Carl A. Schenck

After he received his Ph.D., Schenck was recommended by Brandis for a job in the United States working for George W. Vanderbilt in North Carolina.[1] Schenck accepted the job and sailed to America, arriving in New York City on April 5, 1895.[11] He became the third formerly trained forester in the United States.[7]

George W. Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Estate near Asheville, North Carolina, included some 120,000 acres (490 km²) of mountain land.[12] With the recommendation of Frederick Law Olmsted, Vanderbilt had decided during the early 1890s that he wanted his forests managed using the best scientific principles of forestry.[12] He first hired Gifford Pinchot as the estate's forester.[12] When he arrived at Biltmore, Schenck worked under Pinchot; the latter was transitioning to work for the U.S. Division of Forestry.[10] However, Schenck found that his work crews and the sawmill would only take instruction from Pinchot—because he was a foreigner.[10] Schenck was frustrated, especially because Vanderbilt had said he would be in charge of the daily operations.[10] Letters written between Pinchot and Schenck show his increasing frustration and the growing hostility between the two men.[10]

In September 1895, Pinchot returned to North Carolina and gave Schenck the independence he needed to truly be Biltmore Estate's forester—as long as he finish Pinchot's outstanding projects first.[12][10] Schenck's first project was in the virgin growth Big Creek area where water was used to transport felled trees because there were few roads.[13] This also meant that he could only harvest tulip poplar trees which could float.[13] Because he had to leave so many other varieties of trees behind, " he spared no tulip poplars to make up for the overall shortfall."[13] His work crew build a temporary splash dam, smoothing Big Creek to create a sluice, ruining the creek for fishing.[13] However, the water strategy used at this location was Pinchot's, not Schenck's.[10] Schenck had no prior experience with dams.[10] When rains came, the logs moved downstream but caused significant damage to other properties, crops, and bridges.[10]

As a result of this experience, Schenck determined that his methods were better and that American forestry—and Pinchot—was wasteful.[10] He wrote, "As Americans are of the opinion that forestry and tree-planting are the same, I wish to say, that no reasonable forester would plant, where nature regenerates, and where woodlands can be bought at a price per acre, at which planting per acre cannot be done. I repeat, so absurd as it might sound, the disbursements for sylvicultural operations should not be charged to Biltmore Forest, but to 'Sport and Landscape.'"[10] Schenck admitted that he was so disappointed with the program at Biltmore that he nearly resigned from his position.[10] Pinchot blamed Schenck for not letting go of "his German ways."[10]

However, Schenck renewed his contract with Vanderbilt for the next year.[10] By the middle of 1896, he had instituted his distinct version of German forestry, adapted for a forest in North Carolina.[10] He wanted to make Biltmore a sustainable operation.[10] Therefore, he looked for "projects that preserved some of the woods and allowed for natural regeneration as well as plantings."[10] He returned exhausted farms into productive forests, set up firebreaks, established road systems, and created logging and lumbering operations.[12][7] He also pushed the North Carolina legislature for laws that benefited forestry.[7] Schenck then signed a ten-year contract with Vanderbilt which also provided insurance.[10]

Between 1901 and 1903, Vanderbilt's financial situation changed.[10] In 1903, Vanderbilt cut Schenck's departmental budget by some 50% and told him to borrow the rest from local banks.[10] During 1903 and 1904, Schenck put all efforts toward earning a profit for the estate, including forgoing his usual two-month vacation in Germany.[10] Although he did not earn enough to bail out Biltmore, Schenck did prove his worth to his employer.[10] In 1905 and 1906, when the financial situation looked better, Schenck did borrow from banks, trying to show that his forestry operation could support itself without patronage.[10] This actually worked; however, 1907 brought a financial crisis to the United States.[10]

In March 1908, Schenck wrote Vanderbilt that things looked bad; he needed more operational money, but was reluctant to take out another loan.[10] He also knew Vanderbilt could not increase his budget.[10] Vanderbilt suggested selling some of his Pisgah Forest lands.[14] As this was part of Schenck long term masterpiece which he said from the beginning needed time to see a profit, "the two men squabbled over resources and plans for the future, and their relationship quickly ruptured."[14][10] Schenck wrote, “I did not make the slightest attempt to find a purchaser for Pisgah Forest. With that sale of Pisgah Forest, my beloved Biltmore Forest School would lose its working field, its demonstration field, its experiment stations, and its very basis.”[10] Schenck raised tuition for his school and tried to sell lumber to raise the needed funds.[10] He also expanded the practice of taking hunting parties into the forest for a fee, signing a $10,000 annual agreement with the Asheville and Chicago Hunting Club while Vanderbilt was in Europe.[10] William Howard Taft was elected president in 1908, announcing in 1909 his desire to make lumber free to all Americans through the National Forest program.[10] This quickly put an end to any hopes for forestry profits at Biltmore.[10]

In March 1909, Schenck got into a disagreement with Charles D. Beadle, general manager of the Biltmore Estate, resulting in Beadle charging him for assault and battery for "boxing his ears."[7][10] The two had been jockeying for position and funding with Vanderbilt.[10] When the court case came before a justice of the peace in Asheville, Schenk was only fined one dollar.[7] However, since their relationship was already tainted, Vanderbilt used this incident and his annoyance over the private hunting contract to ask Schenck to resign on April 24, 1909.[7][10] Schenck stayed with Biltmore through November 1909, the end of his contract.[10] Schenck also sued Vanderbilt for back pay.[14]

In 1898, with the permission of Vanderbilt, Schenck founded the Biltmore Forest School, the first forestry school in North America.[15] The Biltmore Forest School provide a one-year course of study, with a curriculum, focused on pairing traditional classroom lectures with extensive hands-on, practical forest management field training.[2] Schenck operated the school in his spare time on the Vanderbilt's lands from 1898 to 1909, turning out many of the leading American foresters of the era.[2]

During the first five years of the school, Schenck's own ideology evolved.[10] Although using his German training, "he began to develop his own ideas about forestry and ultimately fashioned his own new and comprehensive model of forestry for the United States."[10]

Although the Biltmore Forest School was financially self-sustaining, Schenck had to change locations after he left Biltmore in 1909.[2] He continued the school through 1913, traveling with his students and operating from Germany and forest locations in several states in America.[16]

As a consultant, Schenck helped create the forestry school curriculum at Sewanee: The University of the South.[10] In 1898, he was also a senior consultant for the United States Division of Forestry, working under Pinchot.[10] He traveled to the deep South's longleaf pine forests several times to conduct surveys.[10] However, this working relationship only lasted four months because of Pinchot and Schenck's divergence in policy and methodology.[10]

From 1916 to 1918, Schenck was a guest lecturer for forestry at the University of Giessen. After World War I, he was a guest speaker at American universities and also led forestry tours in France, Germany, and Switzerland for American and English students.[1][2][8][7] He wrote articles and textbooks during the 1920s and 1930s and was a consultant in locations around the world.[2][4] From 1923 to 1937, he was visiting professor at the department of forestry of the University of Montana in Missoula.[8]

After World War II, Schenck assisted American officials with relief and forestry programs in Germany.[2] The Americans appointed him chief forester in Hessen.[8] In May 1951, he went on a national lecture tour for the American Forestry Association.[17] He also attended a reunion of Biltmore Forest School alumni.[8] He made his last visit to the United States in 1952 when North Carolina State University gave him an honorary degree.[8]