American Forestry 



VOL. XXI 



FEBRUARY, 1915 



No. 2 



DESTROYING MT. MITCHELL 



By Raymond Pullman 



[The beauty of Mt. Mitchell, the highest mountain east of the Rockies, is being rapidly 

 destroyed by the cutting of its fine timber. The lumberman cannot be blamed for cutting because 

 the timber is ripe for market. The standing timber still to be cut is being protected against fire by 

 the burning of the cut over area and thus the soil and the seed deposits are destroyed and the 

 reproduction of the forest will be impossible. Ultimately the heavy rains will wash the soil 

 away, the stream flow will be affected and floods will follow. Residents of North Carolina 

 are alarmed and a movement is now on foot — late in the day it is true — to preserve some of 

 the timber on the famous mountain. — Editor.] 



THE magnificent spruce and bal- 

 sam forests on Mt. Mitchell, the 

 loftiest peak in the eastern 

 United States and the hub of the 

 Southern Appalachian range which rises 

 to its greatest attractiveness in western 

 North Carolina — "The Land of the 

 Sky" — are being cut down and the 

 mountain, it is feared, will become 

 bleak and barren as a result. 



Virgin stands of spruce and balsam 

 trees which have taken hundreds of 

 years to develop are being cut down 

 without thought to future forest growth. 

 Principles of forestry are not only dis- 

 regarded in cutting the timber, but the 

 lumbermen's contract gives them the 

 authority to burn the slash behind 

 them. The object of burning this 

 heavy slash is to lessen the fire hazard 

 which would exist if the slash were to 

 stay on the ground near the standing tim- 

 ber or cut logs and perhaps be in danger 

 of accidental firing. The result of the 

 careless burning of the slash, however, 

 is not only to kill off all of the young 

 growth but to burn the soil which is 

 formed of humus a foot or more thick 

 in most places, and at the same time 

 consume all the tree seed deposited in it. 



The thinking people of North Caro- 

 lina, particularly the business men of 

 Asheville, deeply resent the devastation 

 of the wooded slopes of Mt. Mitchell, 



and, in recent weeks, a movement has 

 been started looking toward the preser- 

 vation of the forests on its slopes through 

 action either by the State of North 

 Carolina or by the Federal Government. 

 Not only are the citizens of North 

 Carolina thoroughly aroused over the 

 situation!' but Uncle Sam is interested 

 also in the preservation of the forests 

 on the mountain. The cutting of 

 privately owned timber on Mt. Mitchell 

 has been accompanied by a number of 

 fires on government National forest 

 land, caused by sparks from the logging 

 engines used in the lumbering operation. 

 The government has already purchased 

 large sections of land in the Mt. Mitchell 

 area, in accordance with the Appa- 

 lachian National Forest Act, and this 

 government-owned timber is in constant 

 danger because of forest fires starting 

 on the cut-over and burned-over areas 

 which have been left by the lumbermen. 

 Mt. Mitchell is to North Carolina and, 

 in fact, to the whole eastern United 

 States, what Pike's Peak is to the Rocky 

 Mountain region and what Mt. Ranier 

 and Mt. Shasta are to the Pacific coast. 

 It is the highest peak east of the Rocky 

 Mountains, rising to a height of 6,711 

 feet above sea level. It is one of the 

 peaks of the Black Mountain range, 

 so named because the trees which cover 

 the slopes look black in the distance. 



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