REPOET OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. XLI 



exist in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, as well as in 

 the older States of Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. 



In New England particular attention has been given to the possi- 

 bility of profitably planting- cheap land with white pine. The supply 

 of this highly useful timber tree has been greatly diminished in the 

 Eastern States, If it can be brought back as a paying forest tree 

 under management, the benefit will be one in which both the landowner 

 and the timber-consuming public will share. So encouraging has been 

 the outcome of the examination of this question 1>3" the Bureau that 

 many owners of denuded lands are restocking them with white pine. 



The Peoi'OSed Appalachian Forest Keserve. 



In my report on the Forests and Forest Conditions of the Southern 

 Appalachian Mountain region, which has been printed along with your 

 message to Congress on this subject, of December 19, 1901, 1 discussed 

 briefl}" the rapid rate at which the forests on these mountain slopes 

 were being removed, and the extent to which the resulting floods were 

 destroying agricultural lands and other propert}^ along the streams 

 rising in that region. In that report I stated that the damages result- 

 ing from these floods during the year (1901) ' ' approximated $10,000,000, 

 a sum sufficient to purchase the entire area recommended for the pro- 

 posed reserve." 



Subsequent examinations have shown that during the few months 

 following the date of that report the flood damages on these streams, 

 extending across eight difierent States, aggregated $8,000,000, making 

 a total of 118,000,000 during the twelve months ending in April, 1902. 

 These examinations also show, as additional results of the deforestation 

 of these mountain slopes, (1) that the water powers along these streams, 

 which have an aggregate annual value of $20,000,000 as a basis for 

 manufacturing enterprises, are being gradually but certainly destroyed 

 through the increasing irregularity in the flow of the streams; (2) that 

 the soils which are being washed down from these mountain slopes are 

 rendering annuall}'^ less navigable the Ohio, the Tennessee, the Missis- 

 sippi, and other rivers of these Southeastern States; and (3) that the 

 rate of land erosion on these mountain slopes from which the forest 

 cover has been removed is now as great in a single j^ear as it was dur- 

 ing ten centuries while these slopes were covered with primeval forests. 



A bill providing for the establishment of the forest reserve recom- 

 mended in my report is now pending before Congress. With an 

 increased realization of the importance of this measure I reproduce 

 here the concluding paragraph of that report: 



The preservation of the forests, of the streams, and of the agricultural interests 

 here described can be successfully- accomplished only by the purchase and creation 

 of a national forest reserve. The States of the southern Appalachian region own 

 little or no land, and their revenues are inadequate to carry out this plan. Federal 

 action is obviously necessary, is fully justified by reasons of public necessity, and 

 may be expected to have most fortunate results. 



