346 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



as yet only to point to certain very general conclusions. A few more 

 well-chosen plots will probably make possible a larger number of more 

 specific findings. 



The principal variables which affect all the problems may be 

 classed under habitat, forest composition, kind of cutting, and sub- 

 sequent history. These may be roughly classified as follows : Habitats 

 are com^eniently grouped under the commonly used terms of "cove," 

 "slope," and "ridge" type, since this rough classification is sufficient 

 to comprise the factors affecting major variations in composition. The 

 kind of cutting varies from "clear cutting," in which close utilization 

 was practiced and few large trees left standing, to light culling, in 

 which only select trees of the commercially best species were removed. 

 "Subsequent history" relates principally to the modifying effects of 

 single or recurrent fires, grazing, and, occasionally, damage by wind or 

 sleet. 



Adequate description of composition cannot be given within the 

 space of a short paper. In general the great oak-chestnut communities 

 are characteristic of all the main types of habitat within the altitudinal 

 confines of the hardwood forest; and chestnut, occurring from ridge 

 to cove, is the most abundant species. The southern Appalachians lie 

 within what has been described by ecologists^ as the center of distribu- 

 tion of the deciduous forest. Their higher ridges and peaks bear a rep- 

 resentation of the northeastern coniferous forest of spruce and fir 

 (though the fir is an endemic species). Below the spruce and fir, espe- 

 cially on high northerly slopes and in coves, white pine, hemlock, and 

 many broadleaf species characteristic of the so-called "northern hard- 

 wood" forest — notably, sugar and red maple, black and yellow birch, 

 beech, and basswood — form mixtures very closely resembling the 

 northern forest. In southerly coves and, in some regions, on slopes of 

 all aspects, they mix in a great variety of combinations with the cove- 

 inhabiting species of more typically southern distribution, such as 

 yellow poplar, sycamore, buckeye, and cucumber. With these also 

 are mixed chestnut, hickories, white, chestnut, red, scarlet, and black 

 oaks, which often outnumber the more exacting species. The "ridge 

 type" is characterized by a short, relatively open growth of scarlet, 

 chestnut, black, and .black-jack oaks, and chestnut, varied in places by 



3 Notably — Hershberger, John W. ('03), An ecological study of the flora of western 

 North Carolina: Botanical Gazette, XXXVI, 241-258, 368-383; and Transeau. Edgar 

 N. ('05), Forest centers of eastern America: American Naturalist, XXXIX, 875-889. 



