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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. 59 tivation; but with an increasing population the demand for additional fields to cultivate has led to the clearing of these mountain-side patches successively higher up the slopes, until now the area of these clearings considerably exceeds the area of the bottom lands. This process has gone on the more rapidly because of the rapidity with which these steep lands have been worn out and abandoned. There are yet many places where the gentler slopes might perhaps be cleared to meet the agricultural demands of the' region, but unquestionably the steeper areas already cleared should be at once reforested in order to prevent their early ruin, abandon™" All lands in this region remaining cleared for farming ested.d be re'°r purposes should be kept in the highest state of cultivation, and those of even the gentler slopes should be carefully terraced, and as far as possible kept in grass or orchards. The effect of exposing mountain lands to the full power of rain, running water, and frost is not generally appreciated. The greater part of our population lives on level land and does not see how the hills erode, and even in the hills nearly all the people go indoors when it rains and therefore do not half understand what is going on. In the dashing, cutting rains of these mountains the earth of freshly burned or freshly plowed land melts away like sugar. The streams from such lands are often more than half earth and the amount of best soil thus eroded every year is enormous. The individual owners are to a great extent helpless in gested preventing these unwise cuttings, clearings, and forest fires. Some of them can care for their own lands, but they can not, owing to their small holdings and small incomes, regulate the policy which controls adjacent areas. Only cooperation on a great scale, such as Government ownership could provide, can stop these forest fires, check this reckless clearing, and preserve these resources to the best advantage. The two great needs of this mountain region are: 1. The use of the land for the purpose to which it is best adapted, which would require the keeping of 80 to 90 per cent of it in forest, while the cleared land should be kept . in the highest state of cultivation for farm products. 2. Efficient and cheap transportation for the forest products.
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