.^8 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



The Lower Blue Ridge Properties. 



About sixty miles south of Asheville, on 

 ilie Transylvania branch of the Southern 

 Railway, is Lake Toxaway, a mountain 

 pleasure resort situated on a lake of irregu- 

 lar contour some fifteen miles in diameter, 

 :iimI in a pass iif the lower Blue Ridge of 

 I lie Appalachians. At Lake Toxaway and 

 in the vicinity are some half-dozen resort 

 liotels. The railroad has been completed to 

 this point only a short time, but the Toxa- 

 way district, located in Transylvania 

 county, one of the great southwestern coun- 

 ties of Noith Carolina, has already become 

 a famous resort for pleasure and liealth 

 seekeis. At this point is tlie source of 

 the Toxaway and the Whitewater rivers, 

 which run southward across tlie 

 state line into Oconee county 

 and eventually join, forming the 

 Keowee river, which is a main 

 stem of the Seneca river. The 

 two streams first named, fiom 

 the Lake Toxaway coiiiitiy to 

 tlieir mouths form really one 

 main valley situated in Transyl- 

 vania county, North Carolina, 

 and in Oconee and Pickens coun- 

 ties, South (.'arolina. Oconee 

 county is the mirt iuvcstcrn 

 county of South (arolina ami 

 Pickens county joins it nn the 

 east. North of Oconee county 

 and joining it is Transylvania 

 county. North Carolina. 



I reached Lake Toxaway at 

 noon ami, in company with 

 George T. Reid, custodian of the 

 Montvale Lumber Comjiany 's 

 South Carolina jiroperties, dined 

 at the mountain honu' of .loscpli 

 McGnire, in charge of the Nortli 

 Carolina holdings of the com- 

 ]iany. In June, 1903, the Wood 

 corjioration.s purchased in lee 

 ."),810 acres of timber land, with 

 a contract from the seller to de- 

 liver an additional 5,70.3 acres, 

 or a total of 11,513 acres in 

 Transylvania county imme<liately 

 south and adjoining Lake Toxa- 

 way and extending to the state 

 line of South Carolina. This 

 property lies within one and a 

 half miles of the terminus of the 

 Transylvania branch of the Southern Rail- 

 way. In February of the same year the 

 company purchased from the Benedict-Love 

 • 'ompany 23,(100 acres in fee and the tim- 

 ber rights on 17,000 acres in Oconee and 

 Pickens counties. South Carolina, which 

 join the North Carolina purchase. These 

 several tracts embrace practically the to- 

 tality of the southern timber area of the 

 u|>]ier valleys of the Toxaway and White- 

 water rivers, save some small holdings 

 amounting to about 5,000 acres which the 

 comjiany has since acquired. The total 

 acreage of this boundary is nearly 55,000, 

 and it presents a sui prising area of a great 

 variety of timber growth. The deep coves 



are prolific in poplar, oak, hemlock and 

 chestnut, while higher up in the range white 

 pine and mountain oak abound in various 

 sections. Lower down on the very edge of 

 the cotton country there is an extensive 

 mixed growth of oak and short-leaf yellow 

 pine. Again, on the higher levels there is 

 no inconsiderable quantity of white pine. 

 The altitude of Lake Toxaway, the sonice 

 of the streams that penetrate this, as it is 

 sometimes known, .locassee Valley, is only 

 a little above 3,000 feet, and it is therefore 

 surjirising to see woods of far northern 

 habitat growing here in profusion and of 

 excellent quality, intermingled lower down 

 with tinil.er that ordinarily exists only in 

 Kouthem latitudes. The richest and most 



i!E.\ciiES OK \viHTE\v.\ 1 IK i:i\i;i;, (i((im:i: 



SOUTH (AKiiLINA. 



valued of the timber in this great section 

 is poplar, which of course grows in the up- 

 per and deeper ilraws of the small streams. 

 Incidentally, a word about pojjlar: Un- 

 like nearly all other wood growth, poplar 

 seems never to git too old to be high-class 

 merchantable timber. The poplar veterans 

 of the forest, langing from 800 to 1,000 

 years old, nay become somewhat hollow 

 tutted close to the stump, but all around 

 this hollow butt is most excellent wood, 

 and a short butt log almost invariably re- 

 moves the defect. The remainder of the 

 tree is siunul. rich, yellow wood. This de- 

 scribes the general character of the poplar 

 of this Trans^dvania, Oconee and Pickens 



county area of the Montvale Lumber Com- 

 pany. 



On the higher levels of the tract is an 

 extensive growth of hickory which a con- 

 ser'v-ative estimate would place at nearly 

 fifteen per cent of the total forest. It is 

 apparently of young, thrifty trees and does 

 not show a single specimen of what is com- 

 mercially known as ' ' shellbark. ' ' The 

 short-leaved ^-ellow pine, which abounds 

 generally in the western portion of Oconee 

 county, is intermingled with oak, is of a 

 very good type and covers a lange of well 

 towaril 15,000 acres of the total. Inter- 

 mingled with the poplar in the deep drains 

 are scattering specimens of magnificent 

 beech, often showing a bole of upwards of 

 three feet in diameter and from 

 seventy to eighty feet to a limb. 

 The timber over this entire 

 tract, notably the poplar, chest- 

 nut and oak, is ordinal ily of 

 good size, thirty inches to four 

 feet, but there arc occasional 

 specimens of poplar which are 

 more than six feet in diameter 

 at the stump line. Several speci- 

 mens of this timber grow-th are 

 pictured in this article and are 

 typical of the. whole. 



The original owners of the 

 South Carolina jiroperty erected 

 a fine dmtble 1 and mill, complete 

 with rlry kiln ami planing mills, 

 at Calhoun, where the river 

 draining the property crosses the 

 main line of the Southern Rail- 

 way between Atlanta and Char- 

 lotte, and there started to utilize 

 the low-er streams as log water- 

 ways to stoidc the mill. They 

 cut out of the property some 

 2,000,000 feet, largely poplar. 

 When the holdings fell into the 

 hands of thv Wood corporations 

 the pn'incipals did not deem it 

 wise to continue this form of 

 operation and therefore closed 

 the mill, after sawing and mar- 

 keting the remainder of the logs 

 in the river. This mill has since 

 remained closed and will soon 

 be removed to a location in near 

 proximity to timber. 



Mr. Wood is not a believer in 

 attempting to use mountain streams for log- 

 ging purposes. He can see no economy in 

 ir, as he figures that the only way to thor- 

 ougldy and economieaUy utilize a forest is 

 to take out of It all the merchantable tim- 

 ber it contains. Hence he is by training 

 a railroad operator, and uses to the last 

 limit tram roads. He invariably places his 

 millh at the very closest consistent point 

 to his timber holdings, being well aware 

 (hat lumber can be moved to main lines of 

 transportation much cheaper than can logs. 

 ]5y this method of operation he is enabled 

 to handle all his valual le hardwoods out of 

 a timber property and thus handsomely in- 

 crease earnings over an cqieration where 



NTY. 



