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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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  • 162 SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION. of its summer climate. For many years to those wishing to escape the rigors of a Northern winter this plateau has been a place of favorite resort. It has one of the best all-year climates in the world. The existing national parks can only be visited in summer; snow and ice bar the way at all other times. If a national park were created in this favored mountain region it could be visited and enjoyed at all seasons of the year. LOCATION IS CENTRAL. This part of the Appalachian Range is but twenty-four hours from New York, Chicago. St. Louis, Toledo, and the Gulf States. It is, therefore, within easy reach of millions of people, and a park there could be in fact, as in name, a national park. EASTERN STATES ARE ENTITLED TO A NATIONAL PARK. There is no national park of the character of the one suggested east of the Yellowstone, which is considerably more than 2,000 miles from the Altantic coast, nor is there even a forest reserve east of western Dakota, which is but a few hundred miles nearer. TheChickamauga battlefield, though called, it is believed, a "national park,'' possesses none of the characteristics of such a park as is now under consideration, and was created because of the historical interest investing its locality and is of very limited area. PARK WOULD PAY AS A FOREST RESERVE. It is confidently asserted that no forest reserve of the country, with possibly one exception, would yield a larger return to the Government. The forests are very dense: the timber of valuable species, such as tulip (poplar), oak. chestnut, hemlock, and pine, and of greatsize. The undergrowth is still to a large extent uninjured by fire, and the forest, when made accessible by (rovernment roads and managed in a scientific manner, would yield an immediate, a constant, and a comparatively large revenue. The Government is now about to institute methods of scientific forestry. No better place in the United States can be found for the institution 0,1 a governmental scale of forestry operations, and because of the tin.- climate, summer and winter alike, it would be the only forest reserve of the country where such operations could be carried on uninterruptedly throughout the year. The forests and the climate, both incomparable, ordain this as the place for the commencement of forestry operations, and, perhaps, as the location eventually of a national school of forestry.
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).