The 1932 Urania Bible

Abstract

The Southern Forest Experiment Station (SOFES) had no formally designated experimental forests prior to the passage of the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act of 1928. This law legally authorized the establishment of experimental forests and with the August 1930 approval of Forest Service Regulation L-20, a process for the development of experimental forests on national forest lands emerged (Clapp 1931, 1938). While these formalized such facilities, the SOFES had not waited for these to begin such an effort—not by a long shot! To help keep track of the work at Urania, a document was assembled from the records available and periodically updated as new studies were installed, existing ones were impacted by events such as wildfires, and old ones discontinued. This unpublished collection—eventually known by some as the Urania Bible—was maintained over the years. The version of the Urania Bible (there were at least two editions) introduced in this paper was compiled by Roy A. Chapman and C. Allen Bickford in 1932.

Parent Publication

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

Citation

Chapman, Roy A.; Bickford, C. Allen; Bragg, Don C. 2023. The 1932 Urania Bible. 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: 181-214.