SOMEWHAT more than twenty years ago, before that phenomenal wave of prosperity, which is now sweeping over the South, had started, and while the country people were still living essentially as they lived when the first pioneers came to the mountains, there appeared among them, as if by magic, a perfect illustration of the advanced cultivation of the outer world.

Unlike the transient and self-centred community of Flat Rock, that fell into the wilderness like a jewel, and made about as much impression, Biltmore, its antithesis, expressing the new era, was not inorganic, but living. Its roots were strong and full of sap. It had to grow, and the form of growth it took played an important part in the development of the mountains, a development which though just begun is rapidly changing the life of this region.

What the native people, after living a life of stagnation for so long, most needed was an ideal a point, as it were, at which to aim, and a knowledge of how to work, and how to care for their lands. These Biltmore gave them. It showed them, not only perfect results and how those results were obtained, but, what was of paramount importance, it made the people themselves the instruments that produced the results. The thirty miles of macadamized road traversing the estate, and the hundreds of miles of dirt road that make accessible all parts of the large forest connected with the estate, were made by the mountain people, the real significance of which lies in the fact that these roads, made in the country where the people themselves live, and in which the grave difficulties of road-making have been overcome by scientific methods, have taught the people of the mountains how to make their roads, as well as something of the advantages of good roads and the necessity of caring systematically for them. Then there was the stock farm where domestic animals were cared for, and where were learned the advantages of modern sanitary methods as well as of high-bred animals; and there were the gardens where new methods and new products were introduced to the workers; and there was the forest where the astonished mountaineer was to discover that a tree is as well worth careful raising as a cabbage.

It was the scale upon which the work was done, more even than the nature of the work itself, that gave it its substantial value; for each year young men from all parts of the mountains were employed at Biltmore, not by tens, or by hundreds, but by thousands. They were put to work and, what was of equal value in their development, they were subjected to an almost military discipline. For the first time in generations they were compelled to be prompt, methodical, and continuous in their efforts. And of this there was no complaint. Scotch blood may succumb to enervating surroundings, but at the first call to battle it is ready. Not only did the men do the manual labor, but, as time went on, the most capable of them became overseers in the various departments, until finally all the directors of this great estate, excepting a few of the highest officials, were drawn from the ranks of the people, who proved themselves so trustworthy and capable that in all these years only three or four of Biltmore's mountaineer employees have had to be dismissed for inefficiency or bad conduct.

Nor was the dissemination of new ideas confined to the people at work on the estate. Milk from Biltmore appeared at Asheville in glass bottles, while Biltmore butter shot a golden ray into the lives of discriminating visitors to Asheville. To-day all the milk in Asheville is delivered to the better class of customers in glass bottles, and the country dairies have been remodeled to meet the growing demand for cleanliness; and for it to be said of a dairyman, "He got his training at Biltmore and follows Biltmore methods," is the same as a gold medal from the last World's Congress. When such novelties as spinach and celery appeared in the Asheville market, the mountaineer scorned them until he discovered that people really did buy them, when he began to take interest. In this way gradually came better varieties of all the vegetables, until the Asheville market was transformed. And whether Biltmore really was the mother of every new good thing that came, it at least got the credit for being.

Of the many valuable enterprises of Biltmore, the most important to the mountain people has doubtless been the preservation and administration of the large tract of forest land, more than one hundred thousand acres in extent, connected with the estate, and, because it lies partly on Pisgah Mountain, known as " Pisgah Forest." Not only were the virgin forests of this tract put into trained hands for their perpetuation and improvement, but the cut-over lands belonging to the estate were reforested and cared for according to the best science of the day on the subject. The woodland was not only preserved, it was utlized, supplying at one time quantities of firewood to Asheville, and, as it can bear it, lumber and bark are removed for other uses. The forests are traversed by roads, - thus making lumbering easier, more successful, and less harmful to the prosperity of the woods. And what is of utmost importance to the people, the trees are scientifically preserved by mountain men trained for the purpose, these forest rangers thus learning the needs and uses of a North Carolina forest, a drill whose value in this era when the North Carolina forests have suddenly become of vast importance and great value, cannot be overestimated in bringing the mountaineer not only to a knowledge of forest administration, but to a change of mind in regard to the treatment of his own wooded land. The North Carolina highlander may be slow to take an idea, but once firmly lodged in his mind, it is there to stay, and the rapidity with which he acts, when once it dawns upon him that a given action is the thing, fairly takes one's breath, particularly the breath of one who has rested in his midst before enlightenment had disturbed his slumbrous existence. And what an influence must the training of thousands of young men in practical forestry have in educating those who not only have the greater part of the forest land in their keeping, but who will soon be needed to administer and beautify the new national park!

