Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (21) View all

Secretary of Agriculture report on watersheds

items 29 of 41 items
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  • APPALACHIAN AND WHITE MOUNTAIN WATERSHEDS. 29 in 1903. Once a fire starts on cut-over lands, with wind and weather favorable to its spread, it is usually impossible to combat it with any success. Where the cut has been heavy and the resulting debris correspondingly large, all the difficulties of fire fighting are proportionately increased. All kinds of waste material left in the woods supply food for the flames, but the leaving of large, unlopped softwood tops on the ground adds enormously to the fury of a brush fire and greatly prolongs the length of time that a slash remains a menace to its own and surrounding areas. These large tops, propped up from the soil by their branches, are very slow to decay and become very dry. A large area in the Zealand Valley was burned over in 1903, eleven years after the last lumbering. This valley, which had been logged for spruce saw logs only, is an example of the great length of time that cut-over land must be specially protected against fire even, when a very large proportion of the stand is left after logging. Fires on cut-over land usually kill all standing timber left, as well as all the young growth. On the steep slopes, where they are particularly likely to spread, owing to the method of clear cutting on such slopes, the destruction of the soil is almost certain. On many slopes the presence of any forest growth whatever is due to the accumulation, through the ages, of a mass of organic matter which held the mineral particles of rock as they were gradually disintegrated, preventing their being washed to the bottom of the slope. The soil that obtains to-day on such areas is very largely organic matter, and when fire-swept, if dry, is so nearly consumed, especially by repeated fires, that the remaining mineral particles are easily washed away until nothing but bare rocks remain. A thousand years will not replace this soil and a growth of trees upon it. On such areas the water run-off is much more rapid than on uncut or even on cut but unburned areas, as nothing remains to retard or hold the rain water on the slopes. There is little left but bare rocks, and the water runs off very rapidly, causing floods and freshets in the valleys below and extremely low water soon after, owing to the fact that little water is retained on the slopes to be given out later as on forested land. VALUE FOR RECREATION. The White Mountains are visited annually by thousands of people from every State in the Union, and from foreign countries as well. No other section of the country is so accessible to so many of the greater eastern cities. In consequence, it forms a great recreation ground for thousands of people. The very existence of the region as a summer resort depends directly upon the protection of the forest from fire and destructive lumbering, which absolutely destroy the beauty of the landscape. The virgin forest still remaining in the White Mountain region proper is practically confined to two localities—one on the northern slope of the Presidential Range, and the other that in Waterville. Clear cutting of this virgin growth will undoubtedly greatly detract from the value of these localities for summer resorts. The natural beauty of the mountains is enhanced by their forest covering. Without this they are bare and unattractive, and when fires occur after logging the landscape is rendered bleak and desolate.
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).