Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

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Proposed Appalachian Forest Reserve

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  • Early on, the Appalachian National Park Association met with legislative success. In 1900, a bill passed authorizing funds to investigate the possibility of a national park in the eastern U.S. and, in December 1901, Congress introduced a bill to purchase land. While the Appalachian National Park Association initially argued for a national park, it used the terms “national park” and “forest reserve” somewhat interchangeably. As the bill made its way through Congress, funds were earmarked for a “forest reserve” rather than a “national park.” Unfortunately, when a separate bill was re-introduced in 1902, Congress was not able to reconcile the two bills and they failed.
  • The Proposed Appalachian Forest Reserve.* In tny report on the Forests and Forest conditions of the Southern Appalachian Mountain region, which has been printed along with your message to Congress on this subject, of December 19, 1901, I discussed briefly the rapid rate at which the forests on these mountain slopes were being removed, and the extent to which the resulting floods were destroying agricultural lands and other property along the streams rising in that region. In that report I stated that the damages resulting from these floods during the year (1901) " approximated $10,000,000, a sum sufficient to purchase the entire area recommended for the proposed reserve." Subsequent examinations have shown that during the few months following the date of that report the flood damages on these streams, extending across eight different States, aggregated $8,000,000, making a total of $18,000,000, during the twelve months ending in April, 1902. These examinations also show, as additional results of the deforestation of these mountain slopes, (1) that the water powers along these streams, which have an aggregate annual value of $20,000,000 as a basis for manufacturing enterprises, are being gradually but certainly destroyed through the increasing irregularity in the flow of the streams; (2) that the soils which are being washed down from these mountain slopes are rendering annually less navigable the Ohio, the Tennessee, the Mississippi, and other rivers of these Southeastern States ; and, (3) that the rate of land erosion on these mountain slopes from which the forest cover has been removed is now as great in a single year as it was during ten centuries while these slopes were covered with primeval forests. A bill providing for the establishment of the forest reserve recommended in my report is now pending before Congress. With an increased realization of the importance of this measure I reproduce here the concluding paragraph of that report. "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." * Extract from the annual report of Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, submitted to the President, November 29, 1902.