformed and under the marshalship of Dr. Schenck, and through this good blooded stock was disseminated state, though Mecklenberg county was perhaps the first, it started through the picturesque lodge of the Biltmore through that section. and it has a high reputation today all over the state and in estate, one of its artistic show places, of especial interest to the fact all over the Union for good macadam roads. The visitors because it is adorned with a perfect specimen of hard CHAPTER XXVIII. TITLES TOTHE BILTMORE LANDS. county has been systematically building such roads as fast maple ("avenue" maple). This is a tree fifteen to eighteen as it could do so with convict labor- has employed no inches in diameter, typical of numerous others on the estate, Titles to the great area now known as the Biltmore free labor-since some time prior to 1895, perhaps twelve which have grown beautifully and rapidly, a demonstration estate were acquired largely through stress and active or fifteen year ago. The building of these roads is of what proper care of shade trees will do and how quickly it opposition. When George W. Vanderbilt started his expensive on account of the grades. The engineers are can accomplish their growth. This lodge is the main entrance land purchases in North Carolina it was discovered that to the estate. On certain days any reputable person will be required to get the grades below an average of 3 percent he was likely to outrun his supply of ready money and it and are never allowed to exceed 6 percent except on the given a permit to go upon the estate upon the payment of a is related (this without violation of the family short hills. 25-cent fee, which is devoted to a worthy charity. Formerly confidence) that the rest of the family feared that he was The estimated cost of building these macadam roads by permits were granted only to those known or introduced to spending too much money in that section and sent a convict labor is between $2,500 and $3,000 a mile. That is the Vanderbilt family or to those high in charge of the estate, committee to investigate. They looked the situation over as near as the good roads commission could figure it from and a certain number of permits were given each day to the and concluded that George was not giving his money the returns of the county commissioners. But an estimate better class hotels for the use of their guests. This plan did away. They saw the utility of the proposition, not in an on the Vanderbilt estate with its less heavily built roads is not work satisfactorily, as it was accompanied by a great deal entirely unselfish way but as one out of which they $2,000 a mile. The average cost might safely be placed of vandalism despite all that could be done to prevent it, and could get personal enjoyment and which would afford between $2,500 and $3,000 a mile. These macadamized the fee system, with care as to whom permits are issued, personal and public advantage and at the same time ex roads, on the Vanderbilt estate especially, are kept in succeeded it. A long and delightful drive from the lodge followed, sweeping past the Biltmore truck farm, Dr. Schenck's office and school building and other points of interest. CHAPTER XXV AN INTRODUCTION FRENCH BROAD. At a point variously estimated as to distance from Biltmore village-by the inexperienced at six miles, by those more familiar with the estate at ten miles the beautiful French Broad river was reached. Here it became necessary to ferry the party across to the opposite bank. The ferry is a primitive affair, typical of the section but effective. It consists of a flat bottomed SCOW propelled by broad sweeps operated by manpower and guided by an overhead cable through a rapid current. Most of the carriages and the saddle horses were carried over, two or three at a time, several trips and the loss of considerable time being thus necessitated. Some of the more venturesome forded the river. The writer of these chronicles was one of the latter, essaying a "grand stand play" that gave some apprehension to himself and caused considerable entertainment for the spectators on both THANKSGIVING MORNING IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA A COLORED FAMILY'S FEAST IN PROSPECT. JANUARY 2, 1909 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 55 tend the usefulness of he valuable object lessons which CHAPTER XXXI BARK AND TANNING price in Asheville has doubled, and a considerable local EXTRACTS. demand for hemlock has arisen for framing materials George W. Vanderbilt was offering the south. The titles are generally good but as to many of the tract and this timber, once considered an incumbrance on the defects in title have been caused by carelessness in A steady and by no means inconsiderable source of land, is now proving to be a valuable asset. Several conveyances by former owners at a time when land was revenue for the Biltmore estate is the neighboring lumber companies are cutting hemlock regularly and worth 50 cents to $1 an acre and it did not pay to employ a tanneries. These buy continuously bark and chestnut selling it at profitable prices. lawyer to draw up a deed. Every chimney corner lawyer in unsuitable for manufacture into lumber, of which the estate Considerable ash and some cherry are found. Such that section thought that he knew all that was necessary to be produces large quantities. Of these patrons of the Biltmore cherry as is left is of extra fine quality, but, like walnut, it done and drew up deeds with the result that a great deal of estate the establishment of Hans Rees' Sons, Incorporated, has been valuable for so many years that long ago it was time and attention has been necessary on the part of the last and the Brevard Tanning Company are the most largely cut out separately. The Biltmore forests at one purchaser to cure some of the evils caused by slipshod conspicuous. time grew large quantities of black walnut, but little of methods. In the language of one interested, "Where you find Hans Rees' Sons, with tannery at Asheville and office at that remains, as is the case also with most of the cherry, a defective deed unless you antagonize the people you go and 39 Frankfort street, New York city, are tanners of oak though of the latter fairly large