Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (20) View all

Report of the Secretary of Agriculture in relation to the forests, rivers, and mountains of the southern Appalachian region

Item
?

Item’s are ‘child’ level descriptions to ‘parent’ objects, (e.g. one page of a whole book).

  • 22 SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION. incut of the Interior. The length of time required for engraving these detailed forest maps makes it impossible to issue them as a part of the present report, but copies of them in manuscript form are meanwhile available for examination at the Department of Agriculture and the Geological Survey. The distribution of these forests and the approximate relative proportion of the forest-covered and the cleared lands are indicated by the generalized map (PI. XII). The scattered cleared fields on the mountain slopes are so small that it is impossible to indicate them on a map of this scale, and hence only the larger clearings, 'nly those along the valleys, are shown. Jonsidering the forests of the region as a whole, there is t striking uniformity about their general features, especially in the valleys and along the lower slopes, and 3ret everywhere there is variety. This fact is well illustrated by the list (on p. 93) 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 variations in drier by their more direct exposure to the sun. The forests on south- " l sune's"1 ""rlhL'r" 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, hut greater depth and fertility of soil. Both are protected by the humus which covers the surface and which I contributes directly to the luxuriance of this growth. It 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. (See PI. XIII.) f"rr"™lZc t'd I*ut tne greatest variations in these mountain forests f'c V| t in] I i_ i • 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. (See PI. XIV.) 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 Ap-
Object
?

Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).