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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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  • 188 SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION. [Washington Post. January 3, 1900.] The location in western North Carolina of a great national park would be a cause of more pleasure and benefit to more people than any other public institution we can think of at this moment. [Brooklyn Eagle, January 14, 1900.] It ought to go without much pushing. All that is needed is to set the people thinking about it. [Prof. N. S. Shaler, In The North American Review, December, 1901.] It may be charged that the legislation which established these reservations is, in its tendencies, socialistic, but the most inveterate enemy of that political theory, if he he open to reason, will not be disposed to contend against such action. He wdll have to acknowledge that these gifts to the community are very helpful to its best interests, and that they could not have been secured by private or corporate endeavor or even by the action of individual States. They can be obtained by national action alone. * * * Although a national reservation in the southern upland will, perhaps, most commend itself to the people from their interests in the noble forests which it will permanently preserve, there are economic considerations that would of themselves warrant the undertaking. The effect of such a forested area on the streams which have their headwaters in this mountain district would be considerable and most advantageous. Properly located, this park would include the tributaries of rivers which flow to the Ohio, as well as streams that course to the Atlantic. It is evident that, in the future, these water courses, like all others in settled countries, are to be extensively utilized as sources of electric power. Owing to the form of the country, it will not lie possible, as it is in New England, to hold back the stream water in reservoirs for use in the dry season of the year; the only economical method will be to have the water stored in the spongy mat which naturally forms in an unbroken forest, and which to a great extent prevents the water courses from becoming beds of torrents in rainy seasons and in other times dry channels. In proportion to its area and rainfall, in relation to the whole of the drainage of the rivers flowing from it. such a forest reservation would serve to diminish the floods which, year by year, become more destructive to the tilled grounds and towns along the lower reaches of our great waterways, and more injurious to their value for navigation. This evil, already great, is constantly becoming a more serious menace, as the steep sides of the mountains are further stripped of their woods. * * *
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).