Appalachian Summit

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46.    No Thought for the Future

 

 

 

 

In 1901 a report issued by the Secretary of Agriculture warned of the detrimental effects on soil erosion and water quality by the intense timber harvesting taking place in the Southern Appalachians.  The report provided a vivid portrait of  the Appalachian Summit and proposed that the Federal Government purchase large tracks of land to be set aside as National Forests.  As the proposal was debated in Congress and across the country the destructive clear cutting continued until, by the end of World War I, the entire Summit area, with the exception of isolated patches, had been denuded.

 

 

 

 

Message from the President of the United States

Transmitting

A Report of the Secretary of Agriculture in

Relation to the Forests, Rivers

and Mountains of the Southern

Appalachian Region.

1902

 

_______

 

 

Report

on the

Forests and Forest Conditions of the Southern

Appalachian Mountain Region.

 

 

To the PRESIDENT:

An interest in practical forestry, notable and commendable, has grown up among the American people during the past few years. There is an evident determination that our country shall profit from its own and the experiences of other countries by beginning the preservation of our forest remnants before it is altogether too late.

The most important practical outcome of this awakening has been the setting aside by the Government, out of the public domain. in the several Western States and Territories, of some 70,000 square miles of forest-covered lands about the mountains in these regions, to protect the streams and perpetuate the timber supplies. A more recent result is the movement, which has met with the general approval of business and scientific organizations and the unanimous support of the press, toward the preservation by the Government of the hard-wood forests on the slopes of the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

The proposal that the Government shall protect these Appalachian forests by purchasing the lands and making of them a great national forest reserve was first brought directly to the attention of Congress in January, 1900, when a memorial to that effect was presented by the Appalachian Mountain Club of New England and the Appalachian National Park Association of the South Atlantic states. In response to this memorial and in recognition of the importance of the movement, the act making the appropriation for the Department of Agriculture for the fiscal year ending ,June 30, 1901, provided that a “sum not to exceed $5,000 may, in the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture, be used to investigate the forest conditions in the Southern Appalachian Mountain region of western North Carolina and adjacent States.

 

 

 

The Forests

 

It is the forest covering of these great mountain slopes - a covering that should never be removed - about which interest centers in the present investigation. The results of this examination during the past two years are given at length in a paper published as Appendix A (p. 41). They are stated separately for each of the larger river basins, following a somewhat general discussion of the forest conditions in the region as they exist to-day and of how the forests may be economically protected and improved under Government control. . . .

Considering the forests of the region as a whole, there is a striking uniformity about their general features, especially in the valleys and along the lower slopes, and yet everywhere there is variety. This fact is well illustrated by the list of 137 species of trees and a still longer list of shrubs growing in this mountain region. The forests on the southeasterly slopes are usually less striking, both in size of trees and density of growth, than those on the northwest, and they are usually more damaged by forest fires, because the slopes are steeper and are kept drier by their more direct exposure to the sun. The neighboring forests on the northern and western slopes and in the westerly facing coves exhibit a greater variety of vegetation, a denser growth, and finer specimens of individual trees, because they have not only greater moisture, but greater depth and fertility of soil. Both are protected by the humus which covers the surface and which contributes directly to the luxuriance of this growth. I t is in such situations that we find the best examples of the superb hard-wood forests which abound in this region - the finest on the continent.

But the greatest variations in these mountain forests are observed in connection with the differences in elevation. Thus along the southern foothills of the Appalachians in Georgia one finds occasionally scattered colonies of the loblolly and long-leaf pines, trees which are characteristic of the South Atlantic and Gulf coast region, intermingling with the typical hard-wood forests of the Piedmont Plateau and of the lower mountain slopes. At the eastern foot of the Blue Ridge, in North Carolina, the typical flora of the Piedmont Plateau abounds, and follows up the river gorges into the mountain valleys, where it associates with more characteristically Appalachian species. Thence up to the tops of the higher peaks there is a constant succession of changes-an intermingling and overlapping of the lower species with those which belong to greater elevations or more northern latitudes.

Thus in ascending any of the higher mountains, as Mount Mitchell, which, with its elevation of 6,711 feet, is the loftiest of them all, one may penetrate, in the rich and fertile coves about its base, a forest of oaks, hickories, maples, chestnuts, and tulip poplars, some of them large enough to be suggestive of the giant trees on the Pacific coast. Higher up one rides through forests of great hemlocks, chestnut oaks, beeches, and birches, and higher yet through groves of spruce and balsam. Covering the soil between these trees is a spongy mass of humus sometimes a foot and more in thickness, and over this in turn a luxuriant growth of shrubs and flowers and ferns. At last, as the top is reached, even the balsams become dwarfed, and there give place largely to clusters of rhododendron and patches of grass fringed with flowers, many of them such as are commonly seen about the hills and valleys of New England and southern Canada.

