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. 133 to dry out and die. (See PI. XLVIII b.) Even under more favorable conditions these fires have destroyed the undergrowth, and the larger trees have been burned near their roots in such a way as to cause their destruction. (See PI. XLVI.) The repeated fires have frequently exterminated the grasses and other forage plants, so that instead of improving the pasturage, which has often been the object in starting the forest fire, the result has been, in the course of years, its almost total destruction. This burning of the humus and the undergrowth in the Forest. fir,('s • , & cause irregular forests always seriously affects the flow of the streams. flowin streams- No one who has ever been in a forest during a heavy rain storm can fail to realize this fact. In the virgin forests the raindrops are caught by the underbrush and pass downward through the humus into the less porous soil and the rock fissures beneath, to reappear weeks and months later in the form of numberless springs. But where this underbrush and humus have been burned away, one can not fail to see that during a heavy rain storm much less of the water soaks directly into the soil, and the remainder flows down the surface with a velocity varying with the slope, sometimes washing the soil into small furrows and gullies. Hence, the burning of this humus decreases the storage of water in the soil and causes the more rapid accumulation of this water in the brooks, and results in floods in the larger streams below. Following in the wake of the forest fire in this connec-orf0™s0tu1nTai1n tion is the farmer who is continually clearing the moun-*^"'^ 'il; tain slopes for agricultural purposes. Instead of trying8trc,ims to improve his soil in the valley and on the adjacent slopes he has for years followed the policy of clearing additional patches on the mountain side as rapidly as others are worn out and abandoned. Each one of these hillside fields must be abandoned in from three to five years, as their productiveness is short lived. After the trees have been girdled and the underbrush has been destroyed, such a field may be planted in corn for one or two years, then in grain for a year, and one or two years in grass. Then it may be pastured for a year or two until with increased barrenness the grass gives place to weeds and the weeds to gullies. (See PI. XLIX.) lear Within two or three years after these mountain-side „*?"£ n0Odft8r' fields have been cleared the soil loses its color, changing from dark gray or black to red, as the organic matter disappears. Meanwhile it is losing more and more its porous
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