Honoring the Tree Farmer of Year
Covering 862 woodland acres in East Feliciana Parish, The Shades Plantation has been a witness to Louisiana’s history since the 18th century.
Located near the community of Wilson, the plantation was established by Alexander Scott in 1796, whose family first landed on America’s East Coast from Galway, Scotland in 1690. Nine generations later, this unique place remains in the hands of a Scott descendant, Jackie Berger Harvey, who continues to nurture this remarkable family legacy.
Originally part of a Spanish land grant, The Shades has had multiple uses over the years, growing cotton and other crops, hardwood and pine timber, livestock and hay, as well as supporting wildlife and recreation.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, The Shades has been selected as winner of the Louisiana Forestry Association’s annual Tree Farmer of the Year award, which was presented during the organization’s annual meeting in Lake Charles in August.
“It’s a beautiful place. This land has been managed by the same family for over 228 years. I truly feel that there is not a piece of land that has this much history in the entire state,” said forester Ronald Ard, who nominated the property for the award. Both Ron and Jackie are members of the Feliciana Forestry Association as well as the LFA.
“It is a huge honor to get this award,” said Jackie, who grew up in the stately Shades Plantation home along with her sister Scott. Their parents, George and Edrye Berger, raised beef and dairy cattle and sheep on the land, along with soybeans, corn, hay and timber, and had a freshwater shrimp farm for a time.
Jackie has happy memories growing up on this land, climbing the ancient oaks that surround the house, roaming the forests and splashing in the creeks. Jackie recalls her parents inviting friends there to hunt, fish and pick berries on the property over the years.
“My roots run as deep here as these old oaks,” she said. “This place is part of my heritage, part of my being. This is my home. Everywhere else I have lived has been a house. I want my children to see this as their home, too”
In a remarkable twist to the story of this tree farm, Jackie and her husband Melvin S. Harvey Jr., have family ties that go back generations. The couple knew each other as children, and two of their ancestors — John Livingston Delee and Alexander Scott — were also friends from nearby plantations.
They relate the story that Delee and Scott fought together alongside General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, defending New Orleans from the invading British. In 1819, on his way home to the Mt. Delee Plantation, Delee spent his wedding night with his bride at The Shades. Two hundred years later in March of 2018, their descendants — Melvin and Jackie — were married in California, thus linking the Scott, Berger, Delee and Harvey families.
On the Silver Screen
The Shades plantation had a brush with Hollywood in the 1960s when 20th Century Fox sought use of the property for the 1969 Civil War era-themed film, “The Undefeated,” that starred John Wayne and Rock Hudson. During the movie shoot, Wayne was a frequent dinner guest of the Berger family, and Jackie related that her mother delighted in going antique shopping with him in St. Francisville. A barn built by the studio for the movie still stands on the plantation.
In that movie, the house and barn were burned by its owners to avoid sale to Northern carpetbaggers. In actuality, The Shades buildings were almost burned by Union soldiers during the Civil War because the plantation was sending supplies to Confederate troops at nearby Port Hudson.
However, when two Scott ladies armed with shotguns came out on the house’s front porch, and the Union colonel recognized them as wives of two Scott generals, he stopped the action. He explained to his troops that Confederate General John Simms Scott had previously released him from a prisoner of war camp because his wife was sick, and he wanted to repay the kindness by saving the Scott home from destruction.
In another nod to history, the plantation home holds an assortment of more than 1,000 bells that were collected by Eva Scott, who was born in the house in 1877 and was the great niece of Alexander Scott and daughter of Confederate General Gus Scott. Eva lived in and ran The Shades plantation for more than 60 years, was a cousin to Jackie’s father, George, and was responsible for getting him to move from California to help her manage the property, which he later acquired.
Environmental Improvement
The land is about 40 percent hardwood and 60 percent planted pine in what once were open fields, intersected by ponds, deer stands and food plots for game. Forester Ron Ard is currently at work designing and implementing a management plan for the acreage that promises to reinvigorate and sustain the property for years to come.