quantities are still to be get a quitclaim to cure it." During most of the time that the belting butts and scoured butts and manufacturers of found. Of other merchantable timber are linn and basswood, with an admixture in smaller quantities of titles belonged to the Cherokee Indians when the lands were belting leather. Their Asheville plant, on twenty acres of thrown open to enterers they were limited to 64 acres as a land on the French Broad river, represents a considerable other varieties. maximum. A result was that enterers pasted one land grant investment and is one of the largest tanneries in the south. (To Be Continued). on top of another, so that titles became clouded and a map of It is a large buyer of extract and bark procured from the the section resembles a crazyquilt. To get a good title a Biltmore forests. The tannery is one of the important problem is to learn who has it all, having acquired it from the commercial factors of Buncombe county and has an states, and considerable of the area has been granted three or extensive domestic and foreign trade. The family of Hans four times. The oldest title is the one to be sought, after Rees, a son of the founder of the enterprise, is one of the whichfinal acquirement is progressive. The Vanderbilt estate few in Asheville with which the Vanderbilt family is upon is now a strong, impregnable holding. cordial terms of social intimacy. The Brevard Tanning Company's plant, one of the most CHAPTER) - MANUFACTURERS OF WOOD successful in the south, is located near Brevard the county PRODUCTS. seat of Transylvania county, and its postoffice is Pisgah Forest, which is the site of the lumber mill operated under Manufacturers of wood products in and about the Biltmore the name of C. A. Schenck & Co. W. F. Decker, resident at estate are few, and these are practically encompassed within Pisgah Forest, is superintendent of the company's plant. It three small furniture factories. Murphy, a contiguous point, is a large consumer of products of the Biltmore forests. holds one and one has been in operation at Asheville. The Pertinent to this chapter may be quoted data compiled by furniture manufacturing center of the section is at High Point, the Forest Service relative to the country's consumption farther east. There considerable quantities are manufactures, and value of tanning materials, the aggregate of tanbark but only a very small percentage of lumber cut in the western last year being given as $21,205,547 showing a decrease in part of the state is there manufactured into its final forms. quantity from the previous year but a marked increase in One establishment is being erected at Biltmore and another, price. Commenting upon this subject, a recent issue of the for the manufacture of caskets and coffins, is being started at LUMBERMAN said editorially: "There is an increasing use of Asheville by Pittsburg (Pa.) enterprise. This is to be a large extracts, due probably to the fact that they may be more plant, to be located just below the town. advantageously shipped than the raw material. Of 583 The available timber is drifting rapidly into the hands of plants reporting in 1907, 121 used tanbark exclusively, 122 operators-pe who are buying for immediate or future extracts exclusively, while 340 used both. operations by themselves. It is passing now from the hands Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and West Virginia rank in order of the speculator and the original owner through the hands of in the consumption of bark, consuming 60 percent of the the speculator into the ownership of the final operator. output. There has been a decrease in New York, Practically no large tracts are left but those held by people Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Michigan and an increase in West Virginia and Wisconsin. The most able to hold them or to operate them. This does not mean to imply that one can not buy timber land in that section now, important and interesting feature of the whole subject is but timer lands bought there will be acquired from men who the steady increase in tanning extracts. The growing know their worth. scarcity of bark and native extracts makes necessary the use of chemicals or imported wood extracts. The tanbark CHAPTER XXX.---RAILROAD AND FREIGHT RATES. industry is certain to be continuously affected by the influx of tanning extracts because of the greater ease with which Western North Carolina in a measure is handicapped, or they may be handled." would be under less fortunate circumstances, by enjoying but All of which will be of interest to those who feel an one system of railroad, the Southern railway. The Louisville interest in the future commercial prosperity of the Biltmore & Nashville reaches Murphy, but none of the North Carolina estate and Dr. Schenck's efforts to continue it as self timberlands. It does tap a considerable area of Tennessee supporting. timber lands of the same character, but they are just over the CHAPTER - SOME BILTMORE TIMBER line dividing the two state. The freight rates on lumber made by the Southern railway are said by lumber shippers to be generally satisfactory, and At the "pink beds" of the Biltmore estate (to this section they appear to have little to complain of in that road reference has already been made) and in that vicinity a considering length of haul and general service. At one time, large part of the timber growth is native forest, in contrast in the days of the old Richmond & Danville road, a to the neighborhood of the residence of Schenck where predecessor of the Southern, the existing policy is said to planting operations have been started in what were old have been to "charge all the traffic would bear." It learned barren fields, some of which is already bearing good the market prices of lumber and the cost of its production and results. From Asheville west well into east Tennessee, figured its rates as close to the aggregate as the industry embracing the Great Smoky mountains and Balsam could stand and live. That is said to have been the avowed mountains, is doubtless the best of the hardwood timber left east of the Mississippi river. Most of the notable Richmond & Danville policy. The principle of rate making is now changed radically. The varieties