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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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  • 84 SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION. Sprouts and seedlings will start freely, and the forest would grow well as soon as the forest soil reached natural condition again. But few cattle are ranged in the mountains now, as the grazing has been too much reduced by repeated fires. Topography. Soil. Agriculture. Erosion. TALLULAH-CHATTOOGA RIVER BASIN. [348,588 acres; 89 per cent wooded.] This tract covers the entire basin of these rivers above their junction and drains into the Atlantic through Savannah River. Lying on the southeastern slope of the Blue Ridge, the altitude varies from 5,500 feet on Standing Indian, 5,100 feet on Ridgepole, 1,769 on Scaly Mountain, and 4,931 feet on White Sides to 1,000 feet at the junction of the Tallulah and Chattooga rivers. Many of the peaks and spurs are extremely bold, and there are numerous deep gorges and canyons. Along the creeks, especially along the Upper Tallulah and its tributaries, are alluvial bottoms of considerable area. Nearly all of the cleared land (11 percent of entire tract) of this system is on creek bottoms. Derived from gneiss and granite, the soil is generally of good physical composition, except in the foothills, where a stiff red clay predominates, which erodes readily and is hard to cultivate. The bottom lands are loamy and fairly fertile, but the ridges have been so much burned and washed that on them the soil is light colored, thin, and poor. Corn is the principal crop. Grass, except in the higher altitudes, does not hold. Sweet potatoes, cane, and cotton are grown along the southern limit of this tract. Peaches do well in the lower altitudes, and apples are grown on the mountains. The impervious clays of the foothills are frequently found barren and gullied, because left uncovered. The mountain ridges, having many stones and pebbles in their soil, resist erosion much better than the clays, but this advantage is counteracted by the steepness of their slopes. and the bed of every rivulet is eroded to the underlying rock. The creek bottoms are hardly less liable to damage. Sudden downpours of rain (11 inches have been known to fall in forty-eight hours) often cause such rises in the creeks as to cover the fields with gravel or cut them away.
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).