In such an ascent one passes through, as it were, the changing of the seasons. Half way up the slopes one may see, with fruit just ripening, the shrubs and plants the matured fruit of which was seen two or three weeks before on the Piedmont Plateau, 3,000 feet below; while 3,000 feet higher up the same species have now just opened wide their flowers. Fully a month divides the seasons above and below, separated by this nearly 6,000 feet of altitude.

Remote from the railroads the forest on these mountains is generally unbroken from the tops of ridge and peak down to the brook in the valley below, and to-day it is in much the same condition as for centuries past. In the more settled portions of the region, however, a different picture presents itself. Along the narrow mountain valleys are the cultivated fields about the settlements, where they ought to be. When the valleys were practically all cleared the increasing demands for lands to cultivate led to clearings successively higher and higher up the mountain slopes, with a pitch of 20 and 30 and even 40 degrees. From some of the peaks one may count these cleared mountain-side patches by the score. They have multiplied the more rapidly because their fertility is short lived, limited to two, three, or five crops at most. They are cleared, cultivated, and abandoned in rapid succession. Out of twenty such cleared fields, perhaps two or three are in corn, planted between the recently girdled trees; one or two may he in grain; two or four in grass, and the remainder-more than half of them-in various stages of abandonment and ruin, perhaps even before the deadened trees have fallen to the ground.

The lumberman attacked this forest several decades ago when he began to penetrate it in search of the rarer and more valuable trees, such as the walnut and cherry. Later, as the railroads entered the region to some extent, he added to his list of trees for cutting the mountain birch, locust, and tulip poplar, and successively other valuable species. During the past few years he has cut everything merchantable. He is now beginning to extend his operations to considerable distances beyond the main lines of transportation by the construction of tramways and even cheap, short railways. Meanwhile his search for the more valuable trees has extended in advance to most, of the more remote mountain coves.

In these operations there has naturally been no thought for the future. Trees have been cut so as to fall along the line of least resistance regardless of what they crush. Their tops and branches, instead of being piled in such way and burned at such time as would do the least harm, are left scattered among the adjacent growth to burn when driest, and thus destroy or injure everything within reach. The home and permanent interests of the lumberman are generally in another State or region, and his interest in these mountains begins and ends with the hope of profit. There is, however, no evidence that the native lumberman has in the past exhibited any different spirit.

Forest fires have been one of the great curses of this fires. country. From the days of Indian occupation down to the present time these Appalachian Mountain forests have been swept through by fires. Some of these have preceded the lumberman, others have accompanied him, and still others have followed in his wake, and the last have been far more destructive because of the tops and other rubbish which he has left behind him scattered among the remaining growth. The aggregate damage from these fires is great. Over some limited areas they have entirely destroyed the forests. Everywhere on the southward slopes the damages have exceeded those on slopes toward the north or west. Trees have been burned near the roots, making their bases defective; the young growth has been burned down; the grasses and other wild forage plants have been temporarily exterminated, so that instead of pasturage being improved, as some have believed it would be, in the end it has been seriously damaged. This destruction of the humus has always resulted seriously both to the forests and to the soils. In some cases, where the forests covering the steep, rocky slopes were thin, the loss of the humus has resulted in the washing and leaching away of the soils to such an extent as to destroy the forests entirely; and in all cases where the humus is thus removed the work of land erosion among the trees goes on as surely as though the forest itself were gone, though of course the process is far less rapid. Furthermore, the storage of water (in soils from which this humus has been removed) is far less perfect than in the original perfect forest.

The rapid rate at which these lumbering operations have extended during the past few years and the still more rapid rate at which they are being extended at the present time, considered in connection with the destructive work of the fires and the clearing for agriculture, indicates that within less than a decade every mountain cove will have been invaded and robbed of its finest timber, and the last of the remnants of these grand primeval Appalachian forests will have been destroyed. Hence the very possibility of securing a forest reserve such as now contemplated is a possibility of the present, not of the future. This great activity indicates, furthermore, in the most striking way possible, the growing anxiety as to the future supply of hard-wood timber. And indeed the time is now at hand when the great interests involved make it imperative that the Government take hold of this problem and inaugurate here in these great broad-leaved forests of the East a new conservative forest policy, as it is already doing for the pine forests of the West.

 

 

 

Forest Clearing and Agriculture in the

Southern Appalachians.