will probably run in this order: poplar, oak, Southern railroad is credited with using the contrary policy, chestnut. charging rates on commodities only fairly commensurate A considerable amount of the hemlock is just coming into with the length of haul and the adverse nature of the the market. Heretofore the price of hemlock did not justify mountainous country traversed by its rails, and relatively no cutting it in the Biltmore forests and shipping it to northern higher than rates in similar country in other sections. The points, and until recently the local demand for hemlock average haul is a long one: for instance, 500 miles to had nil. Pine in central Washington, and on the rates in effect lumbermen are said to was the building formerly been practically staple material North and later all Carolina needed have made satisfactorily financial progress in recent years. could be bought at $10 a thousand feet. In years the TANNERY PLANT OF HANS REES' SONS, AT ASHEVILLE, N.C. JANUARY 16, 1909 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 52 THREE DAYS' FOREST FESTIVAL ON THE BILTMORE ESTATE. Chronicle of the Second Morning's Joyous ourneying-Dissertations on Profitable Planting-Some Mistakes and Their Lessons Value of French Ideas Americanized-A Al Fresco Luncheon With Extraordinarily Attractive Features. CHAPTER XXXIII - IN WALNUT PLANTATION. As an object lesson a student under the direction of Dr. CHAPTER XXXV.-A WHITE PINE Schenck dug up a small walnut, apparently thriving, but IMPROVEMENT CUTTING. The last direct association that these chronicles had with the suffering from frost. participants in the ever memorable three-days' forest festival Moving to another point in the plantation Dr. Schenck At Tip No. 31 Dr. Schenck halted his big class and said: of November last, on that great object lesson in conservative said: "Here I made an improvement cutting which did not forestry the Biltmore estate, left the party on the farther bank "Here are the two walnut primeval trees which induced improve. I blame the contractor and the ranger. I was of the French Broad river on the second morning of the forest me to plant on these twelve acres. We planted under the much disappointed with the result, though it does not fair, after a hazardous passage of the stream following a ten- trees walnut seedlings and planted yellow pine look so bad today, after ten years have elapsed. After it mile ride from Biltmore village in the kind of weather that everywhere, but nothing is here but the remnants. Why is was done I planted here a few thousand white pines one prevailed for uniformly from start to finish of the three it that pine under the walnut, pine under its shade, will not year old. At that age the white pine is a wee little thing days weather of that kind than which no memory can recall thrive? These trees killed every competitor in the woods and you can imagine that many of the little pines, after any nearer perfection. The first objective point of the party within their reach. Why is it? I must ask some expert who being planted, stood just long enough for a heavy oak after the passage of the French Broad, under the tutelage of knows more about it than do. The shade here or the leaf to smother them and but few are left. Icut outsome Forester C. A. Schenck, was Tip No. 28, a plantation near the proximity killed all the walnuts and all the pines. I do not of the white pines to give the others a rapid growth. I bank of the river of black walnut obtained from nuts planted know the reason. Toxic effects of root excrements is the have it entirely in my power to help all these little pines. in the fall of 1897, in furrows planted three and one- half feet theory of one of my boys, and he may have the correct Primeval white pines are growing more slowly than apart at an expense thus estimated: theory. Only from the time do we find that phenomenon others because they are always suppressed the first few Sixty-two bushels of walnuts $33.00 after the tree has fruited. The green shells are everywhere years of their lives. These little fellows here will all Plowing furrows 3.00 and may have a poisoning influence on the soil. The boy make the trees just as good as any. The influence of light Planting nuts 18.95 may be correct and he may know more than the botanists on the development of white pine seedlings is here very do. The plantation will fail in the immediate vicinity of the marked." Total $54.85 walnut trees. In the primeval woods, where all the trees started together, the other trees flourished with the CHAPTERXXXVI-EXPERIMENTS WITH FAR- Here Dr. Schenck gathered his pupils about walnut." WESTERN WOODS. pupils including all the "grown-ups" as well as the students The little black walnut that was dug up showed a root of the Biltmore Forest School and said: almost as long and stronger than the stem, and it was At Tip No. 32 Dr. Schenck said: "The idea in forestry, as in any other business, is to get rich thought by Dr. Schenck that possibly in time the little "This shows the relative rapidity of growth of a quick, and as a consequence the idea is, when you enter the backward walnuts would grow and thrive. The influence number of species - Douglas fir, European spruce, field of forestry, to plant the fastest growing species, and that of frost was very evident on the specimen dug up. Colorado spruce and white pine, all of the same age, all is black walnut. [Laughter.] That was my idea, somewhat The bill for the "doctoring" of this plantation was given equally treated and planted about one foot apart. The Americanized after I had been living here for a year or so, so I as follows: Douglas fir has done poorly. Spruce has shown very planted on this Hillside road, some above and some below slow progress. the road, all at one time. it is marvelous to see the relatively Four thousand pine yearlings $4.00 "I made a little experiment here. To the right the white big fellows below the road, and above the road the walnut Hauling and miscellaneous .30 pine planted was obtained from abandoned fields and growing smaller and smaller as the hill advances. Planting pines 7.50 that to the left was taken from the nurseries, but it all "These walnuts will grow rapidly only on a patch of land made no material