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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  • 66 SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION. The hard-wood forests of the Southern Appalachians are by no means so infiamiiiable as the coniferous forests of the North and West. Forest tires in this region are seldom more than ground tires, and only under the influence of exceedingly high winds in a dry season become uncontrollable. With an active and adequate force of rangers and a thorough system of trails, the protection of the proposed reserve would be practicable. The good results of its preservation from fire would be twofold. In addition to the evident benefits of efficient fire protection upon the forest would be the forcible example provided to prove that the forest untouched by fire yields in the long run better and more plentiful pasturage than if it be annually burned over. The modification of present methods of grazing in the Southern Appalachians, like the modification of present lumbering methods, will follow proof of its advantages much more rapidly than it would follow propaganda. The one is no less important to the best development of this region than the other. The advantages of both could in no way be bettei established than by their practical illustration in the proposed reserve. The mountain forests of the Southern Appalachians are silviculturally the most complex in the United States. They contain many kinds of trees, varying widely in habit and also in merchantable value, and the forest type is constantly changing with the differences in elevation, gradient, and soil. Their best management is difficult, because the lack of uniformity in the forest renders it necessary constantly to vary the severity of the cutting and to discriminate in the kinds of trees which are cut, instead of following only those general rules which suffice where there are fewer species represented and the forest conforms more closely to a single type. IMPROVEMENT IN GENERAL FOREST POLICY NECESSARY. it. ..,Imuir(°Senof In orde1'to ''eProduce these forests successfully and to lumbering. minimize the damage done by lumbering, first of all it will be necessary to have a radical improvement in the fellings. Such an improvement is entirely practicable without additional cost per 1,000 feet B. M. of timber felled. It often requires no more labor to fell a tree up a slope than down it, or upon an open space rather than into a clump of young growth; and it is in just such cases as these that unreasoning disregard for the future of the
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).