 

Ordinary farming on these mountain slopes can not exist permanently and should never exist at all. As stated above, not more than 10 per cent of the land of this region has a surface slope of less than 10 degrees (approximately 2 feet in 10), while 24 per cent of it has been cleared. In this region land with slopes exceeding this can not be successfully cultivated for any considerable time, because its surface is rapidly washed into the rivers below by the heavy rains, and the same agency rapidly leaches out and carries to the sea its more soluble and fertile ingredients. The valley lands have already been largely cleared, and the farmers are now following up the mountain slopes, in many cases their cleared patches have well nigh reached the mountain summits. This process is going on with greater rapidity, because each short-lived hillside field must soon be abandoned. The underbrush is destroyed, the trees are girdled, and for one, two, or three years such a field is planted in corn, then a year in grain, then one or two years in grass; then the grass gives place to weeds, and the weeds to gullies.

Such a field has usually passed through its cycle in five to ten years and another must be cleared to take its place. A forest which is the growth of several centuries perishes in less than a decade; a soil which is the accumulation of a thousand years has been cleared, cultivated, abandoned, and is on the downward road to the sea within less than a decade. Such is the brief life history of many thousands of small mountain fields in this Southern Appalachian region. But even the native farmer is beginning to realize that the clearing of these mountain slopes is producing floods that wash away the valley farms, and that the time must come when he will have successively cleared and destroyed all his available mountain land.

Fortunately the intelligence of the country is awakening to other and larger results that are following this policy. The soil thus removed may stop long enough on its way to the sea to silt up the streams as they cross the low- lands or may fill up the harbors as the streams reach the coast. Every acre of mountain slope thus cleared is a step in the more rapid destruction of the forests, of the soils, of the rivers, and of the “eternal mountains” themselves— the destruction of conditions which the combined wealth, intelligence, amid time of man can not restore in a region which now possesses infinite possibilities for the benefit of the whole nation.

In the cool climate of New England the native grasses form a dense sod which holds the hillside surfaces in place, so that even where the forests have been removed there is little erosion. In the Southern Appalachians, however, neither the grass, the legumes, nor the other forage plants have been able to prevent this land erosion, and their only safeguard for the future is the protection of the forests. Hundreds of these steep mountain fields where selected grasses were sown have been observed during the past few years, and the results, as indicating a means of permanently holding these soils, have been generally unsatisfactory. This washing away of the cleared mountain fields does not always manifest itself in the formation of deep gullies. The majority of these fields have slopes so steep that the water in its downward course can not always move laterally to a sufficient degree for its concentration and the washing out of such gullies. Each drop of rain does its own work in battering and loosening the surface; and as it carries downward the particles of soil it has captured it is joined by only its closer neighbors. Hence frequently after a heavy rain the surface of such a field looks as though it might have been harrowed or even raked down-ward rather than plowed in larger furrows. From one of these cleared fields more soil is sometimes removed by a single heavy rain than during the preceding centuries while it was densely forest covered.

But while the rains are removing the soils of the cleared mountain slopes the floods are removing the soils of the valley farms. This is notably the case in the valleys, where the bordering forests have been cleared to the largest extent. Year by year the channels of the streams are widening and encroaching. upon the adjacent farms, and as the magnitude of the floods increases, these mountain streams, transformed into swollen torrents, leave their course and plow new channels across the fields. During the floods of the present year thousands of acres of the most productive valley lands in this mountain region have been damaged or destroyed by one or both of these processes.

It is, then, exactly true that the making of farms on mountain slopes is destroying the farms in the valleys, that unless stopped by some external influence this will proceed more rapidly as the population of the region increases. ft is therefore only a question of time, to be measured not in centuries but in years, when, unless this policy is changed. there will be no forests in this region except on the small remnants—say 10 per cent of the whole—where the mountain slopes are too precipitous and rocky to make the cultivation of the lands possible, even by an Appalachian mountaineer and his hoe.

If, on the other hand, the policy now advocated is  adopted, and all these steeper mountain slopes are incorporated into a forest reserve, owned and controlled by the Government, the valley lands will be protected from floods, and to the cultivation of these areas can be added that of the gentler slopes, the whole to be terraced and kept in a high state of cultivation by the native farmer, who will retain ownership then as now.

The guiding principle of the Government in the creation of this forest reserve should be to protect the farmer in his occupation and to insure the use of agricultural lands for agricultural purposes; but also, and primarily, to maintain forever the forest cover of these great and beautiful mountains, which can he perpetuated in no other way. Under such a system the agriculture of this region will be maintained on a permanently satisfactory basis. Under the present policy it is advancing to certain ruin.

 

 

Forest Clearings. The Rivers, and Floods.