difference as time went on. $ 11.80 extremely fertile with heavily fertilized soil, and on such soil "Here is a German silver fir, and after associating in these walnuts have grown in ten years to some size. I do not CHAPTER XXXIV. PINES ON AN ABANDONED FIELD. the shade with white pine it may average better. In the call these walnuts very good; they do not have the bold first seven years the silver fir does very little, but later on development that seems to be desirable and are not very Journeying to the next point of interest, Tip No. 29, the it may overtop the white pine. The upper growth of straight but they have grown fast, at least. party was addressed by Dr. Schenck as follows: white pine is better in early youth. The silver fir makes "Above the road the walnut plantation is practically a "I want to draw your attention to the manner in which better pulp than the spruce; less yield but better failure. The soil is too poor, below the road the walnut the abandoned field is growing up in yellow pine and the quality." plantation, on agricultural land heavily fertilized, has done attention of the engineers particularly to the manner in At another point on the same tip Dr. Schenck said: what I expected it to do: it has grown quickly to good size. which the old deep gullies have grown up in pine after "Here we have white pine and locusts alternating. It is "You ask why did I do this planting on this abandoned being saved by the pine humus accumulated through very notable how much better the white pine does than field. Because a few black walnut trees growing naturally up the black locusts or cherries. The black cherries here, many years. You see that the heavy, deep layers of humus here gave me a hint from nature and I took this to be black have stopped erosion entirely and brought the old field however, are now doing very well. but, volume for walnut ground, but was wrong. In ten years some of it has back to productiveness. After cutting out the misshapen, volume, give me white pine every time. Here is a row of grown ten inches, but they appear generally to be about as huge, matured trees after they had reseeded the ground, I black locusts which suffer very much from insects. The high as in 1898 above the road. It is remarkable that the slight obtained a nice, even stand of pine poles. The new trees insects do not kill but simply injure them. They will difference in soil makes such a difference in growth- have produced as a matured growth a second growth for easily grow to the size of a tie. there nearly twenty-five feet and here not twenty five inches. the future use of men." An Interesting Experiment. It shows the dependence of the walnut on the quality of the "Here I want to show another mess which I made. Three special of pines, echinata, rigida and Virginiana, soil. It is futile, it seems to me, to plant walnut on poor soil. were found growing at this point. This is a plantation of hickory, white pine and chestnut "When I found had made a mistake I tried to mend it in Attention was called to a bunch of pines killed by bark- oak. Where are they? Here and here; these little the usual way by doctoring up with yellow pine with one- beetles in 1903. growths. It shows again that on abandoned fields the year-old seedlings imported from Germany, costing about 50 Tip No. 30 was given casual attention. It consisted of a planting of nuts, as in this case, is practically out of the cents a thousand, and believe that all this walnut plantation cut stand of oaks, chestnuts and hickories, some of them question-the planting of acorns, walnuts and hickory in time will be saved by the pine; the doctoring influence of forty years old. from which an improvement cutting was nuts, to being with, is out of the question, in my opinion. the pine on the soil, I believe will be to make this a financial removed in 1898, eight cords to the acre being obtained. It We can raise the hardwoods only by the doctoring success. These measley little walnuts are now doing better, as was calculated that in about ten years a thinning would be influence of pines or in companionship with pines; we the yellow pine has taken a foothold, than before and I am made in this tract yielding perhaps three cords to the acre. cannot raise them alone. This soil was occupied by hopeful' that finally the walnut will succeed through the A prominent feature of this tip was a white oak 350 years hickories and white oaks in primeval days, and so was influence of the pine. If you come back here after ten years I old. induced to plant the same subjects to reproduce what can tell you whether my theory is correct or not." nature had here originally, and again I made a mess of it. STUDENTS AND SOME OF THE FACULTY OF THE BILTMORE FOREST SCHOOL, MAINTAINED ON THE BILTMORE ESTATE OF GEORGE W. JANUARY 16, 1909 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 53 I planted white pine, which was not a messmate in the natural seedlings of yellow poplar in a small group. I have black gum, sourwood and hickory and chestnut, primeval forest, but I found it did the best for the time being. given it a little extra light, which, as done here, may not forming the under story, and the upper story is formed How it will be three or four years from now I cannot say. seem to best way to encourage the growth, which is about of pines. Where that system is regularly used we have Trees reproduce their kind until the year of their death, be it twenty feet, but here is a regeneration which is creditable. the following classes of pines: pines 3 years old. pines 500 or 600 years. From time to time I go in with my little ax and mark a few 33, 63 and 93 years old respectively. Wese a few of the "This is a poor stand of white pine, and here is a heavy of these hardwoods, removing them, making them into older pines in the background. The idea is this: every humus which we get when the trees are planted very well money. I do the same thing in the valley over there and as thirty years when coppiced down the hardwoods cut together. Then the boles for clean and quickly and then get it goes on these groups will merge. twenty cords to the acre and we will get as many dollars a better condition generally. This seems to be the best way. "This natural seed regeneration is