Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

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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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  • SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION. 55 leys, has added to the ruggedness of the region and its picturesqueness. Some of the largest of these mountains are the Blue, Flat Top, Shooting Creek, and Valley River mountains. The northern slopes and hollows are often well wooded forest con- with hard woods, chiefly with oaks, chestnut, maples, and hickories. The southern slopes are lightly wooded with oaks, hickories, and black and yellow pines, which also form the forests on the spurs and foothills. In very many places the forest is open and thin, and many trees are defective. The undergrowth is often dense, consisting of numerous sprouts from young trees which have been killed by fires, and many shrubs which grow in the partial shade of the thin forest cover. In other places there is almost no underwood and no young growth. Repeated fires have injured much of the timber on the southern slopes and greatly impaired the general forest condition. These fires are far more frequent and severe than in the hard-wood forests northward, on account of the dryer climate and soil and the large amount of inflammable pine, and the resultant injury to the timber is more evident. On account of the thin, dry soil the trees are smaller and less vigorous than farther north, and the constant destruction of the humus by the fires still further lessens their growth and keeps them small. The soils of th s mountains are generally thin and sandy and not at all productive agriculturally. In many places they are very rocky, so that tillage would be impossible. The altitude is too low for grass. About three-fourths of the area is at present in forest. Some of it is second growth, but only a small part of it is such. There are occasional clearings, however, around the base of the mountains and in the hollows. Lumbering has been in progress in many places and some of the choicest timber has been removed, especially along and near the Marietta and North Georgia Railroad. CHANGES IN FOREST CONDITIONS OF THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS. The three agencies that have wrought changes in the forests of the Southern Appalachian, are the fires, the lumbermen, and the clearer of lands for farming purposes. Fire has come as an oft-repeated scourge since the days es{'rrre7 by for" of early Indian occupation. More than 78,000 acres of the region examined havetu^te0n,tan&& recently been so severely burned as to kill the greater por- images.
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).