Qualla: Appomattox-Buckingham State Forest

Appomattox-Buckingham State Forest: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The forest is built on failure. By the 1930s, the soils across the Piedmont counties of Appomattox and Buckingham had been farmed so hard for so long that nothing much would grow on them anymore. The federal government bought the worst-eroded tracts from the farmers who could no longer make a living on them, under one of the more obscure New Deal statutes, and waited to see what the land would do if left alone. Today, almost ninety years later, 19,513 acres of mixed oak-hickory and pine cover Virginia's largest state forest, and the cellar holes of the abandoned homesteads are still scattered among the trees.

Appomattox-Buckingham State Forest: Land That Gave Up

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937 was a quiet piece of Depression-era policy that authorized the federal government to purchase submarginal farmland and convert it to other public uses. The idea was simple: some land had been farmed past its capacity, and the families tr...

Appomattox-Buckingham State Forest: Transition to Virginia

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1954 the federal government transferred the land to the Commonwealth of Virginia, creating the state forest. The Virginia Department of Forestry has been managing it ever since, working to transition the regenerating second-growth into a more diverse mixed ecosystem. That work...

Appomattox-Buckingham State Forest: What the Canopy Holds

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Dominant species read like a textbook of central Virginia hardwoods. White oak, chestnut oak, black oak, northern red oak, southern red oak, scarlet oak. Mockernut and pignut hickory. Yellow poplar shooting straight up through the gaps. Red maple where the soil holds moisture. Lo...

Appomattox-Buckingham State Forest: Ghosts in the Woods

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Walk far enough off the gravel roads and you will find them. Foundation stones in the leaf litter. Brick chimneys still standing in clearings where the surrounding forest has reclaimed everything else. Daffodils blooming in March around what used to be a front door. The homestead...