 

Probably no region in the United States is better watered of or better drained than this; nor is there any other region which can boast of being the source of so many streams. From about its northern end the New River (Kanawha) flows northward and westward and becomes a prominent tributary of the Ohio; along its southeastern front the James, the Roanoke, the Yadkin, the Catawba, the Broad, and the Savannah reach the Atlantic; near its southern end the Chattahoochee and the Alabama flow directly into the Gulf of Mexico; along its western the Hiwassee, the Tuckaseegee, the French Broad, the Nolichucky, the Watauga, and the Holston drain westward through the Tennessee into the Mississippi.

Each of these greater rivers as it crosses the Coastal Plain region toward the sea is navigable for light-draft vessels. Each throughout its lower course is bordered by fertile agricultural lands, which in the past contributed largely to the nation’s supply of corn, but during recent decades have begun to suffer seriously from river floods. Each one of these streams along its course through them mountains and across the hill country beyond by its water power is already a contributor to the manufacturing interests of the country, and with improvement in the electrical transmission of power the possibilities of manufacturing developments in this direction are increasing rapidly every year. The measurements and estimates recently made by the Government hydrographer show the aggregate available undeveloped water power on the streams rising in this region to be more than a million horsepower. On these streams water-power developments are constantly in progress, but their value in the future will diminish as the forests disappear.

In the mountains themselves these streams have their sources at elevations from 3,000 to 6,000 feet, and before reaching a level of 2,000 feet many of them have reached considerable proportions. They subsequently flow across the mountain region for distances of from 20 to 50 miles before breaking through the border ranges onto the surrounding lowlands at elevations ranging from 1,000 to 1,200 feet. Along their courses stretches of smooth water are never long, and the descent is often accomplished by numerous rapids, cascades, and falls. Such cascades, with descent in short distances of from 10 to 50 feet, are abundant, while in some of the smaller tributaries beautiful falls of from 100 to 300 feet are to be found.

I can not adequately describe the beauty and infinite variety of these mountain brooks and larger streams. Always clear, except immediately after the harder rains— for the forests hold back the soil—fed regularly from perpetual springs, they are among the important assets of the South. No gorges in eastern America can equal in depth and wildness those carved across the Blue Ridge and the Unakas by these streams in making their way through the marginal ranges of the Southern Appalachians. About the headwaters of the Catawba, the Linville River, after flowing for some miles parallel with the Blue Ridge, at an elevation of 3,800 feet, rushes down its eastern slope with a fall of 1,000 feet in less than 3 miles, through a gorge 1,500 to 2,000 feet in depth, a dozen miles in length, and with wall so steep and bottom so narrow and rugged that few persons have succeeded in following its course. Almost the same language might be use in describing the gorge cut by the Pigeon River across the Unaka Mountains southwest of Asheville; and there are a number of others cutting the Blue Ridge and Unaka, at different points that are worthy of comparison with these. The same may be said of the gorges of the Tallulah and other streams in northern Georgia.

But notwithstanding the steepness of the slopes of these gorges, even where the descent is almost precipitous, they are forest-covered except where the trees and shrubs have been destroyed by fire and the soil has been removed by the storms. The perpetuation of the streams and the maintenance of  their regular flow, so as to prevent floods and maintain their water powers, are among the prime objects of forest preservation in the Southern Appalachians. Nothing illustrates the need of this more fully than the fact that on the neighboring streams, lying wholly within the Piedmont plateau. where the forests have been cleared from areas aggregating from 60 to 80 per cent of the whole, floods are frequent and excessive. During the seasons of protracted drought some of the smaller streams almost disappear and the use of water power along their course is either abandoned or largely supplemented by steam power.

To-day the larger valuable water power in the South Atlantic region are mainly limited to the streams which have their sources among the Southern Appalachian Mountains; and the waters of these streams show a striking uniformity of flow as compared with the streams lying wholly within the adjacent lowland country, where forest clearing has been excessive. While the rainfall is somewhat greater in the mountain region, it is a question of the regularity rather than the volume of flow, and this depends upon the water storage. The soil in the one region is as deep as in the other, and the slopes being gentler in the low country other things being equal, the water would soak into it the more easily. In the mountain region itself the flow of the streams along which proportionately large clearings have been made has become decidedly more irregular, and the flood damages have greatly exceeded those along other streams where the forests have not been disturbed. The problem resolves itself into one of a forest cover for the soil. This is just what one would expect who has been, dining a rainy season, in the heart of a mountain region where the lands have not been cleared nor have forest fires destroyed the humus cover from their surface. The ran drops are battered to pieces and their force broken by leaves and twigs of the trees, and when their spray reach the ferns, the grass, and the flowers below, instead running away down the surface slope it passes into the spongy humus, and thence into the soil and the crevice among the rocks below. As much of this supply as is not subsequently used by the growing plants emerges from this storehouse weeks or months later in numberless springs. The rain must be extremely abundant or long protracted to produce any excessive increase in the flow of the adjacent brooks.