known very well out of it, unless the price is improved, and every thirty When they are fifteen years old you have a bole of about two abroad now as the group type of natural seed regeneration years at the same time we get out for lumber purposes long logs free of limbs, which makes fine timber. The trees I have found, to my great pleasure, that yellow poplar the older classes of the pine standards, of which we have planted closely together trim themselves. I could trim these lends itself admirably to this type, which, under conditions 30-year-old ones, 60 and 0-year old ones. at 6 cents a tree and I would select only the best trees on each as found here is very easy to handle. I will show you what "That is the French idea of coppiced understandards, acre to insure the good trees of the future." I shall mark in order to give my yellow poplars more light. which is disputed by the Germans for reasons which I Stories in Hardwoods. Above the road there are the trees of the same growth. It is do not with to dwell upon, but which seems to me At a further point the doctor said: all the nucleus for a group which is gradually enlarged just particularly well adapted to our American conditions "In this tract I would say the hardwoods, and notably the as the waves enlarge as a stone is dropped into the water. and to conditions now prevailing at Biltmore, and as I yellow poplar and white oak, were prevailing in a primeval presume they will continue to prevail for a little while. forest and were cut out about 1893, when lumbering was in This system of standards yields to me frequent revenue vogue here after the advent of the railroad into Asheville. by frequent cuts of twenty cords to the acre and at the Here we find evidence of spontaneous regeneration of yellow same time affords a certain amount of lumber. You see poplar whenever it had a little light and the foot of the that when coppiced the pines get plenty of space to forester pressed the seed into the ground. We have only a grow, but it should be done only when the pines are at few thousand acres of such forest. The majority we have in least three years old. Then I give them plenty of food, the vicinity of Biltmore was cut in 1899. What I have done light and air and merely an underscattering of here is simply a little improvement cutting, taking out the hardwoods to shade the soil. I think that system is good worst trees to make the average tree a little better and thus and financially correct, as it yields to me lumber, fuel making incidentally a little money." woods, chestnut tannic acid woods and business in other Further on the doctor called attention to alternate rows of woods, and wagon timbers from white oaks. white oak and maple, of which he said: "This is the system which I want to introduce more "When the maples were about as high as my belt they were generally. I tried it here tentatively, where it would not all attacked by fungus disease and I thought they would all be seen. I did not know what would develop; I do not die. First I came and planted here in alternate rows, where know today. Suppose that after coppicing these pines the oak had failed, yellow pine and white pine. What was FAIR NORTH CAROLINIANS PRESIDED AT A FEAST. they are blown down by a storm! I can not say today necessary to beat me was that changed my mind three times, whether it is a good system, but my experience of three each with entirely different results." years tends to prove that I am on the right track and that The tract showed a struggle for existence between white It all comes from these two seed trees. The ground is this is financially and sylviculturally the best system for pine and sugar maples, and of this Dr. Schenck said strewn with yellow poplar seeds. Every year the seeds fall; about ten seeds to the foot. not more than one of them out us. I get my second growth free of charge characteristically: of ten is good; most of them are hollow. The percentageof regeneration of the pines free of charge absolutely. I get "The slightest difference in soil brings about an entirely frequent and early hardwood timber and lumber trees, different result in sylviculture. The differences are shown by fecundity is German seeds is very poor-only about five in a hundred." fuel trees and minor woods for wagon and acid making a few steps different from place to place. There are three Here the students, under the direction of Dr. Schenck, in addition. I stand on six different legs instead of kinds of lies; first lies; second, statistics; third, theories, and I marked several trees, mostly misshapen or otherwise of standing on one. Thus it seems a safe investment. I am think slipped up on the last." poor growth, following the instructions of Dr. Schenck He enlarging this system gradually, having obtained Mr. Another plantation showed the effects of attacks of rabbits, Vanderbilt's approval, but in a tentative way, because which destroyed or discouraged the young growth year after seemed to pick out the victims with half a glance. the Lord only knows what will become of it. The year. The use of poison has been suggested to kill these, but CHAPTER XXXVIII. ACCORDING TO FRENCH METHODS primeval forest looked like this system, only magnified the estate is preserving quail and small game birds and so many times. Pine is the superstructure, oak is in the fears to use poison against the rabbits. These pests do not At a farther point on this tip Dr. Schenck said: upper structure, and I am rebuilding in a mannerwhich attack the trees after they are three years of age, as was "In the vicinity of Biltmore is an elevation known by seems to me economically correct. demonstrated by evidence found in an adjoining plantation of geologists as the French Broad base level, where we would "So far not a single tree has been burned down or been clack cherry and black locust. have found, in the first forests, bug North Carolina pines attacked by insects. I have no promise from the insects Leading his party into a dense growth of white pine and with an undergrowth of decrepit oaks, hickories and the that they will not attack these individual pines, but so oaks, Dr. Schenck said: like. The soil on this French Broad base level was not good far they have not attacked them. I find that the