Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (21) View all

Secretary of Agriculture report on watersheds

items 35 of 41 items
  • wcu_great_smoky_mtns-14415.jpg
Item
?

Item’s are ‘child’ level descriptions to ‘parent’ objects, (e.g. one page of a whole book).

  • APPALACHIAN AND WHITE MOUNTAIN WATERSHEDS. 33 The several States of the Appalachian region can not protect these lands as a whole. They may control certain areas of them, as the States of New York and Pennsylvania are doing, but as a rule the national or interstate bearings of the problem are such as to make it unreasonable to expect that the States will purchase these lands and put them under management. A few examples make this clear. No State of the group feels it incumbent upon itself to provide the Nation's supply of hardwood timber. The State of West Virginia does not feel keenly the necessity of protecting the upper watershed of the Monongahela River because certain cities of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky are inundated and suffer damage by the Monongahela floods. North Carolina will never purchase and protect the headwaters of the Yadkin and Catawba rivers because the navigation and water-power interests on these streams in South Carolina suffer from the denudation of the mountain forests. In the case of almost every watershed there are complications of this kind. While none of the three, the Federal Government, the individual holders, or the several States, can be expected to try to solve the problem as a whole, the problem is nevertheless so important that it must be solved, and all three are in' a position to be keenly interested in it's solution. Therefore" it is necessary to consider whether a way may be found by which all three may participate in solving it. Since the lands are now in the hands of individuals the simplest procedure would appear to be by an arrangement whereby the greater part of the region could be handled by individuals so that the property would not change control. Considering the vast extent of the lands, it seems almost inevitable that if they are to be protected at all, they must be protected mainly by the individuals who own them. Can this be done? It can be done, if at all, only by making it profitable for individuals to hold these lands after cutting them over. It may be stated as the rule that timberland owners would not want to sell their lands and would put forestry into effect upon them if it were not for the difficulty of protecting them from fire and the high rate of taxation which prevails in many parts of the Appalachian region. But individuals alone can not overcome these great obstacles. What individuals under present conditions cannot do, however,can be made possible by the States.- It is possible for the States to pass such laws for fire protection as to insure the safety of the-most valuable timberlands. This is being done by a number of the States with considerable and increasing success. The problem of equitable taxation for forest lands is a more difficult one and it has not as yet been solved. Its solution is necessary, however, and necessary in the immediate future. If the States of the Appalachian region would set themselves to the providing of efficient fire laws and the solution of the question of forest taxation, they would do a work of incalculable importance in the protection of the Appalachian forests. They would make it not only possible but profitable to put under protection and conservative management practically all of those lands which are suited to the production of the most valuable kinds of timber, and which are accessible for economical administration and lumbering. S. Doc. 91, 60-1 3
Object
?

Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).