The rainfall in this Southern Appalachian region ranges from 60 inches for the year in Georgia to 71 inches in North Carolina. Heavy rainfalls during short periods are common. Even in an arid or semiarid region, where the rainfall for the year may be 10 inches or less, the absence of the forest cover results in a slow but sure removal of the soil from the mountain slopes. Much more in a region of heavy rain- fall, like that of these southern mountains, when the forest cover has been destroyed, will the soil removal be certainly and rapidly accomplished.

In studying the streams of the more northern States it is seen that the numerous lakes and the deposits of sand and gravel spread over the hills and valleys of that region by the glaciers serve to store the water and to preserve the uniformity in the flow of the streams, and would accomplish much in this direction even were the forests in that region entirely removed. In this southern region the preservation of the soil and the streams is a task which the forests alone must accomplish, and to that end they must be effectively protected.

The proportion of cleared and forest-covered land in each of the great river drainage basins of the region is given on page 69, and as will be seen there, this proportion, though generally small, varies considerably in the different basins. Taking the region as a whole, at the present time about 24 per cent of the area has been cleared. This proportion is an ever-increasing one—increasing the more swiftly for the reason that new fields are constantly being cleared and the abandoned fields are being eroded so rapidly that they are seldom reforested.

Here and there among the Southern Appalachians a land- slide extending over an acre, or several acres, has started, bearing on its surface a section of the forest, but the larger trees below have blocked its course within a few feet or a few yards of its original position. The trees on its surface were tilted, but the subsequent upward bending of their tops shows that the slip took place ten, fifty, or more than one hundred years ago. The abundance of such evidence shows that these rain storms among the primeval forests have been both frequent and heavy, but during the centuries these densely forest-covered slopes have not lost their soils nor the soils their fertility, nor has a furrow been washed. Trees of four centuries stand to-day in the very bottom of shallow ravines and minor depressions, eroded before these forests covered the mountains. Had these forests been removed a few of these great rains that started these landslides would have cleaned the mountain slope of its recently formed soil, and would have swept the valley below. These mountains will continue to be the home of storms. Their heavy rains will continue to drench the slopes, if cleared of their forests, with increasing violence. Whether in the future these rains shall he caught by fern and grass and humus, and received by a deep, porous soil, to he given out as needed to the vegetation above and the perpetual springs below, or whether it shall rush down bare, rocky slopes to fill the gorges and carry destruction through the valleys beyond, depends upon whether or not these forests are preserved.

The terribly destructive work of the heavy rains in washing away the farm lands on the mountain slopes and in the valleys of this region, especially where the clearings have been greatest, has already been described. It should he understood clearly, however, that the dangers from these floods are not limited to the region about the mountains. The floods from the May storm of the present year on the Blue Ridge, about the sources of the Catawba, swept the best of the farm lands along the course of that stream for upward of 200 miles, and cost the farmers more than a million and a half of dollars. An August storm in the same region added a loss of half a million more by further destruction on the Catawba lowlands. Similarly, the same May floods swept the valleys of the Yadkin in North Carolina, the New (Kanawha) in Virginia and West Virginia, and the upper tributaries of the Tennessee with resulting devastation, which, when added to that on the Catawba, sums up to more than $7,000,000 damage. Add to this the damages from floods on other streams rising in different parts of this region during the spring and summer, and the total this year approximates 10,000,000. Such has been the story, on a smaller scale, of other similar but less violent floods about the sources of these mountain-born rivers during the past few years. If we are to continue the destruction of these mountain forests, this story will have to be repeated in successively larger editions in the future.

 

 

 

The Climate of the Southern Appalachians

 

As shown in the accompanying paper by Professor Henry, of the Weather Bureau, the climate of the Southern Appalachian region possesses distinctive features of its own, although it partakes somewhat of the main features of the climatic zones both to the west and to the east. Its distinctive features, due to higher altitudes, are a lower temperature, both summer and winter, a drier atmosphere, and at the same time a greater rainfall and snowfall, and higher wind velocity. There are of course local variations in the climatic conditions of the region, owing to its extremely varied topography, but the limited number of stations where observations have been made in this region makes it impossible to discuss these local variations at the present time.

It is in temperature that we might expect the greatest variations, but, unfortunately, with the exception of a few months observation on Mount Mitchell (elevation 6,711 feet), no observations are available at elevations greater than 4,000 feet. The highest temperature observed on Mount Mitchell during May, June, July, and August in 1873 was 72 degrees in July; the lowest, 4l degrees in June. At Highlands, N. C. (elevation 3,817 feet), the mean temperature of the summer is given by the Weather Bureau records as 65.7 degrees, and the mean winter temperature as 35.4degrees. The extremes during a period of eight years (1893 to 1900) were 19 degrees below zero in February and 86 degrees above zero in June.

