The Art of Managing Longleaf
A Personal History of the Stoddard-Neel Approach

Leon Neel, with Paul S. Sutter and Albert G. Way
Afterword by Jerry F. Franklin

A holistic approach to forestry and land management explained by one of its pioneers

Reviews

"Herbert Stoddard and his acolyte Leon Neel made a revolution in forestry among the longleaf pines of Georgia's Red Hills. More than applied scientists, they were artists and designers of genius, makers of ecologically balanced landscapes that were also gorgeous parks and hunters' paradises. Now Paul Sutter, Bert Way, and especially Neel, himself, bring us the comprehensive narrative, which is not only enlightening but irresistably charming."
—Jack Temple Kirby, author of Mockingbird Song: Ecological Landscapes of the South

"This warm and fine personal look at the legendary forest management practices of Herbert Stoddard and Leon Neel will appeal to a variety of readers. Foresters and landowners will profit from its detailed descriptions of the Stoddard-Neel approach to managing forests, one based on old-fashioned woodsmanship, a deep familiarity with longleaf pine forests and a primary concern with the sustainability of the forest ecosystem. Neel’s stories and recollections of growing up in the Piney Woods are pleasurable in and of themselves, and they will reward anyone interested in the South and in Southern folkways."
—Lawrence S. Earley, author of Looking for Longleaf: The Fall and Rise of an American Forest


More / Hide

Description
Greenwood Plantation in the Red Hills region of southwest Georgia includes a rare one-thousand-acre stand of old-growth longleaf pine woodlands, a remnant of an ecosystem that once covered close to ninety million acres across the Southeast. The Art of Managing Longleaf documents the sometimes controversial management system that not only has protected Greenwood’s “Big Woods” but also has been practiced on a substantial acreage of the remnant longleaf pine woodlands in the Red Hills and other parts of the Coastal Plain. Often described as an art informed by science, the Stoddard-Neel Approach combines frequent prescribed burning, highly selective logging, a commitment to a particular woodland aesthetic, intimate knowledge of the ecosystem and its processes, and other strategies to manage the longleaf pine ecosystem in a sustainable way.

The namesakes of this method are Herbert Stoddard (who developed it) and his colleague and successor, Leon Neel (who has refined it). In…

More / Hide


Page count: 224
Illustrated
Trim size: 5.5 x 8.5

Cloth
List price: $39.95
Your price: 978-0-8203-3047-1
2/15/2010
  

View Cart



Leon Neel is a forestry consultant and land manager who lives in Thomasville, Georgia. Paul S. Sutter is an associate professor of history at the University of Georgia and editor of the Press’s Environmental History and the American South series. His books include Environmental History and the American South: A Reader. Albert G. Way is a postdoctoral fellow in southern studies at the Institute for Southern Studies, University of South Carolina.