It was at Biltmore that the "Good Roads Movement" was started which has made such wonderful progress in the state for the past few years. Here also was born the idea of the great Southern National Forest which has just become a reality, and here years ago for their education came some of those most deeply interested in the preservation of our natural forests, because Biltmore was at that time the only place in the United States where scientific forestry was practiced on a scale large enough to be of value to them.

Pisgah Forest, besides its other uses, is also a game preserve, so that the red deer once more bounds along its shady aisles, while the wild turkey and ruffed grouse grow and multiply, and flocks of quails fearlessly trot along the road ahead of your horse. What added grace belongs to the forest where the quails are not afraid of us! Not that the wild denizens of Pisgah are wholly undisturbed, or so one infers from the recent phenomenal increase of game in the Asheville market during the open season, and if the venison enjoyed by visitors to Asheville does not always come out of the remote wildernesses of the Balsam or Smoky Mountains, that is a technicality which does not disturb the pleasure the stranger takes in the delicacies that come his way.

Related, in subject at least, to the forests are the nurseries and gardens of Biltmore for the propagation of plants suitable to the region; not only exotics but all those charming growths of the mountains that make the country itself so engaging, and many of which are equally adapted for use in other parts of the world, quantities being shipped to the North as well as to Europe; for the gardens and nurseries of Biltmore, besides supplying materials for the estate itself, also supply large numbers of plants to the outside world. These gardens and nurseries, as well as the greenhouses, are now almost entirely under the care of mountain men, some of whom have developed remarkable ability in working with plants. Besides the natural forests of the estate, and the nurseries and gardens, with their many choice exotics and native growths, a living book for the botanist, there is a botanical library which contains besides books several herbaria, among which latter is the collection of Chapman, author of the "Flora of the Southern United States."

The first question asked when a stranger comes to Asheville, and again when he goes back home, is, "Have you seen Biltmore? " and if he has not, it is his own fault, for the extensive grounds of the estate, covering some ten thousand acres, are open to the public two or three days every week. Carriages enter from the village of Biltmore, which was so named by Mr. Vanderbilt at the time of the purchase of the estate.

The merely curious visitor may not divine the real charm of the place, may even be disappointed at the lack of display there, to him a large part of the carefully planned grounds seeming in no way different from the rest of the country, excepting the roads, which are perfect. But let the nature-lover or the poet in any other form enter these roads winding through the apparently untouched forest, and he will feel something that he does not feel in the wilderness, something that moves him as a great picture moves a sensitive spirit, and for the same reason. Back of the painted picture throbs the universal soul of man, and in the work of the great landscape artist is felt the aspiration of the human heart. For these grounds were planned and to an extent perfected in detail by America's greatest landscape gardener, whose work in our public parks is a source of national pride.

Just why his surroundings produce so pleasing an effect upon him, the visitor to Biltmore may not know, but if he is an artist he will know, and if he is somewhat acquainted with plant life he will soon add, to the general impression of beauty, another in which his pleasure is increased by discovering, among the apparently wild and untrained growths along the roadside, a tree, a bush, or a plant that blends with the rest, enhancing the effect, but which is not a native of the mountains. Perhaps among these aliens he may note a very rare exotic, but it is not displayed. Perhaps not one in a hundred will recognize or notice it, yet its presence gives the perfect touch to the place it adorns, and even without his knowing it, gives pleasure to the sympathetic passer-by. These beautiful exotics, placed in the right spot to strengthen a group of trees, to emphasize the greens of a mass of foliage, or to add a sudden glow of color, are gems that reward the careful eye of the botanist, though most of the plant life that hedges the drives of Biltmore is the wild life of the forest skillfully persuaded to create a desired impression, without betraying to the most careful observer that its perfections are not wholly due to the beneficence of nature. Look up that charming little valley - why does it bring a smile and a memory of something sweet and dim and poetic? Nobody seems to have touched it, and yet it makes one feel as one never feels in a wild mountain gorge, no matter how well one may love the gorge. The bottom of this valley is smooth and green, its sides as they ascend are clothed first in bushes and low-growing things, then with trees, the largest at the upper edge. You do not see this at first, perhaps you will not analyze it at all, seeing only a lovely valley with rocky, shrubby walls irregularly and charmingly clad with nature's wild growths that seem to reach up into the very sky in noble sweep. It is so sweet, so natural, so sympathetic a part of the landscape that you can scarcely believe it is one of these rude ravines that furrow the mountains, and which, charming as they often are, yet lack the perfection of this apparently wild glen.

At Biltmore one gets ideas of what to do with one's own glorified acre of wild land, to make it yield the highest return in pleasure. With how little labor and how many compensations in happiness might not a thousand small places be converted into dreams of beauty! Nature here is so enchanting when left alone, or even when abused, what might happen if her efforts were helped by loving hands!

