State Forest Nursery
The George O. White State Forest Nursery is in Texas County about three miles northwest of Licking. It offers Missouri residents a variety of seedlings for reforestation, windbreaks, and erosion control, as well as wildlife food and cover.
History of the Nursery
The George O. White State Forest Nursery is in Texas County about three miles northwest of Licking. The U.S. Forest Service originally purchased and operated the nursery. A Forest Service employee who eventually became the first State Forester of Missouri inspected the site in April 1934. The nursery was renamed and dedicated in honor of this man, George O. White, upon his retirement on Jan. 1, 1960.
The site was purchased in 1935 to grow shortleaf pines seedlings. The National Forests in Missouri had just been designated and thousands of acres were in need of reforestation. This site was chosen because it was suited for growing pine seedlings and was centrally located within the National Forests.
Over the next few years, with the aid of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees, Works Projects Administration (WPA) workers and local labor, an office, nurseryman's residence, shop, warehouse, deep well, irrigation system and cold storage building were constructed. To accommodate the CCC enrollees, two barracks, kitchen, mess hall and a camp PX were built.
World War II dissolved the CCC program, funds for reforestation disappeared and the nursery was closed. In August 1947, the Conservation Department signed a special use permit with the Forest Service. The permit gave the Department full use of the nursery, tools, building and equipment. In return, the Department agreed to produce 2 million shortleaf pine seedlings annually for Missouri National Forests. In 1976, the Department obtained title to the nursery property from the Forest Service.
The original nursery property was 40 acres and had about 15 acres of seedbeds. Over the years, several acquisitions increased the size of the nursery. Today, the total acreage of the nursery is 754 acres with 50 acres of seedbeds.
Three deep wells and an improved irrigation system allow the seedbeds to be irrigated during the summer. During the past 10 years a new office, packing building and cold storage building have been constructed. This addition placed all grading, packing, storage and shipping operations in one building, greatly improving the efficiency of the nursery.
In the early years of operation, nearly all seedling production was shortleaf pine, with more than 10 million seedlings shipped annually. During the 1950s, multiflora rose was a very popular seedling. Autumn olive, tatarian honeysuckle and other non-native shrubs were in demand in the 1970s. As landowner needs have changed, so has nursery production. The minimum order today is 25 trees, reduced from 200 a few years ago. The nursery now grows more than 70 different species of trees, shrubs and prairie forbs. Except for a few pine species and wildlife shrubs, all are native Missouri plants. Each year the nursery processes more than 13,000 orders and ships about 4 million seedlings.
To grow all these species, each summer and fall the nursery collects or buys tens of thousands of pounds of seeds. For example, about 5,000 bushels of walnuts, 15,000 pounds of white oak acorns, 8,000 pounds of hazelnuts and 600 pounds of plum seed are needed just to establish seedlings for these four species.
