I 



Forest Destruction in Southern Appalachians 



conditions of degradation, and millions 

 more to follow. 



When the Southern Appalachian For- 

 est Park bill was first introduced into 

 Congress there were large areas of the 

 average of uncut timbered lands that 

 could be bought for from $i to $3 per 

 acre. A commission was sent out to 

 investigate, and its able report, backed 

 by the President, recommended the 

 passage of the bill. Everybody seemed 

 to favor it ; but when it apparently 

 could have passed both houses of Con- 

 gress, it was held up for some reason 

 unknown to its friends outside ; and it 

 has been held up ever since. 



Meanwhile, attention having been 

 called, by official investigations and re- 

 ports, to the rapid exhaustion and con- 

 sequent prospective increase in price 

 of the remaining timber, buyers from 

 the older and largely exhausted lumber 

 districts have overrun the ground, buy- 

 ing up whatever they thought could be 



used, or, as we have heard some say, 

 "sold to Uncle Sam at a good profit." 

 And thus, while action has been de- 

 layed, most of the remaining Appala- 

 chian forests, of present and prospec- 

 tive value,, have been bought up by lum- 

 bermen and speculators, and are now 

 held at prices many times above what 

 they would have cost when the Forest 

 Park bill was first considered. 



And now we are told that, "owing 

 to the high price that would have to be 

 paid for virgin forest land, but little 

 of such land can be bought."^ 



"It will be the wisest course under 

 present conditions for the Government 

 to purchase cut-over rather than virgin 

 lands. Even cut-over lands with no 

 prospect of a timber crop inside of ten 

 or twenty years will cost as much now 

 as virgin lands ready for the saw would 

 have cost eight years ago. Barren and 

 eroded lands, of which there is a greater 

 area now,, will cost no more to-day than 



^See Report of the Secretary of Agriculture on the Southern Appalachian and White 

 Mountain Water-sheds, 1908, pages 8 and 30. 



665 



