HARDWOOD RECORD 



39 



These pictures do not need much explanation, and about all that 

 I shall attempt is a running and rather discursive talk concerning 

 them. It will be impossible to make any continuity of discourse 

 beyond a recitation of facts germane to the pictured subjects; and 

 I know that you will not expect any oratorical efforts from me. 



Since boyhood my business and my pleasure have taken me 

 to the woods Next to my wife, the"forest tree is my most adcved 

 object. I know Slie foiest as the average man knows his friends. 

 1 love every trc that grows. 



I might talk to j'ou about tree growth of any section of the 

 United States, but it has appealed to me that pictures and stories 

 about the timber and lumber operations in the Appalachian range, 

 involving as tlie,v do almost all the types of commercial hardwoods 

 of tlie country, would prove more interesting than any other, there- 

 zore I have selected this section to discuss. 



The elevations of the eastern half of the United States — the Alle- 

 ghenies, the Blue Ridge and the Great Smokies — involved in the 

 Appalachian range, are of paramount interest for forest, geographic 

 and hydrographic reasons, and, as a consequence, for economic rea- 

 sons as well. These mountains are old in the history of the 

 continent which has grown up about them. Hardwood forests were 

 born on their slopes, and ever since vegetation began have spread 

 themseli'es over the eastern half of the continent. Jlore t\ian once 

 in the remote geological past, these forests have disappeared before 

 the sea on the east, south and west, and before the ice on the 

 north, but here in this mountain region they have existed from the 

 remote ages even up to the present day. 



Under varying conditions of soil, elevation and climate, many 

 of the Appalachian tree species have developed, and in this region 

 occur a marvelous variety and richness of growth that marks the 

 concentration of many of the most valuable tree species that exist, 

 as well as many others of secondary importance. These trees thrive 

 under sucli variable conditions that they have attained this perfec- 

 tion of forest an<l commercial greatness. It must be recalled that 

 the southern Appalachians embrace the highest peaks and largest 

 mountain masses east of the Rockies. Throughout their rich valleys 

 and coves, and along their wooded sides are many tree species that 

 grow nowhere else in the world and which furnish important 

 lumber supplies which cannot be obtained elsewhere. 



This is a rough country. Many sections of it have been but 

 recently opened to the march of lumbering operations, and others 

 are still inaccessible for lack of transportation facilities. It must 

 be recognized that a tree is like an Indian. It will not stand 

 civilization. Our beautiful pane trees, from a monetary viewpoint, 

 are a mockery. They have no commercial value. Where timber 

 IS at its Ijest is in regions that have never witnessed the inroads of 

 man. To be sure, in the large portion of this mountain country 

 the rich river valleys have been settled by farmers for years, but 

 they have done comparatively little damage to the virgin timber 

 in the far-back coves and distant mountain fastness save in some 

 of their older settled regions where live stock hq.B been allowed 

 to roam and leaf fires have been started to forward early grazing. 



It must be recalled that this is a very sparsely settled region and 

 that often whole counties involving a larger area than some states 

 of the Union, have a population of but three or four thousand. 

 The damage caused by the squatter, therefore, is infinitesimal as 

 compared with the great mass of timber land involved. 



In these remote sections of the United States, originally settled 

 largely from old Virginia, exist a peculiar and isolated people. 

 They are as foreigii to the great mass of population as the inhabit- 

 ants of the continent of Europe or Central America, or almost, I 

 might say. of the oriental countries. They have peculiar morals and 

 strong religious beliefs. They live in isolation, in poverty, and in 

 contentment. They are hospitable to a marked degree. Their law- 

 is Jlosaic: "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." They 

 recognize no law that prohibits them from making and selling 

 "moonshine" whisky. They do not recognize any justice that pro- 

 hibits them from killing a human being who has wronged them. 



One will find great valley; in Kentucky, the Virginias, eastern 

 Tennessee and western North Carolina encompassed by mountain 

 ranges in which nearly every man, woman and child are related 

 to each other. In the local vernacular, they are "kin folks," and 

 any one living even across the ridge is a "furriner," This "furriner," 

 should he visit in that section, is welcome to the best that the 

 rough cabin afTords, and many a time have I been invited to 

 "light and rest my hat" at a mountaineer's "shack" as night 

 overtook me and have partaken of the best, and usually of the 

 little, there was in the larder; the mountaineer and his wife have 

 insisted on my occupying their bed in the corner of the one-room 

 log shack, and themselves sleep on a pallet beside the open fire- 

 place. For such services it is impossible to get them to accept any 

 recompense. I was the stranger within their gates, their honored 

 guest, and they my friends. 



This picturesque country, to my mind, for sheer beautrv of land- 

 scape, surpases anything on this continent. I have seen Yellowstone 

 Park, the Cirand Canyon of Arizona and the battlements of the 

 Rockies, but for pure air, for sparkling springs, for the musical 



tones of running water, for nature's glories unadulterated, at every 

 opportunity I hie back to the Great Smokies. 



