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Highlights of Texas Forestry Texas Society of American Foresters |
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The Twentieth Century: 1920-1935 << PREV NEXT >> |
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1920 The first industry forester in Texas was Charles Holbrook, a 1917 graduate of the New York State College of Forestry. He was employed by Long Bell Lumber Company with responsibility for the sale of poles and piling. Later he supervised another NYSCF graduate, B. Koontz. In 1937 Paul Hursey was employed by Angelina County Lumber Company as the first of modern-day industrial foresters. Many soon followed, including Bruce Stewart, Texas Longleaf Lumber Company; E. J. Downey and N. D. Canterbury, Champion Paper and Fiber Company; Harvey Sprott, Southland Paper Mills; Kenneth Nelson, Southern Pine Lumber Company; John Meyers and Wallace Smith, Kirby Lumber Company; Chris Nelson and Marvin Angle, International Paper Company; Travis MacClendon, Frost Lumber Company; Ton Randle, Gibbs Brothers Lumber Company,; Howell Cobb, Southwestern Settlement and Development Company; and Ray Gipson, The Lutcher and Moore Lumber Company. By 1960 each major forest industry landowner had its staff foresters. Alfred Macdonald, a member of the Texas Forestry Association, was employed as city forester at Dallas. |
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| t | 1921 R.D. Forbes, the Director of the new Southern Forest Experiment Station USDA Forest Service, contacted L.D. Gilbert of Southern Pine Lumber Company and F. H. Farwell of The Lutcher and Moore Company, to conduct a study on reforestation on their lands which were being logged. W. W. Ashe of the USDA Forest Service wrote four reports on prospective purchase units for the USDA Forest Service under the Weeks Act in Texas, but nothing came of the matter. 1922 A Division of Forest Protection within the Department of Forestry (TFS) was formed and directed by Page S. Bunker. 1923 As the result of promotion by State Forester Siecke, the Texas Legislature enacted its first forest fire prevention law providing that locomotives fueled by wood must be equipped with spark arresters. The law also made it a misdemeanor to willfully or negligently cause fire to be set in forest cutover land. The Texas Legislature appropriated $4,000 to be used for Cooperative Forest Management Assistance. The first "Farm Forester" employed under this program was Walter E. Bond. An attempt was made in the Texas Legislature by State Representative John W. Laird of Lufkin to obtain authorization to purchase private land for national forests in the State, but the legislation never made it out of committee. (see 1933). Austin Cary of the USDA Forest Service wrote a report on a visit to Southern Pine Lumber Company, touching several topics, including fire control, girdling hardwoods, thinning, marking timber, grazing, cooperation and fish and game. Walter E. Bond was appointed Texas' first Farm Forester. 1924 Texas' first State forest of 1,702 acres [one source says 1,722] was acquired new Kirbyville. In 1951 it was named E. O. Siecke State Forest in honor of the State Forester who was instrumental in its purchase. By 1925 the state forest in Cherokee county contained 2,250 acres and one being purchased in Montgomery County was to contain 1,616 acres. In 1984 Texas managed 7,089 acres in four State Forests. 1925 A cooperative agreement was executed between the USDA Forest Service and the State Forester of Texas for cooperation in forest fire protection as authorized under the Clarke-McNary Act of 1924 (43 Stat. 653). The first large-scale attempt to reforest cutover land by direct seeding was done by the Angelina County Lumber Company when it used 100 pounds of longleaf seed on 100 acres of company land near Zavalla. The company aso planted 20,000 slash pine and 180,000 longleaf pine seedlings near Nancy, Angelina County. The Memorandum of Understanding was executed between the State Forester of Texas, the Texas Agricultural Extension Service, and the USDA Agricultural Extension Service to establish a farm forester position administratively responsible to the Texas Agricultural Extension Service, but responsible to the State Forester for subject matter. The first forester employed by the Texas Agricultural Extension Service was C. B. Webster. He was followed by C. W. Simmons, W. A. Smith, Michael Walterscheidt and Lanny Dreesen. Four professional foresters comprise the staff in 1998. The 38th Texas Legislature directed a study of conditions affecting the supply of timber in Texas and the submission of recommendations for the conservation of the State's timber resources and the establishment of the constructive forest policy. This was accomplished by a joint committee on Forestry, under the chairmanship of Senator I. D. Fairchild of Lufkin. The principal recommendation was for reforestation of timber lands by private owners. The Gulf States Section of the Society of American Foresters was formed encompassing the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. E. O. Siecke, State Forester of Texas , was the first chairman. The Section was dissolved in 1980 with three separate state societies being formed. The I. D. Fairchild State forest (2,360 acres) was acquired from State Prison Board. In 1963, an additional 536 acres were transferred from the Rusk State Hospital by the state legislature. |