With the passing of years, the untiring industry and devotion lavished on Biltmore have produced the result seen here to-day, a result that money alone could not have produced. And with the passing of time the mountain people have changed, too. They speak with a new note of appreciation of the estate from which so many of them have drawn or still draw sustenance, and from which they have received so abundantly that which is worth infinitely more to them than the week's wages. They are also beginning to understand the new business methods that are now manifesting themselves in so many ways in different parts of the mountains, and for the coming of which Biltmore, in a sense, paved the way.

The grounds and roads of Biltmore are an object lesson, not only to the natives, but to every stranger who comes to these mountains to make himself a home, an object lesson that serves to show what could be done with a small holding as well as with a large one, and with almost any kind of problem the mountains offer, so varied is the contour of this large pleasure-ground.

Biltmore house stands three miles from the entrance gate, on one of those high open places from which one gets that sense of space and sky that has fastened the name, "Land of the Sky," so firmly on this region. It is a large and stately mansion, suggesting a French chateau, and the terrace upon which it stands is supported by a noble stone wall that reminds one of the impressive rampart at Windsor Castle, or of those great walls that guard the mediaeval castles on the hills of Italy; though this is no rampart for defense, and the world about it is neither English nor Italian, the exquisite mountains that stretch away, range above range, belonging distinctively to the New World. And the house, too, has played its part in the development of the people. While the men and boys were learning important lessons out of doors, the young girls were being trained in the same manner indoors. And here, too, the scale upon which the training was given has constituted its far-reaching influence, which is its chief value, hundreds of young girls owing to Biltmore their first preparation for the new life which is so fast coming to the mountains.

Besides, there is the " Biltmore Industries," a school for girls and women as well as for boys, which has also opened the doors of the new era to many a waiting heart, but a consideration of which belongs to another place. In short, Biltmore, appearing upon the scene when the industrial development of the South was about to begin, had the opportunity and the task, in many ways difficult, of giving the people their first training in the ways of the world. But it has done more than this. Besides disciplining the people and giving them an object lesson in the practical development of the natural resources of the country, it has, as we have seen, - and this will seem to many its highest value, shown how to beautify the mountains while transforming them.

Of course Biltmore is not the only influence which has been at work transforming the life and work of the people. Every one who has come from the outside world to live in the mountains, and who has employed, or taught, or come in any kind of real contact with the native people, has had a share in their advancement. There are many, too, who have lived and worked directly for them, but there has been no other single influence so large, so varied, and so farreaching as Biltmore, and none other has dealt so practically and so thoroughly with the all-important subject of forestry.

The large hotels at Toxaway in the "Sapphire Country," with a holding of twenty-eight thousand acres, have employed the mountain people in clearing the land, building the dams, and otherwise preparing for the lakes that were made by flooding valleys. They have also made roads, but on a comparatively small scale, and their forest is held as a game preserve, where deer are plenty, but where no forestry is practiced beyond keeping out fires.

It is the presence of Biltmore, the Toxaway hotels, and the many people of culture who within the last twenty years have come to the mountains to make their homes, that are the hope, one might almost say the prophecy, of the future. For as a consequence of the new prosperity of the South, throngs of people are pouring into the mountains. The bewildering rapidity with which cotton-mills have sprung up all through the cotton country has directly and indirectly put money into the pockets of thousands of people who never before had been able to spend a summer at the mountains; and it is these people who, but for the check and educating power of other influences, would put upon the new development of the mountains the hopeless stamp of mediocrity which it would take generations to efface. The oldtime picturesque house of the mountaineer is bound to go. It cannot be modified to suit the demands of modern comfort. The ugly structure that, among the recently prosperous and ignorant classes, is so prone to succeed it, has already been anticipated by a style of architecture simple, pleasing, and in harmony with the scenery, showing every one that it is as easy to build an attractive house as an ugly one.

It is the highest type of progress that one wishes to see at work in the mountains, the spirit that transforms by enhancing instead of diminishing beauty, the spirit that converts steep, rough, and dangerous roads into winding highways, and that banishes the unnecessary scourge of fever that each summer invades the farthest recesses of the mountains. And this spirit may animate not only the man of millions who comes to build a stately pleasure-house in these enchanting mountains, or place a group of palatial hotels on some choice eminence, but it may equally animate every one who owns a piece of land, be it ever so small.

Nothing can stay the march of progress that has now begun. The old order is passing. Let the new order be better than the old. If the charming hoyden we call Picturesqueness must go, let her nobler sister Beauty take her place. And whatever may be the future history of Biltmore, if the mountains continue to develop in the direction of sanitation, safety, and ever-increasing beauty, the honor belongs to her of having been the guiding star in the difficult passage from the old order to the new. May the prophecy which she seems to hold be fulfilled in the new era which appears, to those looking on, to be approaching these mountains of beauty radiantly, like the rising sun.