The rainfall along the southern slopes of the Blue Ridge is the heaviest in the United States, with the exception of that on the northern Pacific coast, ranging from 60 inches in northern Georgia to 71 inches in western North Carolina. The precipitation for the year 1898 in western North Carolina at Highlands was 105.24 inches; at Horse Cove, 99.97 inches; Flat Rock, 78.39 inches, and Linville, 71.05 inches. The rainfall in the warm seasons is often torrential, while in the spring and autumn the rains often continue over several days in succession. During May 21, 1901, the rainfall in twenty-four hours was, at Highlands, N. C., 4.03 inches; at Hendersonville, N. C., 4.91 inches; at Flat Rock, N. C., 6.12 inches; at Marion, N. C., 7.25 inches; and at Patterson, N. C.. 8.3 inches. Near Roan Mountain, North Carolina, a rainfall of 8 inches in eleven hours has been recorded. In August of 1901 the total rain- fall for the month at Highlands, N. C., was 30.74 inches.

The tables which accompany Professor Henry’s paper show the temperatures, rainfall, and other weather conditions at practically all of the stations established within this region. They emphasize two facts of special importance in connection with the present discussion, namely, that the climate is such as to permit travel and lumbering operations in all portions of this region throughout the entire year, while the rainfall, being heavy in the aggregate and often excessive within short periods, renders it necessary to protect the forests in order to limit floods and prevent the washing away of the land.

 

 

How Can These Forests be Preserved

 

Having given what I believe to be a fair statement of the conditions existing in the Southern Appalachian region, and considered the danger growing out of the policy and practice now in force, I pass on to inquire through what agency these forests can he preserved. After careful consideration I am able to suggest but one way to solve the problem, and that is for the Federal Government to purchase these forest-covered mountain slopes and make them into a national forest reserve. Certainly, the lumbermen and the native farmers, who are now pushing the destruction of these forests, can not be expected of themselves to bring about their preservation. Nor can the perpetuation of forest conditions, upon which depend so many national interests, be left to the caprice of private capital, which has no interest beyond the profits in the lumber industry. The restoration of forests already injured, and the reforesting of the steep mountain slopes already cleared, are here properly national functions, for their results will he national in importance and extent. Furthermore, it is perfectly safe to assert that any satisfactory protection and development of these forests for the objects here contemplated is wholly beyond the agency of private individuals; and such persons would have no direct interest whatever in the protection and perpetuation of water-power, agriculture, and navigation along the lower courses of the streams whose head- waters they control. Nor can the States within whose territory these lands now lie be expected to convert them into a forest reserve. The land is not owned by the States, but by private indi viduals. It is true that sonic of the wealthier States, like New York and Pennsylvania, are showing an intelligent and commendable interest in purchasing forest lands and establishing forest reserves for the protection of the sources of streams lying within their own boundaries and for the conservation of the forests. But the case is wholly different in the Southern Appalachian region. North Carolina can not, for example, fairly be expected to establish a forest reserve at great expense for the protection of streams which though rising within her borders lie mainly in other States. Nor could Alabama he expected to purchase lands in the State of Georgia for the protection of her great river which reaches the Gulf in Mobile Bay. Nor could West Virginia be expected to purchase lands in North Carolina for the protection of the sources of the Kanawha River, the largest lateral tributary of the Ohio.

Furthermore, even were these States willing to enter upon such a plan, their financial condition is not such as to make the undertaking possible. The combined income for a year of all the States within whose borders these lands lie would hardly be sufficient for their purchase. As shown, however, in the Appendix, each of the States within whose borders these mountain lands are located has by legislative act expressed its hearty approval of this measure and its willingness to cede the control of these lands to the Federal Government.

This is a national problem. The people of a number of the States are directly interested. The dangers growing out of the policy now in force are national in their character, as are also the benefits to be obtained by the policy now advised. This proposal for a national forest reserve has already been discussed and commended by our ablest men of science, by practical lumbermen, by the forestry associations, by many of the business organizations of the country, and by both the technical and the general press. I earnestly hope that it will meet with favorable action at the hands of Congress during its present session. Congress has wisely provided for the setting aside out of the public domain, and thus withdrawing from sale, many thousands of square miles of valuable forest lands, with a view to protecting the streams and perpetuating the timber supply about the mountains in our western States and Territories. And while the measure now proposed involves a purchase instead of a withdrawal from sale of forest lands formerly purchased, the principle and purpose are the same. In both cases, even if judged simply as a question of finance, the Government’s investment will ultimately prove a good one.