In some places in the mountains, notably in the Blue Ridge and 

 Cumberland sections, there are sink holes in the plateaus, often a 

 hundred feet or more below the surface The sides of these sinks 

 are practically perpendicular, and in their bottoms are found magni- 

 ficent growths of poplar, oak and hemlock. Successful lumbering 

 of a proposition like this involves a good many engineering difficulties 

 Mild is cxjiensive. The incline plane railroail was built In' William 

 E. Uptegrove & Bro., of New York, to enable them to lumber some 

 timber near White Rock station on the East Tennessee & Western 

 North Carolina Railroad. This narrow guage line is popularly 

 known as the "stemwinder," and at its terminus connects with one 

 of the W. M. Ritter Lumber Company's old logging lines, which 

 is locally known as the "Arbuckle" route. The legend behind the 

 name "Arbuckle" is that Mr. Ritter's predecessors, who built the 

 road, paid for its construction almost entirely out of commissary 

 supplies consisting to a considerate extent of Arbuckle's coffee. 

 The "stemwinder" derives its name from its multiplicitj' of reverse 

 curves, as it follows the gorges of the Toe and Doe rivers. As 

 these streams in crookedness have no rivals in the known world, 

 it is not an inappropriate name. 



This incline plane was built almost from the railroad platform 

 at White Rock up the side of the mountain for a distance of three 

 quarters of a mile. Then a transfer table was put in and a second 

 incline, nearly half a mile long built at right angles to reach the 

 plateau. Interposed between the top of this incline and the sink 

 liole were two and one-half miles of tram-road, involving two switch- 

 backs. Then another half mile incline plane was built up from 

 the sink. This was one of the most expensive lumber opei-.itions 

 for its size in the history of the mountain country, but it is said 

 to have paid a handsome profit on the investment. 



Incidental to these pictures, I will tell an anecdote. 



Major Thomas, manager of this operation, one day invited me to 

 go and look it over. Not in the least realizing what I was going 

 up against, I cheerfully assented. I clutched one of those cable- 

 hauled tram-cars convulsively on the trip to the top of the mountain, 

 hung on to the bucking locomotive over the switch-backs in fear 

 and trembling, and was eventually landed at the bottom of the 

 sink where the logging operations and sawmill were located. On 

 the outward trip I had the company and assurances of safety of 

 Mr. Thomas. Returning, I came alone, and was back to the turn- 

 table at the top of the final three-quarters of a mile of the 

 incline, and was instructed to hang on to the top and ends of a 

 tram-load of lumber about to be dispatched into the abyss below. 

 •Just after the car started down this 45 degrees toboggan, one of 

 the big husky "devils" that handled the levers of the hoisting ap- 

 paratus said to his companion: 



"Bill, we've had pretty good luck lately, hain't we?" 



His companion vouchsafed assent. 



"Y'ep," continued the first speaker, "we hain't killed no 'furriner' 

 this week, have we?" 



The front porch of a Kentucky' mountaineer farmer's home. No 

 matter how good or how poor the house is, very few of them are 

 without a front porch. Here is where the mountaineer lives. I 

 must tell you just one story that was told me by a prominent Epis- 

 copalian bishop of Chattanooga. This- distinguished divine was much 

 interested in the w-elfare of the mountaineers, and rode horseback 

 over thousands of miles of rough country to visit them. One spring 

 day, noontime found him at the doorway of a cabin, where he ac- 

 costed the group of men and boys on the porch with a request that 

 he might stop for dinner. The men were gassing with each other, 

 and the particular amusement of the moment was the spitting of 

 snuff saliva at a mark, a knot on one of the firewood logs hauled up 

 in front of the cabin. Mixed up with the men and boys were half 

 a dozen dogs. The men were cordial to the stranger and invited 

 him to alight. The spokesman, who afterwards proved to be the man 

 of the house, said he didn't know how much there was to eat, still 

 he was welcome to what there was, but there would be no dinner 

 until tlie "old woman" got back to the house. He indicated the 

 woman in question by pointing up the mountain side, where she 

 was engaged in plowing with the aid of a small steer and a primitive 

 l>low. The bishop dismounted, and one of the boys, at the suggestion 

 of his father, provided a little bundle of "roughness'' for the horse 

 to eat. Presently the weazened, sorrow-faced old lady came trudging 

 down from the mountain leading the steer, which she carefully fed. 

 and, on her appearance at the shack, was "made acquainted" with 

 the bishop. She was cordial, but careworn, and said that dinner 

 would be ready soon. The woman first picked up the ax and split 

 wood for the fire in the old mud-chinked fireplace. Then she pre- 

 pared the meal, after fetching a pail of water from the spring some 

 quarter of a mile away. The dinner was set on the table, and the 

 men and boys were told that it w-as ready. In the mountain country 

 the women and girls of the house always wait until the men have 

 finished before they eat. This instance was no exception. The man 

 of the cloth, although no newcomer in the mountains, was discomfited 

 to sit at table while his hostess served, and attempted to make 



