The 1931 search for a new experimental forest in the Ouachita National Forest

Abstract

While the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station had established its first experimental forest at Bent Creek in 1925, the Southern Forest Experiment Station (SOFES) had no such designated area upon the passage of the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act of 1928 (which formally codified the development of experimental forests). With the approval of Regulation L-20 on August 7, 1930, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service provided the process and protocols for establishing a “comprehensive” system of experimental forests and ranges and natural areas on national forest lands (Clapp 1931: 1). In addition to authorizing forest research of a “broad scope,” the McSweeney-McNary Act “crystallize[d]” efforts to establish experimental forests to allow both for research and fieldbased demonstration of concepts (Clapp 1938: 834). Research in the shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata)- dominated forests on the Ouachita National Forest had started ramping up with the establishment of a “branch station” in Hot Springs, AR, in 1929 and an additional appropriation to the SOFES in FY1931 for additional management-oriented studies (SOFES 1930).

Parent Publication

• Celebrating 100 years of forest science: an abridged history of the Southern Research Station

Citation

Wahlenberg, W.G.; Bragg, Don C.; McDaniel, Virginia L. 2023. The 1931 search for a new experimental forest in the Ouachita National Forest. In: Bragg, Don C., ed. Celebrating 100 years of forest science: an abridged history of the Southern Research Station. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-272. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station: 25-66.