insects "This is white pine, and much of it has grown in the way I enough to produce good hardwoods, but did produce rather like the dense woods, but not the pines where wanted it to. From now on it may be desirable to give it more splendid yellow pine. The primeval stand of yellow pine they are swaying in the wind and where other space. Hard maple has been planted here for the benefit of here had an average of 5,000 or 6,000 feet to the acre. conditions appear not so advantageous to producing the white pine. The dead limbs are relatively small. so they When the pine was cut, about 1883 or 1880, the hardwoods insects. It may be the very way to eradicate the insects. can be rubbed off without leaving heavy scars and laying had the upper hand and were left intact. These are scrub "It is not necessary that the pines should be distributed themselves open to fungus growth. In other places we have oaks found here, the best having been left, the poorest cut singly over the scope of the wood lands; they may stand instances of where white pine and sugar maple had outgrown out. three or four years ago this was a stand which I would in a little group here or over yonder. We have a few the pine because the one was planted before the other." trim into the pole stage; which is to say there was a stand white pines over here that are welcome. coming in free The last lecture concluded a walk of four miles and the of trees of about thirty cords to the acre in which the pines and promising good financial results. Should you come party adjourned to their carriages. were the minority and the hardwoods the large majority. I back in ten years, instead of the 200 acres on this tip I CHAPTER XXXVIL REGENERATION OF YELLOW POPLAR have cut the hardwoods out, coppiced them down and you think you will see 2,000 acres treated in the same way, see that in three years they have come up from the stumps where the conditions are repeated, not taking here and there a spot, and having good chances for At Tip No. 34 the forester addressed his students as follows: rather rapidly. "This system of sylviculture, which I decided to transportation. "The yellow labels which you see here indicate poplar. Ido introduce here and everywhere else in the larger part of the not show all the seedlings here. The yellow seedlings in this CHAPTER LUNCHEON IN THE OPEN. forests where pine alone will yield lumber, has a growth of cover are the progeny of two or three big trees down there. here is one having approximately 1,400 feet and one of 750 coppiced understandards. It is the French system particularly of sylviculture or forest utilization. In the With appetites borne of strenuous climbing and the feet to the right. These few trees which I still find here and coppiced understandards we have two series of forests, an fillip of hours spent in the open, the forest fair there in the hollows, all left of the original forest, give me a participants here rested for luncheon It was served out wonderful reproduction and dense stand of second growth of upper consisting of lumber trees, and a lower consisting of of doors, around an old log farm house, now and for strong poplar. In this grove I find the first indication of fuel trees. The fuel trees are the oaks particularly and VANDERBILT, NEAR ASHEVILLE, N. C. THE ELEVENTH LEFT, ON THE OPPOSITE PAGE, IS OF DR C. A. SCHENCK. JANUARY 16, 1909 AMERICAN LUMBERMAN. 54 some time utilized under the patronage of Mrs. William In the language of an appreciative visitor from a far fame of North Carolina's fair daughters. Vanderbilt as a cooking school for children from on and near northern city, whose apparent disrespect was apparent The cooking school was formerly used as a Sunday the Biltmore estate, and some of those children were mighty only and was hidden by his admiring enthusiasm- school by the junior residents on the estate, but for that proud of having been entrusted with the preparation and "S-a-y, did you expect to see anything like that in this purpose has been temporarily abandoned. Under the cooking of the hot biscuit which were passed around in wilderness? Talk about your belles! Did North Carolina immediate charge of Mrs. Dr. Wheeler it has now a class quantities to a ravenous and appreciative crowd. They were produce these, really? Are they types of their kind of this of tenant's daughters who are being skilled in cookery, a gastronomic success that would have done credit to a section? Then I am going to move down here." and its influence through them for good and for friendly French chef or, higher praise, a southern "mammy." The Those of whom he spoke, whose abounding vitality was feeling upon the farmers and others resident upon the biscuits were supplemented by sandwiches, meats, coffee, reflected in superb forms, blooming complexions, beaming Biltmore estate is marked. pies and a profusion of other things provided by Dr. eyes, supplemented by the very latest, richest "creations" And in the enjoyment of their hearty luncheon the Schenck's general and Mrs. Schenck's immediate and in the dressmaker's and milliner's line, were Mrs. C. A. good forester, his fair assistants and his gusts may safely practical foresight, with an experienced understanding of the Schenck, Mrs. Dr. Wheeler, Miss Rita Rees, the Misses be left for the time being. robustness of appetite of hungry scores who had spent the Bessie and Bonnie Reeves, Miss Martha E. Race, whose morning in hill climbing. And the way they were served! hospitality and personal graces added that day to the (To Be Continued.) JSTOR: Mississippi Valley Historical Review: Vol. 42, No. 3, p. 577 Page 2 of 3 BOOK REVIEWS 577 The Biltmore Story: Recollections of the Beginning of Forestry in the United States. By Carl Alwin Schenck. Edited by Ovid Butler. (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, for the American Forest History Foundation, 1955. xvi + 224 pp. Illustrations and index. $3.95.) This interesting little volume tells the fascinating story of Dr. Carl Schenck's struggles, triumphs, disappointments, and failures as one of the first three professionally trained foresters in the United States. Based on his memoirs the account has all the strengths and weaknesses of recollections, although Schenck obviously kept very