"The importance of the Biltmore Forest School was that it laid the groundwork for everything that has come after it," Hafer said. "It was really the first conservation education program in the United States, because it was here that people started learning that we had reached the point where we can’t just cut down all the trees and walk away.

Schenck had earned a doctoral degree in forestry in his native Germany, Hafer said, and he came to America in 1895 to manage the forest properties on George W. Vanderbilt’s Biltmore estate near Asheville. Vanderbilt’s estate encompassed more than 100,000 acres stretching from just south of Asheville to Mount Pisgah, near Brevard, and his interest in improving the forestlands couldn’t have come at a better time, according to Steven Anderson, president and CEO of the Forest History Society, which has its national headquarters in Durham, N.C.

"For several decades before the turn of the century, the government had been giving land to people to encourage settlement of the country," Anderson said. "People who got land with forests usually burned off the trees for farm fields, or they cut the trees and sold them for lumber."

In many cases, the landowners would leave after the timber was harvested to avoid paying taxes on the land and the lumber, he said, and in other cases, the farmers would over-farm the land, and the soil would be depleted.

Consequently, much of the land Vanderbilt purchased in the western North Carolina mountains suffered from extensive erosion, poor soil conditions, damaged creeks and waterways, and lack of proper attention.

Vanderbilt’s first forest manager was Gifford Pinchot, an American who had studied forestry in Europe and was one of the first men to practice forestry in America, according to Anderson. He also later became the first head of the U.S. Forest Service and was elected to two terms as governor of his home state of Pennsylvania.

When Pinchot left Biltmore to work with private landowners in the Northeast, Vanderbilt hired Schenck. Building on Pinchot’s early efforts to rejuvenate Vanderbilt’s forestlands, Schenck began an aggressive effort to restore the damaged areas. His records show that he replanted native trees as well as experimental species, and allowed natural reforestation of many areas where hardwoods had been cleared or burned.

The impact that Vanderbilt and his two forest managers, Pinchot and Schenck, had on the forestlands in western North Carolina was enormous, according to Hafer. "Vanderbilt had a dream of what he wanted the area to look like, and had the foresight to bring in professionals to help him achieve that goal," he said.

The fulfillment of Vanderbilt’s dream is evident in the Pisgah National Forest, which now includes much of Vanderbilt’s estate. It was the first forest east of the Mississippi River to be designated a national forest, and has long been considered one of the nation’s premier national forests.

It was Schenck’s contribution as founder of the Biltmore Forest School that has had the most far-reaching effect on America’s forests, according to the Forest History Society’s Anderson. "Dr. Schenck was very practical in his approach to forest management and in getting others interested in the stewardship of the forestlands," Anderson said.

His idea for the Biltmore Forest School grew from the on-the-job training he gave his apprentices, according to Anderson, as well as his desire to reach more people with the message of forest management. During its 14 years, the school educated more than 365 students. Some 300 of the school’s students graduated, and many immediately began forestry careers.

In this way, Anderson said, Schenck’s influence and the techniques and philosophies he taught were spread throughout the United States and other countries around the world. Several graduates of the Biltmore Forest School went on to become directors of the forest services in their respective states. Schenck’s first apprentice, and one of the school’s first graduates was Overton Price, who later served as associate forester of the U.S. Forest Service under Pinchot.

Today, the school’s original summertime classroom building and several other buildings still stand on their original site in the heart of the Pisgah National Forest. These buildings and a section of the forest around the site form the Cradle of Forestry in America, which was established within Pisgah Forest in 1964 to recognize the beginning of professional forestry and forestry education in America. In 1968, Congress designated the 6,500-acre Cradle of Forestry as a National Historic Site.

Schenck and his students used the Pisgah Forest site until 1909, when Schenck left his position as Vanderbilt’s forester, Hafer said. For the next few years, the teacher and his students traveled year-round to forest operations throughout the U.S. and Europe.

By 1913, more than 80 American colleges and universities were offering forestry training, and the Biltmore Forest School was unable to withstand the increased competition for students. The school did not reopen after the class of 1913 graduated.

Today in North Carolina, the legacy of Dr. Schenck and his Biltmore Forest School lives on through the forestry education programs of the state’s colleges, universities and community schools. Larry Tombaugh, dean of the College of Forest Resources at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, says the people there are proud to share in the legacy of the Biltmore Forest School. "It’s a source of pride to me and everyone here to be at a university and a forestry school with a strong link to the beginning of professional forestry in this country," Tombaugh said.

Schenck also believed that North Carolina State was continuing the tradition of excellence in forestry training, Tombaugh said, adding that when Schenck received an honorary doctor of forest science degree from the school in 1952, he said that he viewed the forestry programs as the embodiment of the legacy of the Biltmore Forest School.

One of the most important ways the NCSU College of Forest Resources and School of Forestry carry on the tradition of the Biltmore Forest School is the continued focus on hands-on experience. "We’re one of the few forestry schools in the United States that has a forestry summer camp where some of the field skills are learned," Tombaugh said. "And we still spend a lot of time, effort and money on field trips for our students to get field experiences. These experiential things are very important to us."