Treesearch

The first “designed” study conducted by the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station (AFES) marked a change from an observational to a science-based approach in the Station’s research field methods. Before the 1930s, American forest researchers generally applied silvicultural treatments across large areas and compared results using anecdotal observations. The large study areas, however, usually included unrecognized site (e.g., soil differences) or stand conditions (e.g., age differences), which could influence treatment results. During this period, field methods using replicated small plots...

The passage of the McSweeney-McNary Act of 1928 authorized a nationwide inventory of the Nation’s forests. In part, such data were required to develop new markets, and the need for such development in the impoverished South was great. The virgin forests of the South had been aggressively harvested and the land lay barren due in part to the tax policies in most Southern States, which taxed cutover land at higher values than other real estate (Fickle 2001). Second growth forests on some of these cutover lands were the pride of early foresters, but their nature, usefulness, and location were...

Long-time Southern Forest Experiment Station (SOFES) researcher and administrator Clement Mesavage, Sr., was born on October 29, 1911 in Glen Lyon, PA and received his forestry education at Pennsylvania State University. After graduating in 1936 with a bachelor’s degree (Anon. 1971), Mesavage first worked as a junior forester with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service’s Allegheny Forest Experiment Station in Huntingdon County, PA and Wilkes- Barre, PA. A precocious researcher, Mesavage’s first publication came the year he graduated with an article (Mesavage 1936) that described...

The first U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service regional experiment stations were created in 1921 with few guidelines and directives for their organization. Newly appointed, station directors used creativity in organizing their programs, including how to gain support and direction for the experiment stations. This was especially true for the Southern Forest Experiment Station (SOFES), which was established when much of the southern timber industry had cut out, or were on the verge of cutting out, their virgin forests.

The early forestry research of the Southern Forest Experiment Station (SOFES) emphasized searching for, observing, and describing conditions as an approach to producing sound results. While this produced numerous and useful results and improved our understanding of forests and forestry, without a true application of replication and control, this approach could only take science so far. Unfortunately, it was virtually all that was available when the Station first opened. In 1921, most sampling, experimental design, statistics, and mensuration techniques had not yet been developed for...

Much to the chagrin of its long-time (founding) Project Leader and first scientist Russell R. Reynolds, the Southern Forest Experiment Station (SOFES) began planning to close the Crossett Experimental Forest (CEF) in the late 1960s. The Station’s leadership had decided that the work on uneven-aged southern pine silviculture conducted at Crossett since the 1930s was no longer vital to their research portfolio, and other projects in tree improvement and genetics could be done elsewhere. The isolated, aging facility in southeastern Arkansas was also remote from the rest of the agency and thus...

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...

A.E. (Albert Edward) Wackerman—also known as “Wack”—played a significant role in the development of sustainable forestry in the Southern United States. A native of Cleveland, OH, and educated at the University of Minnesota and Yale University, Wackerman worked for a few years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Lake States Forest Experiment Station before accepting a job as the Crossett Lumber Company’s second professional forester in 1927 (Bragg 2012). For the next 5 years, Wackerman helped the company develop strategies to make the transition from exploitive lumbering...

In 2021, the Southern Research Station celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding as the Southern and Appalachian Forest Experiment Stations. This volume includes 20 contributed articles on the history of these stations, spanning nearly the entire century. These include biographies on former and current staff members; essays on how the stations were organized, staffed, and led; early incarnations of the botany, forest survey, genetics, statistics, and publication programs; the establishment and operation of some experimental forests; and several accounts of how these stations’...

The Alexandria Forestry Center (AFC) Herbarium developed as a result of early forest research influences in Louisiana. Specifically, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service research programs in the region during the early 1920s highlighted the need to identify and understand the significance of understory plants. Initially the issue was weed control in nurseries, but other needs soon developed. For example, the use of forests for cattle grazing raised issues related to the competition of cattle and wildlife for similar forage. To help understand these and other issues, scientists...