copious notes and records to which he referred in writing his memoirs. The editor has selected the materials for this volume to make a chronological arrangement of Schenck's story, but the author's constant interjections often disturb the arrangement. Dr. Schenck, a German-born and German-trained forester, was employed in 1895 by George W. Vanderbilt (grandson of the fabulous Cornelius) as forester at Vanderbilt's newly acquired and luxurious Biltmore estate near Asheville, North Carolina. Although not interested in forestry for itself, Vanderbilt wanted his extensive woodland holdings to be managed and preserved (profitably) by the application of scientific principles of forestry - a field which at that time was virtually non-existent in the United States. Schenck's story gives us the third account by the first professional leaders of forestry in this country, the other two being those of his contemporaries, Gifford Pinchot and Bernhard Fernow. Dr. Schenck was evidently not hesi- tant in stating his opinion about the errors and shortcomings of these men, as well as in passing judgment freely on forestry policies in this country and abroad. This, however, is more than a book about forestry. The historian un- doubtedly will be as much interested in Schenck's views on people and issues prominent around the turn of the century, and in his social and political philosophy, as in the wide variety of professional matters which this energetic forester handled. Interest is also increased by Schenck's comments about the great and near-great who were seen at Biltmore in the heyday of the Vanderbilt dynasty: Theodore Roosevelt, Pinchot, Alice Longworth, Fred- erick Law Olmsted, Richard Morris Hunt (architect of Biltmore House), John S. Sargent, Paul Leicester Ford, Lord Bryce and other foreign digni- taries, President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard, and many others. Schenck's effort to put private forestry on a paying basis at Biltmore did not prove to be a financial success and his relations with Vanderbilt de- teriorated. This turn of events, however, does not detract from the importance of his work or from the boldness of his vision. Though he strove for ob- jectivity in his memoirs, Schenck was not free from bias as he recalled his heartaches in connection with a project that was far in advance of the times. Most impressive to the reviewer was Schenck's account of Biltmore Forest http://www.jstor.org/view/0161391x/di952304/95p0267x/0?currentResult=0161391x%2bdi95230 9/21/2005 JSTOR: Mississippi Valley Historical Review: Vol. 42, No. 3, p. 578 Page 2 of 3 578 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HISTORICAL REVIEW School the first such school in this country - which he established. After he was expelled from Biltmore and the school was terminated at that lo- cation, he traveled through the forests of Germany, Switzerland, and France, and across America from the Adirondacks to the Pacific Coast, in a vain at- tempt to maintain his experiment in the training of practical foresters with the hope that they would be employed by private lumbermen. Although the school was abandoned in 1913, it would seem that Schenck made his greatest and most original imprint upon the future of forestry in the United States through his educational ideas. The value of the book is enhanced by many excellent illustrations, and it is remarkably free from typographical errors. It deserves a much wider reading and use than it is likely to receive. Northwest Missouri State College JOHN L. HARR The Strange Career of Jim Crow. By C. Vann Woodward. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955. xii + 155 pp. Suggested reading. $2.50.) At a very appropriate time this little volume makes available in print the James W. Richard Lectures in History, delivered by Professor Woodward to an unsegregated audience at the University of Virginia in the fall of 1954. The author, an acknowledged specialist in the post-Reconstruction history of the South, has exploded a myth, widely accepted as historic fact, that the southern system of Negro segregation with all its ramifications was established by the revered "Redeemers" who overthrew the Negro-carpetbag- scalawag governments and restored white supremacy in the former Con- federate states. He has shown that except for school segregation, which was introduced by the Radicals themselves, the race policies accepted and followed in the South in the years immediately following "redemption" were much milder than they became later. he policies of proscription, segregation, and disfranchisement that are often described as the immutable 'folkways' of the South, impervious alike to legislative reform and armed intervention, are of more recent origin and the belief that they are immutable and unchangeable is not supported by history." For some time after Reconstruction social contacts between the races were as a rule close and friendly, possibly a carry-over from slavery times. This was especially true of the conservative upper class, who sought Negro sup- port on the ground that they were protecting the Negroes from the harsher designs of the (lower class. This policy was tinged with sentimentalism and paternalism and was making a virtue of necessity, since the Negro vote was still important enough to constitute a balance of power between rival politi- cal groups. Although the author does not mention this, southern whites even attempted to justify certain types of segregation as a necessary protection for http://www.jstor.org/view/0161391x/di952304/95p0267x/1?searchUrl=http%3a//www.jstor.org/se... 9/21/2005 2/15/2019 Playground of the Rich & Famous PORTLAND MAGAZINE 2016. Summerguide. 