As further illustrating the fact that the proposed purchase will not be a new policy or precedent on the part of the Government, attention may be called to the numerous purchases of lands for military parks, and to the purchase from the Blackfoot Indians in 1896 of more than half a million acres of forest lands at a cost of $1,500,000, which area was subsequently added to the Flathead Forest Reserve in Montana.

As I stated in my preliminary report of January last, the early movement for the purchase and control of a large area of forest land in the East by the Government chiefly contemplated a national park, but the idea of a national park is conservation not use; that of a forest reserve is conservation by use, and I therefore recommend the establishment of a forest reserve instead of a park. If, however, the present proposal for the establishment of a national forest reserve is favorably acted upon by Congress, and at some future time it should prove desirable that some considerable portion of this region be set aside and opened up more especially for use as a national park, I can see in advance no objection whatever to the carrying out of such a plan.

 

 

Conditions of Purchase and Management

 

I stated in the preliminary report just referred to that forest lands in this region suitable for a forest reserve are now generally held in large bodies of from 50,000 to 100,000 acres, and that they can be purchased at prices ranging from $2 to $5 per acre. Further investigations during the present year confirm the correctness of this statement. There are also many additional tracts of forest lands ranging from 1,000 to 50,000 acres each that are for sale at reasonable prices. Within the present year a few tracts of from 10,000 to 30,000 acres sold at less than $2 per acre. Within the past decade the larger portion of this area could have been purchased in large tracts at prices ranging from $1 to $2 an acre; but in view of the growing demand for forest lands, prices have already advanced, and they may be expected to advance still more within the next few years.

Within the past two decades the titles to many of the large tracts of land in this region have been much in dispute, and the efforts to adjust them involved tedious processes in court; but I am informed by competent judges that in practically all of these cases adjustments have finally been reached. Any appropriation for the purchase of these lands should provide ample time for the searching of titles, although no serious difficulty is anticipated from this source.

Referring again to my preliminary report, I may quote a statement which has been further confirmed by the results of the present year that “it is fully shown by the investigation that such a reserve would be self-supporting from the sale of timber under a wisely directed, conservative policy.” In the case of many of the European forests under government supervision a net annual income is derived from the sale of timber and other forest products of from $1 to more than $5 per acre. I do not, of course, suppose that under the different conditions existing in this country a national forest reserve such as proposed would yield such a result, yet I confidently expect that the reserve now proposed in the Southern Appalachians will in the course of a few years be self-supporting, and that subsequently, as the hard-wood timber supplies in other portions of the country become more scarce, the lumbering operations will yield a considerable net return to the Government.

Meanwhile, the establishment of such a reserve will remedy many of the evils now threatened in this region, and under the efficient management of the practical foresters now being trained in this Department its working will serve as a test and demonstration of the wisdom and success of practical forest operations on a large scale; and this wil1 encourage both individuals and States to adopt such methods of forest management on their own lands as will not only protect the forests in existence, but also restore them on lands which should never have been cleared.

I am informed by the geologists who are familiar with this Southern Appalachian region that the development of its mineral deposits would neither interfere with nor be interfered with by the creation and proper handling of such a forest reserve.

The settlements now existing within the limits of the proposed reserve would not be interfered with, nor would their existence there, nor their legitimate enlargement, interfere with the purposes to be accomplished in the establishment of the reserve.

It would not be wise at the present time to make public the exact location of lands which may be thought best adapted for incorporation in such a forest reserve, but the general boundaries of the region within which it is proposed to purchase these lands are indicated on the accompanying maps. I am of the opinion that the reserve should ultimately include not less than 4,000,000 acres.

 

 

Conclusions

 

The results of these investigations of the forests and forest conditions of the Southern Appalachian region lead unmistakably to the following conclusions:

1.     The Southern Appalachian region embraces the highest peaks and largest mountain masses east of the Rockies. It is the great physiographic feature of the eastern half of the continent, and no such lofty mountains are covered with hard-wood forests in all North America.

2.     Upon these mountains descends the heaviest rainfall of the United States, except that of the North Pacific coast. It is often of extreme violence, as much as 8 inches having fallen in eleven hours, 31 inches in one month, and 105 inches in a year.

3.     The soil, once denuded of its forests and swept by torrential rains, rapidly loses first its humus, then its rich upper strata, and finally is washed in enormous volume into the streams, to bury such of the fertile lowlands as are not eroded by the floods, to obstruct the rivers, and to fill up the harbors on the coast. More good soil is now washed from these cleared mountain-side fields during a single heavy rain than during centuries under forest cover.

4.  The rivers which originate in the Southern Appalachians flow into or along the edges of every State from Ohio to the Gulf and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Along their courses are agricultural, water-power, and navigation interests whose preservation is absolutely essential to the well-being of the nation.