Interestingly, he has almost come full circle in his relationship with The Shades. In the late 1970s, after Ard got his forestry degree from LSU, George Berger hired him to develop and activate a land management plan for his property through Georgia Pacific’s landowners’ assistance program. After the program was discontinued in the early 1980s, Ard worked full time for GP for decades until retiring several years ago. A call early this year from Jackie and Melvin Harvey restarted Ard’s association with The Shades.
“We drew up a plan to get the land back in good shape and we are now implementing that plan,” said Ard. “The reason they want me in the equation now is to help them bring the land back to the way it was. I think we can accomplish that within the next two years.”
That plan includes timber harvests, reforestation, controlled burns and enhancements to wildlife management. Water bars have been built to inhibit erosion in selected areas.
The last timber harvest, a multi-stand thinning of about 325 acres of pine pulpwood, was performed 12 years ago, said Ard. About 38 acres of pine were clearcut, then replanted four years ago. One hundred acres of pine were replanted in 2018.
“Harvesting will be done in stages as we will be doing some select cutting, prescribed burns and clearcutting over the course of the next year,” said Jackie.
“It’s been 12 years since any controlled burns have been conducted here,” Ard added.
He said Jackie’s son, recent LSU graduate Matthew Westerfield, is learning the art of controlled burns.
“We are set to do some prescribed burns which Matthew will become certified in the fall to perform,” Ard said. “I’m glad to help bring this next generation along.”
Wild About Wildlife
The family enjoys deer hunts on the property and derives income from turkey and deer hunting leases on portions of the land.
“Deer hunting here is phenomenal,” said Ard.
As her parents did, Jackie has worked with LSU researchers on research and practices that help improve the herd. Working with the deer hunting lessees, the Harveys have created an outreach program that invites terminally ill youth to participate in deer hunts.
“One of the great pleasures I have is when kids that are fighting cancer are able to come out on the property and take their first game,” said Jackie. “To see the look on their faces, for them to experience the thrill of the hunt and observe the wildlife ... I get emotional each time I think about it.”
Wildlife on the land also includes wild turkeys, rabbits and squirrels. Ard said the Harveys hope to encourage duck nesting by adding duck boxes near the ponds. He added that blackbelly whistler ducks, also known as Mexican squealers, are increasing in the state, and they hope to attract them. Other plans call for adding fruit trees such as crabapple, mayhaw and others in open fields for deer and as pollinators for bees.
Among the ownership challenges Jackie cites are “making sure the right people are managing the land, making sure the people who lease and hunt the land are good stewards of the land and the wildlife.”
She added that food plots, roads and property lines are always challenging to maintain, and Jackie takes part in such chores.
“We keep food plots on the property year-round, planted twice a year in the spring and fall, which supply nutrients the wildlife need. It’s never a dull moment here.”
Longtime friends and employees Lane and Cindy Bellue are integral to The Shades’ operation, having first worked for Jackie’s parents here.
Lasting Legacy
Ard pointed out that finding local mills to take timber harvests nowadays is a hurdle for timberland producers in the region.
“Our challenge here is that we have very little timber market,” said Ard. “It’s hard for us as private landowners to get in all the pine pulpwood that needs to be thinned.”
“Running a timber plantation, there is always something to do, including maintaining a 228-year-old house, which was built when George Washington was still alive,” said Jackie. The house was built by Alexander Scott in 1796 with timber cut from the property and bricks made on site. The property was initially known as Scott Plantation and later renamed The Shades owing to the many live oaks Scott planted around the home in the early 1800s.
“This property is a lasting legacy to the Scott family from Galway, Scotland,” said Jackie. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have been reared on this land and will pass this on to my children and to their children for generations to come. Matthew and my daughter Amelia will be the 10th generation to manage this property. I do want to keep that family connection, of loving the land.”
(Melanie Torbett is a contributing writer to Forests & People and a forest landowner.)
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