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WCU - Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

Senator Pritchard's Speech

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  • 8 ern half of Virginia and West Virginia southward into Georgia, and there are some low and somewhat isolated regions still farther southwest in Alabama. On the east, crossing Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, lies the Piedmont, or hill country of the South Atlantic; on the west, the valleys of Virginia and. of East Tennessee. The main body of these mountains is within a belt which averages some 40 miles in width and 200 miles in length. Along its eastern border is the Blue Ridge and along its western border are the Great Smoky or Unaka Mountains. Between these are innumerable shorter, irregular mountain ridges and mountain peaks. This is distinctively a region of mountains and of steep mountain slopes. It has 46 peaks a mile or more apart and 41 miles of dividing ridges, all of which rise over 6,000 feet. It has nearly 300 additional peaks and 300 miles of dividing ridges which rise more than 5,000 feet above the sea. In referring to this region, the Secretary of Agriculture says: These are not only the greatest mass of mountains east of the Rockies, they are the highest mountains covered with hard-wood forests in America. This region, thus unique in its position, in its mountain peaks, in its forests, and in its climate, stands grandly out as the greatest physiographic feature in the eastern half of the continent. Between these groups of mountains, and far below them, though still at an elevation of 2,000 feet or more above the sea, are the numerous narrow valleys of this region. They border the numberless streams, and are generally more extensive near the source of these streams, and hence nearer to the Blue Ridge than to the Unakas. As a rule, they vary in width from a few hundred feet to as many yards. Some of the most notable of these valleys, reaching a width of from 2 to 5 miles in places, are those on New River in Virginia, on the French Broad above Asheville, on the Tennessee River in southwestern North Carolina, and about the head waters of the Coosa and other rivers in Georgia. As these streams approach and cut through the mountain borders of this region they run in deep gorges, the full width of which is often occupied by the streams. For centuries past these mountain slopes and valleys have everywhere been covered with dense forest growths, and there was in general a freedom from floods and no waste on land surface. The hard-wood or broad-leaved forests had their beginning in this region, and owing to the great variety of soil and topographic and climatic features in this region we have there to-day the greatest variety of all forms of vegetation, and the most extensive remnants of the aboriginal or primeval hard-wood forests now left in North America. Here is to be found the mingling of the varieties which extend northward from the Gulf States with those which have extended south from New England and Canada. The valleys of this region have nearly all been cleared of their forests and are now under cultivation. The ever-increasing demands for land to cultivate has resulted in clearings being made higher and higher up the mountain slopes, which in most instances have a pitch of from 20 to 30 or even more than 40 degrees. In many sections these clearings have actually reached the top of the mountains. It is estimated that about 24 per cent of the area of this mountain region has been cleared, and the destruction of the mountain forests is increasing rapidly every year. The rapid increase in this clearing for agricultural purposes is due to the fact that these mountain fields are short lived, and unless sown in grass are usually limited to seven or eight crops at most. In discussing this phase of the question, the Secretary says: They are cleared, cultivated, and abandoned in rapid succession. If something is not done to check the rate at which these clearings are being made by the lumbermen and farmers, a few decades more will witness the complete destruction of all the timber on 5241
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Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

This digital collection was created to contribute to the public's understanding of the forces and ideas that led to the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934. The most vi...

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