5.  The regulation of the flow of these rivers can be accomplished only by the conservation of the forests.

6.  These are the heaviest and most beautiful hard-wood forests of the continent. In them species from east and west, from north and south, mingle in a growth of unparalleled richness and variety. They contain many species of the first commercial value and furnish important sup- plies which can not be obtained from any other region.

7.  For economic reasons the preservation of these forests is imperative. Their existence in good condition is essential to the prosperity of the lowlands through which their waters run. Maintained in productive condition they supply indispensable materials which must fail without them. Their management under practical and conservative forestry will sustain and increase the resources of this region and of the nation at large, will serve as an invaluable object lesson in the advantages and practicability of forest preservation by use, and will soon he self- supporting from the sale of timber.

8.  The agricultural resources of the Southern Appalachian region must be protected and preserved. To that end the preservation of the forests is an indispensable condition which will lead not to the reduction but to the increase of the yield of agricultural products.

9.  The floods in these mountain-born streams, if this forest destruction continues, will increase in frequency and violence and in the extent of their damages, both within this region and across the bordering States. The extent of these damages, like those from the washing of the mountain fields and roads, can not be estimated with perfect accuracy, but during the present year alone the total has approximated $10,000,000, a sum sufficient to purchase the entire area recommended for the proposed reserve. But this loss can not be estimated in money value alone. Its continuance means the early destruction of conditions most valuable to the nation and which neither skill nor wealth can restore.

10.  The preservation of the forests, of the streams, and of the agricultural interests here described can be successfully accomplished only by the purchase and creation of a national forest reserve. The States of the Southern Appalachian region own little or no land, and their revenues are inadequate to carry out this plan. Federal action is obviously necessary, is fully justified by reasons of public necessity, and may be expected to have most fortunate results.

 

James Wilson

Secretary of Agriculture.

 

Department of Agriculture,

Washington, D. C., December 16, 1901. [1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cherokee –

 

Those who know say that the Uktena is a great snake, as large around as a tree trunk, with horns on its head, and a bright, blazing crest like a diamond upon its forehead, and scales glittering like sparks of fire. It has rings or spots of color along its whole length, and can not be wounded except by shooting in the seventh spot from the head, because under this spot are its heart and its life. The blazing diamond is called Ulunsu ti, “Transparent,” and he who can win it may become the greatest wonder worker of the tribe, but it is worth a man’s life to attempt it, for whoever is seen by the Uktena is so dazed by the bright light that he runs toward the snake instead of trying to escape. Even to see the Uktena asleep is death, not to the hunter himself, but to his family.

Of all the daring warriors who have started out in search of  the Ulunsu ti, only Agan-unitsi ever came back successful. The East Cherokee still keep the one which he brought. It is like a large transparent crystal, nearly the shape of a cartridge bullet, with a blood-red streak running through the center from top to bottom. The owner  keeps it wrapped in a whole deerskin, inside an earthen jar hidden away in a secret cave in the mountains. Every seven days he feeds it with the blood of small game, rubbing the blood all over the crystal as soon as the animal has been killed. Twice a year it must have the, blood of a deer or some other large animal. Should he forget to feed it at the proper time it would come out from its cave at night in a shape of fire and fly through the air to slake its thirst with the lifeblood of the conjurer or some one of his people. He may save himself from this danger by telling it, when he puts it away, that he will not need it again for a long time. It will then go quietly to sleep and feel no hunger until it is again brought out to be consulted. Then it must be fed again with blood before it is used.

No white man must ever see it and no person but the owner will venture near it for fear of sudden death. Even the conjurer who keeps it is afraid of it, and changes its hiding place every once in a while so that it can not learn the way out. When he dies it will be buried with him. Otherwise it will come out of its cave, like a blazing star, to search for his grave, night after night for seven years, when, if still not able to find him, it will go back to sleep forever where he has placed it.

Whoever owns the Ulunsu ti is sure of success in hunting, love, rain making, and every other business, but its great use is in life prophecy.  When it is consulted for this purpose the future is seen mirrored in the clear crystal as a tree is reflected in the quiet stream below, and the conjurer knows whether the sick man will recover, whether the warrior will return from battle, or whether the youth will live to be old.

 

*

 

At the creation an ulunsu ti was given to the white man, and a piece of silver to the Indian. But the white man despised the stone and threw it away, while the Indian did the same with the silver. In going about the white man afterward found the silver piece and put it into his pocket and has prized it ever since. The Indian, in like manner, found the ulunsu ti where the white man had thrown it. He picked it up and has kept it since as his talisman, as money is the talismanic power of the white man.  [2]