Description
The 7,060 acres (2,860 ha) Duke Forest is made up of six divisions which are fully accessible for teaching and research. Numerous forest types and ecosystems, soils, and previous land uses are represented on the forest. It is a resource unparalleled by any other university for its size, accessibility, length of management, and accumulation of long-term data (since 1931).
Like much of the North Carolina Piedmont, the forest was farmed for cotton. After about a century of such management, the soils' native fertility was exhausted, and could no longer create the yields necessary to support farmers. Then, in 1929, the Great Depression began. Land was abandoned and secondary succession began. Pioneer species such as loblolly pine, yellow poplar, and sweetgum quickly colonized these abandoned farm fields. These trees now dominate much of the forest.
Some parts are dominated by oak and hickory trees. These correspond to old woodlots between fields. Many of these stands were never cleared for agriculture. Thus, these stands bear the closest resemblance to precolonial conditions.
Read more about this topic: Duke Forest
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Once a child has demonstrated his capacity for independent functioning in any area, his lapses into dependent behavior, even though temporary, make the mother feel that she is being taken advantage of....What only yesterday was a description of the child’s stage in life has become an indictment, a judgment.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)