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. 65 bottom, merely starting them with the canthook. A 16- foot log, 3 feet or more in diameter, can gain momentum enough in this way to smash even fair-sized trees in its path, and when it passes through dense young growth it leaves a track like that of a miniature tornado. The practice is in line with others to be observed in the Southern Appalachians, such as the common habit, for example, of leaving to rot the '"deadened" trees which stand over clearings. There are cases in which these clearings have been inclosed with fences built of rails split from prime black walnut, with no other excuse than that the walnut happened to be within easier reach than either oak or pine. Under such methods, in which there is not only an absolute lack of provision for a future crop but often a marked absence of that forethought, skill, and aversion to waste which go to make clean lumbering, most of the logged- over areas in the southern Appalachians are only saved from entire destruction of the standing trees by the generally scattered distribution of the merchantable timber. OBJECTS AND POLICY OF FOREST MANAGEMENT UNDER GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP. In the application of conservative forest management to that portion of the forests of the Southern Appalachians included within the proposed reserve, the first aim should be to protect them from fire. The safety of the forest from fire must form the foundation of any system of practical forestry which is to be permanently successful. Fire has done and continues to do enormous damage in this region. The chief cause lies not in malice or in carelessness of campers or of lumbermen, but in the ancient local practice of burning over the forest in the autumn, under the belief that better pasturage is thus obtained the following year. The fires are started by the settlers upon the area which Protection ^ r against forest is to serve as a sheep or cattle range the following season, ««»• and are permitted to burn unchecked. The result is that, except where confined by roads, streams, or clearings, they often spread from the wood lots of the foothills, in which they are set, to the forests of the higher mountains, there to burn unmolested until rain, snow, or lack of inflammable material puts them out. *S. Doc. 84 5
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