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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. 57 effects follow the careless policy of burning mountain land in this country as in Europe is proved by the already desolate condition of large areas in the Rocky Mountains and the plainly legible signs of the coming consequences in the Appalachian region. The lumberman has been increasing his activities at a The effect of ... . . lumbering. somewhat rapid rate, and he is yearly going farther into the forests. The damages he causes come not so much from the trees he cuts in culling the forest as from the additional trees and seedlings of valuable species which he destroys in his lumbering operations, and the greater destruction from forest fires which follow him, fed by the tops and other brush he leaves scattered through the forest. By his irregular cutting, reducing forest conditions, he renders impracticable the inauguration of economic, conservative forest management. Following in the wake of the fire and the lumbering, ciJtthrin|flescttee0P and surpassing them both in the completeness and pernia- mountain sides. nency of the damage done, is the man who clears for ordinary agricultural purposes mountain lands which should forever remain in forest. The clearing of lands in this region for agricultural purposes has progressed slowly but steadily during the past century as the population increased, until at the present time there are 1,200,000 Percentage of acres (24 per cent) cleared out of a total of 5,400,000 acres cleared. examined. (See PI. XII.) When it is considered that the settlement of this region has been in progress for more than a century the extent of the area devoted to agriculture is small. The reason for this is found in the unprofitableness of cultivating lands with such steep slopes. The cleared lands are mostly limited to the alluvial bottoms along the streams, the rounded valley hills, the lower mountain spurs, and the lower slopes of the larger mountains themselves below 4,000 feet elevation. In some localities, especially in the region around Roan Mountain and on the Blue Ridge north of Gillespie Gap, there are large areas of cleared land at an elevation of from 3,500 to 5,000 feet; but these are mostly grass farms, are not subject to continuous tillage, as are the corn lands below, and hence do not deteriorate so rapidly. Some of the slopes that are cultivated are very steep—from 30 to 40 degrees—some of them too steep even for the mountain steei and bull-tongue plow, and must be cultivated entirely by hand.
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).