Carl A. Schenck

(middle, front row) and other students, Saxony, 1892Schenck was born on March 25, 1868, in Darmstadt, now the state of Hesse, Germany. He studied botany in Darmstadt before enrolling in college. He then attended the University of Tübingen School of Forestry. However, Schenck had to withdraw from the school because of a severe lung infection. After recovering from his illness, Schenck enrolled in the forest school of the University of Giessen in 1888. There, he studied under visiting professor Dietrich Brandis, who was considered as the world's leading forester at the time. In 1890, Schenck became a forest assessor for the state forest service in Hessen; such service was required as part of his degree. In the summers between 1891 and 1894, he worked as an assistant and as a secretary to foresters Brandis and Wilhelm Philipp Daniel Schlich. Schenck completed his Ph.D. degree in early 1895, summa cum laude. At Giessen, he also passed law examinations. ==Career==

Biltmore Estate 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. He became the third formally trained forester in the United States. Vanderbilt first hired Gifford Pinchot as the estate's forester. However, his work crews and the sawmill would only take instruction from Pinchot and ignored Schenck because he was a foreigner. As a result, the work crew overharvested tulip poplar trees that floated, leaving many other varieties of trees behind. This property included part of Schenck's long-term "masterpiece", the Biltmore Forest School, which he had always said needed time to see a profit. The Biltmore Forest School provided a one-year course of study, with a curriculum, focused on pairing traditional classroom lectures with extensive hands-on, practical forest management field training. Lecturer and consultant As a consultant, Schenck helped create the forestry school curriculum at Sewanee: The University of the South. He also attended a reunion of Biltmore Forest School alumni. He made his last visit to the United States in 1952 when North Carolina State University gave him an honorary degree. == Honors ==

• Schenck was presented with a ceremonial sword used for deer hunting by the German state of Hessen when he retired in 1939. • Alumni of the Biltmore Forest School placed a plaque at the site in his honor in 1950. • A redwood grove at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, near Orrick, California, was purchased and dedicated in his honor in 1951. A plaque at the site reads, “In memory of Carl Alwin Schenck, 1867-1955. This memorial forest is dedicated to honor a great teacher and founder of the Biltmore Forest School, the first school of forestry in the New World. His ashes have been spread here among the trees he loved.” • In 2015, the Forest History Society funded an Emmy Award-winning documentary about Schenck, ''America's First Forest: Carl Schenck and the Asheville Experiment''. == Personal life ==

In 1896, Schenck married Adele Bopp (1874–1929) of Darmstadt, Germany. During World War II, Schenck stayed in Lindenfels and taught local boys when the schools closed. He also shared care packages that were mailed to him by Biltmore Forest School alumni with his students. After the war, he spent ten years fighting the United States in court to reclaim money and property that was confiscated in the war. However, he was unsuccessful in this Alien Property Custody Suit, despite the efforts of his former students on his behalf. Schenck died in Lindenfels on May 17, 1955, at the age of 87, after an extended illness. At his request, his funeral was held in Germany, but his ashes were spread at the Schenck Forest in North Carolina. == Legacy ==

Schenck became one of the most influential people in the field of forestry in the United States, and he trained many of the next generation of leadership in the field. He also invented the Biltmore Stick, which is still used today to measure tree heights and diameters. In addition, Schenck had his students develop the tools and tables that were used by the federal government. However, Schenck's name was rarely included in histories of forestry, in part, because he was German during an era when the United States fought two wars against Germany. Pinchot wrote, "We in the Division of Forestry fully recognized the necessity for professional education in Forestry in this country, but we had small confidence in the leadership of Dr. Fernow and Dr. Schenck. We distrusted them and their German lack of faith in American Forestry. What we wanted was American foresters trained by Americans in American ways for the work ahead in American forests." After meeting Schenck, President Theodore Roosevelt said, “Nobody has a right to work here for so long without becoming a citizen of the United States!" Pinchot and Schenck also had differing ideas as to how to manage forests, with the former preferring public lands and the latter preferring private lands. As historian Hill notes, "Though the two shared the common goal of popularizing forestry in the United States, their means of meeting that goal conflicted as much as their definition of forestry." Because Pinchot was in charge of the U.S. Forest Service, his vision dominated and shaped forestry in the United States. However, modern historians have found that Schenck's role was greater than what had been depicted in the historical narrative. == Selected publications ==

