University of Virginia Library

Experimental Farm Provides Ecology Study

Tucked away in Clarke County behind
a stand of trees and some hills is a
700-acre farm owned by the University.
Many Virginians and even local residents
have never heard of The Blandy
Experimental Farm—but they may soon.

Plans are being made to revitalize the
facility which is located in the northern
end of the Shenandoah Valley where
George Washington did much of the original
surveying.

"The University has an unusual opportunity
to develop Blandy Farm into a valuable
educational resource," says B.F.D. Runk,
Samuel Miller Professor of Experimental
Agriculture and Forestry. "Students today are
interested in their environment and what's
happening to it and Blandy Farm could provide
the setting for much of the study," he said.

Mr. Runk is responsible for the operation of
Blandy Farm.

For several summers Arlington County
students have used the farm for ecology studies.
During one summer some 1,600 high school
students camped out on the grounds of the
farm for short periods of time.

Also in the past year, landscape architecture
students from the University began taking field
trips to the farm to study a variety of plant
materials for their work.

Willed to the University in 1926 by Graham
F. Blandy, the farm was to be devoted to
experimental agriculture and to the teaching of
young people.

Some 5,000 species of evergreens,
hardwoods, dwarf specimens and even a variety
of weeping trees such as weeping birch and
spruce are represented in the arboretum.

Other rare or unusual plants include hollies
with black berries, hybrid oaks which are
evergreen, the parasol pine from Japan, the
Chinese tulip tree and the ginkos, which have
remained unchanged since the days of the
dinosaurs.

Some 600 acres of the farm are presently
being commercially farmed. On the remaining
100 stand the main building and dormitory,
known as the Quarters, the greenhouse,
research fields, nurseries and an arboretum.

After six years of relative inactivity, the
Blandy Experimental Farm and Orland E.
White Arboretum are being revitalized.
Repaired and refurbished, the Quarters contains
offices, laboratories and accommodations for
graduate students.

Its library, whose holdings are catalogued in
Alderman Library at the University, contains
reference books and current periodicals. New
personnel are also being sought to direct
research and care for the form's outstanding
feature—the Orland E. White Arboretum.

Orland E. White, the farm's first director,
planted an arboretum on 100 acres and
established an advanced program in genetics.

The arboretum is a valuable teaching
resource for landscape architects, "says Meade
Palmer, lecturer in landscape architecture at the
School of Architecture. In one spot students
can view specimens of rare or unusual trees and
those which are not native to this area as well as
a great variety of mature trees. The latter is
very important because some trees completely
change their shape and character as they
mature."

Future plans for Blandy are not yet
complete, but research possibilities include
cooperating with the Experimental. Fruit
Station in Winchester, providing living material
for cellular studies, acting as a hybridization or
disease lab, as well as offering an environment
for ecological studies.

'The possibilities are limited only by our
determination and our budget. It is a
opportunity the people of Virginia should have
and I think it's what Graham Blandy would
have wanted," says Dr. Runk.