Our nation's first school of forestry operated in the early 1900s, when states were still being admitted to the union, and the motor car and typewriter had just been introduced to the American public. In the previous century, timber operations had slashed their way through forests with the simple policy of “cut and get out.” To farmers, trees were obstacles to plows. The popular writings of Aldo Leopold describing the concepts of forest stewardship and the organization of natural communities would not appear for another four decades.