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1926 The Texas Forest Service established Texas' first tree nurseries on the State forests at Kirbyville and Conroe, to sell to private timberland owners fore reforestation. By 1929 the nursery on the former had been enlarged to 300,000 capacity. The seedlings were sold for reforestation for $3.50 per thousand in 1928. C. B. Webster was the forester in charge. The Texas A & M College Board of Directors re-named the Department of Forestry the Texas Forest Service and gave the State Forester the title of Director. The first slash pines in Texas were planted on three acres of the Siecke State Forest. At the same time 65 acres of longleaf seedlings were planted. These plantings were supervised by C. B. Webster. The seedlings were produced at a Louisiana Forestry Commission nursery by N. D. Canterbury who later became a consulting forester in Texas. Extension Forester C. W. Simmons introduced the first forestry projects to 4-H clubs. The first steel lookout tower we erected on the E. O. Siecke State Forest. It was 80 feet tall. 1927 Under the leadership of Walter Bond, the Texas Forest Service started a participating landowner program that provided fire protection services to landowners who agreed to an annual assessment based on acreage. Bond later moved to the Southern Forest Experiment Station. Three acres of slash pine seedlings, the first planted in Texas, and 65 acres of longleaf seedlings were planted on the E. O. Siecke State Forest. 1929 John H. Kirby donated 600 acres in Tyler County for a State Forest. Revenue from the sale of forest products was to be given to the Association of Former Students at Texas A & M College. 1930 The Texas Forest Service prepared an extensive survey of present conditions on approximately 95,000 acres of timberland owned by the Houston County Timber Company, authored by C. G. Webster, Chief , Division of Forest Management and R.F. Balthis, Assistant State Forester. The report stated that a sustained yield operation would be profitable on the land. 1931 Field work for a survey of forests and farms in Polk County was performed by the Texas Forest Service and the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station for the USDA Forest Service, Southern Forest Experiment Station. 1933 Seventeen Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps-having the Prefix "P" -were assigned to the Texas Forest Service. Enrollees were permitted to work only on privately owned or state owned lands. On private lands their labor was confined to protection from wild forest fires. Included was truck trail construction on the principle that it facilitated vehicle access to where fires were burning; also included as the erection of lookout towers, telephone communication between towers, and suppression of fires. On the State forests labor was permitted in fence and road construction, timber stand improvement and construction of structures. W. E. White and M. V. Dunmire were responsible for these activities. There were later also prefix "F" camps administered by the Forest Service. SCR-73, introduced by Senator John Reddit of Lufkin, was passed by the 43rd Texas Legislature, to authorize the United States to purchase land in Texas for the purpose of establishing national forests. It was approved by Governor M. A. (Ma) Ferguson. 1934 USDA Forest Service land acquisition personnel, headed by L. L. Bishop, established an office in Houston and began to purchase forest lands in each of the four purchase units. The field work was supervised by C. E. Beaumont, Chief of Party, and Cary H. Bennet of the Bureau of Biological Survey as Chief of the acquisition examination party, and headquartered in Lufkin. Others who worked on the project were Russell Chipman, Sherman L. Forst, William F. Fisher, Albert Smith, Jr. , John B. Fulton, Carlton S. Sloan, L. B. Robinson, Ralph Morgan and Gordon A. Hammon. These lands later became the Angelina, Davy Crockett, Sabine and Sam Houston National Forests with Bishop named as their first Forest Supervisor. Lorenzo Jared became the first district ranger on any Texas National Forest - the Angelina - in September. Harold A. Howell was next, named to be ranger on the Sam Houston National Forest in November. Don Young followed on the Davy Crockett in January 1935, and then Russell L. Chipman was named on the Sabine in March 1935. Administration of four CCC Camps was transferred from the Texas Forest Service to the USDA Forest Service for work on national forests. There were 14 such camps by 1936. The first survey of East Texas forest resources, part of the Southern Forest Survey, was conducted in 1934 and 1935 by the Southern Forest Experiment Station, with J. W. Cruikshank and I. F. Eldredge in charge. These data were released in 1938 and 1939 publications. In southeast Texas sawtimber growth in 1935 was 6.5 percent. It was estimated that there were 28.2 billion board feet of pine and hardwood sawtimber in East Texas. The Southern Forest Experiment Station counted 497 sawmills in Texas. Of these, 17 cut over 80 MBF per 10-hour shift and 399 cut 19 MBF and less per shift. The USDA Forest Service was given responsibility for a "Shelterbelt" program established by Presidential order in July. The "belt" extended 50 miles each side of the 99th meridian from North Dakota to Texas. In Texas the area was bounded on the west by the 22 - inch rainfall line and included all or parts of 20 counties in northwest Texas below the "caprock." The director of the program in Texas was Walter Webb. Foresters assigned to the project were Roy Morgan, Tom Croker, Joe Griff, Jerry Dahl, Hyman Goldberg, Marvin Angle and Dick Townsend. Townsend still remains active in Texas forestry. Property taxes exceeded revenues from private timberlands. In the 40 timbered counties of East Texas, 17.6 percent of the land had been in default for three to four years. 1935 A tract of 94,000 acres, at an average price of $ 8.90 per acre, was acquired from the Houston County Lumber Company on July 1, to begin forming the Texas National Forests. Tree planting began on the Boykin Springs and Bannister areas on the Angelina National Forest, the Ratcliff (including some slash pine) and Apple Springs area on the Davy Crockett National Forest, the Moore area on the Sabine National Forest, and the Huntsville area on the Sam Houston National Forest under the direction of District Rangers Don Young, Alonzo Jared and Martin Syverson and was later coordinated by Gil Stradt. Pruning was also included in the work of timber stand improvement. By 1937, 15,000 acres had been planted, mostly by CCC enrollees. In 1937 Joseph E. McPherson prepared a three-year planting plan for the National Forests in Texas, and by the end of the 1939-40 planting season some 36,000 acres of national forest land had been planted. CCC enrollees, under what was called "Emergency
Conservation Work", also started timber stand improvement work on the
newly acquired national forest lands. By 1937, 200,000 acres had
been treated at an average cost of $1.50 per acre. Some of the
foresters supervising and planning this work were J. O. Burnside, D. A.
Anderson, William Everard, E. T. Hawes, W. E. Becton, and Gil Stradt. |
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