Lessons from Yesterday’s Foresters

Extract

Last summer, a possible COVID exposure at work sent me into quarantine a few days before the 4^th of July. After getting tested and with my holiday plans scrapped, I loaded up on groceries to settle in for a long weekend- or more-alone while awaiting my test results. I was working the summer for the Forest Service at the Bent Creek Experimental Forest.

Located in Asheville, NC, Bent Creek, like other Asheville landmarks including the Biltmore Estate and Biltmore Forest School, is important to the history of professional forestry in the United States. It was the first Forest Service experimental forest east of the Mississippi River and also the workplace of Margret Abell, the first female professional forester employed with the agency. Clarence Kortstain published a highly influential study detailing oak germination based on his tests there. Korstain later went on to be the founding dean of Duke University’s forestry program. These days at Bent Creek, a new study using the German shelterwood technique called Femelschlag may be a key to making sure oaks remain a major component of southern Appalachian forests.