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

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  • 28 SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION. Result of pres-ree.jon increases. It is therefore only a question of time, t_'i)l policy ^ • i i 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 wnole—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. policy under jf on the other hand, the policy now advocated is proposed Gov- .... . • 1 eminent man-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. (See Pis. IX b and XXIII a.) ^Guiding^prin- -pQe gui(\ing principle of the Government in the creation ment manage- 0f this forest reserve should be to protect the farmer in ment. c 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 be 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. the™source" of Probably no region in the United States is better watered many rivers. or better drained than this; nor is there any other region which can boast of being the source of so many streams. (See PI. XII.) 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
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