10 Summerguide 2016 | view this story as a pdf The true historical scope of Acadia, sweeping north from Bath to the border of Canada, has hosted some of the world's most famous names within its borders. From Staff & Wire Reports It was Acadia's rugged shores and startling natural beauty that first drew artists from the Hudson River School of painting to Maine during the 19th century. Their romantic renderings of Acadia's wild beauty, and the popularity of the "luminism" painting movement that they championed, began to attract the wealthy families of industrialists and traders, keen to claim their corner of this pristine summer retreat. These well-heeled summer visitors flocked from Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City to the shores of Acadia, where they began competing with one another to build the most palatial estates and enviable gardens, sealing Acadia's reputation as a getaway for the upper echelons of society. The seasonal influx was SO dramatic, the visitors even garnered their own label: "rusticators." Of this illustrious crowd, several names jump out: the Roosevelts, the Astors, and the DuPonts. The crown of America's mercantile aristocracy have all summered in the area over the years, gilding Acadia with the luster of their wealth and mystery. Perennial summer visitor Norman Mailer was an acute observer of both the people and the geography that defined this area. Norman Mailer on Otter Cliffs "I had heard the growl of black waters on black rock at Otter Cliffs," Mailer writes in Harlot's Ghost, in a vignette he later reprised for Esquire. Challenged climb to the sheer, slippery monument as a rite of passage, the young Mailer risked a look oily face reminded him of "human body parts." Later in life, Mailer would inflict his own Maine initiation on his children. In an interview with Portland Magazine, Mailer's youngest son, John Buffalo Mailer, recalled summers spent preparing to climb Mount Katahdin. "It started to hail as we were on the middle of the Knife Edge. I don't think I had ever been quite as scared in the eight years I had been alive, than I was in that moment." [See "When Your Name Is Mailer, You Don't Phone It In," by Colin W. Sargent: bit.ly/PMNormanMailer] "Mount Desert is more luminous than the rest of Maine," Norman declares in Harlot's Ghost. The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, who'd spent many summers here with his family, certainly knew how to pick the perfect summer spot. During the 1970s, the family rented "Fortune's Rock," a stunning 1937 residence cantilevered over Somes Sound. Designed as a summer abode for New York artists and heiress Clare Fargo Thomas, the sleek lines of the building are in harmony with its breathtaking surroundings. Mailer and his kids were particularly fond of leaping from the timbered balcony of Fortune's Rock twenty feet into the icy water of the sound below. For Mailer, Acadia represented a sanctuary of calm from the storm of the New York literati scene. Astors in Acadia The Astor clan, hailing originally from Germany before finding their fortune in the fur trade, owned mansions, hotels, and cottages in Bar Harbor and around Mount Desert. A fixture of the "rusticator" scene, their wealth and glamor enhanced Acadia's reputation as a summer destination. Scandal rocked the family recently, when it was revealed that Anthony Marshall of the Astor clan had taken advantage of his aging mother's slipping mind to plunder her fortune. Brooke Astor, a prominent socialite and philanthropist, kept a much- beloved estate called Cove End, which overlooks the Northeast Harbor Yacht Club. In her will, Astor gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars to Maine charities, including the Maine Community Foundation. Marshall passed away in 2014, aged 90. He only served two months of his three-year prison term due to ailing health. The New Newport While we may always associate the Vanderbilt name with the flashy appeal of Newport, Rhode Island, many of the family preferred the relative simplicity and peace of Bar Harbor. Patriarch William Henry Vanderbilt first removed to Maine in the early 1880s. George Vanderbilt, William's youngest and supposedly favorite son, was evidently smitten with us. Upon his father's death, George bought the former Gouverneur Morris Ogden Cottage in Bar Harbor, renaming the estate Pointe d'Acadie. In 1895, older brother William Kissam Vanderbilt, seeking refuge from the media storm surrounding his divorce, sailed up to Bar Harbor on his yacht 2/15/2019 Playground of the Rich & Famous PORTLAND MAGAZINE Valiant, at the time the largest vessel in the world. William spent much of that summer moored off Pointe d'Acadie, avoiding the press. According to the New York Social Diary, "Unlike at Newport, few traces remain of the Vanderbilts at Bar Harbor. Many of the houses they occupied: Mossley Hall, Pointe d'Acadie, Islecote, have been demolished." Despite their physical absence, traces of the Vanderbilts can be found in the old guest books of the famous inns and restaurants of Acadia. Camelot northeast Before she was Mrs. John F. Kennedy, before her paparazzi-flashed years as "Jackie O," or her hidden decades on Park Avenue as an editor at Viking Press, young Jacqueline Bouvier spent her summers not simply as a debutante in Newport, Rhode Island, but also up here in Bar Harbor. "The Auchinclosses had an estate up here," says Denise Morgan, co-owner of Oli's Trolley of Bar Harbor, "and no doubt visited here every summer with Jackie and her sister, Lee Radziwill. The estate is gone now-the fire of 1947 took it-but I believe part of the wall is still there," right at the corner of Routes 3 and 233, also known as Eagle Lake Road. Trolley drivers mention it as they pass by, talking about the rich and famous of Bar Harbor. "So Jackie Bouvier walked the streets of Bar Harbor,' one of our tourists remarked once while taking the tour." We can't vouch for the streetwalking, but the presence of the nation's top debutante must have made the lovely Bar Harbor summers here just a bit lovelier. But wait a minute. Deborah Dwyer of the Bar Harbor Historical Society says instead that "Hugh D. Auchincloss stayed at 'Redwood.' It's an important early William Ralph Emerson Shingle Style design. It's very much still standing, and that's where Jackie would have stayed." As for the lost house mentioned by the trolley company, Dwyer has told us, "I have a 'before' and 'after' picture of the house that stood there on a slide presentation I do to show the property before and after the school was built. Part of the wall survived, but the wrought-iron gate disappeared. The last people who had it were the Sultan ruler of Turkey and Princess Bernadina." Only in Bar Harbor would a sultan owning a house in Bar Harbor be floated as a more plausible anecdote.