• Our Yellow Poplar: Notes and Tables Showing Contents and Value of Poplar Logs and Poplar Trees . United States, 1896 • White Pine Timber Supplies: Letter from the Secretary of Agriculture, Transmitting, in Response to Senate Resolution of April 14, 1897. with Cornelius Clarkson Vermeule, Gifford Pinchot, Henry Solon Graves, and Robert Thomas Hill. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1896 • Guide for an Excursion through Biltmore Forest, on September 17th and 18th, 1897. United States: American Forestry Association,1897. • Forestry as Applied to Reservations Used as Parks. United States: American Forestry Association, 1898 • Our Commonwealth and the Necessity of Forest Preservation: Address Delivered at the First Meeting of the North Carolina Forestry Society, at New Bern, N.C., March 2, 1898. North Carolina, 1898 OCLC 887107759 • Forestry for Kentucky: A Steriopticon-Lecture Delivered at the Invitation of the Louisville Board of Trade by C.A. Schenck, Ph. D. Forester of the Biltmore Estate. United States: Louisville Board of Trade, 1899 • In the Woods of Minnesota: This Expert German Forester Travels Over the Site of the Proposed Great National Park and as a Result Presents Some Considerations that the People of the State and Country Cannot Afford to Ignore, Large Profits from Small Expenditure and Labor. United States, G.E. Cole, 1899 • Forestry vs. lumbering. Asheville, NC: The French Broad Press, 1900. OCLC 83896742 • Some Business Problems of American Forestry. Asheville, NC: The French Broad Press, 1900 • The Problem of Forestry in Minnesota. St. Paul, Minn: The Pioneer Press Company, 1900 • The Commercial Side of Governmental and Private Forestry. United States, Pennsylvania Forestry Association, 1901 • Financial Results of Forestry at Biltmore. Asheville, NC, 1903. OCLC 71075215 • Lectures on Forest Policy. Second part, Forestry Conditions in the United States. Asheville, NC: 1904 • Forest Utilization, Mensuration. Sewanee, TN: The University Press, 1904 • Textbooks of Forestry. Sewanee, TN: The University Press, 1904 • Forest Mensuration. Sewanee, TN: The University Press,1905 • Biltmore Lectures on Sylviculture. Albany, NY: Brandow Printing Co., State Legislative Printers, 1905 • Forest Management, 1907 • ''Cruisers' Tables Giving the Contents of Sound Trees, and their Dependence on Diameter, Number of Logs in the Tree, Taper of Tree and Efficiency of Mill. Biltmore, NC: 1909. OCLC 16654564'' • Forest Finance: Guide to Lectures Delivered at the Biltmore Forest School. Asheville, NC: Inland Press, 1909 • Forest Protection: Guide to Lectures Delivered at the Biltmore Forest School. Asheville, NC: Inland Press, 1909 • Forest Policy. 2nd edition. Darmstadt, Germany: C. F. Winter, 1911 • Logging and Lumbering; or, Forest Utilization. A Textbook for Forest Schools. Darmstadt, Germany: L.C. Wittich, 1912. • The Art of the Second Growth, Or American Sylviculture. 3rd edition. Albany: Brandow Printing Company, 1912 • Forest Utilization in Europe: Germany, Norway, Sweden,, Czechslovokia, Finland, France. Washington, D.C.: National Lumber Manufacturers Association, 1924. • ''Precarious Situation in World's Spruce Wood Supply.'' Canada, F.J.D. Barnjum, 1930 • Forestry in Germany: Present and Prospective. United States, Newsprint Service Bureau, 1948. • The Biltmore Immortals: Biographies of 50 American Boys Graduating from the Biltmore Forest School which was the First School of American Forestry on American Soil. 2 volumes. Darmstadt, Germany: L.C. Wittich, 1950. OCLC 7152082 • The Cavalcade of Trees for the Great: Being the Tour of Carl Alwin Schenck in America. St. Paul: American Forestry Association, 1951. OCLC 258318466 • The Biltmore Story: Recollections of the Beginning of Forestry in the United States. St. Paul: American Forest History Foundation, 1955 • The Birth of Forestry in America: Biltmore Forest School, 1898-1913. Durham, NC: The Forest History Society and the Appalachian Consortium, 1974 • Cradle of Forestry in America: The Biltmore Forest School, 1898-1913. Introduction by Steven Anderson. Durham, NC: Forest History Society, 1998 • The Forestry Interests of the South. Reprint from the Tradesman.(n.d.) OCLC 315735331 == References ==