WEST VIRGINIA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 613 



Areas Suitable for Reforestation. 



A large proportion of Lewis is such fine agricultural and 

 grazing land that it is highly improbable that much of it will 

 ever be reforested, as those portions of the county where the 

 Monongahela and upper two-thirds of the Conemaugh Series 

 outcrop are natural blue grass land not excelled in any other 

 part of the State. If the need of reforestation should arise, 

 however, the areas most suitable for this purpose would be 

 that portion along the northwestern edge, covered by the 

 Dunkard Series, and the southeast pan-handle where the lower 

 third of the Conemaugh and the Allegheny and Pottsville Se- 

 ries outcrop, all of which are shown on Map II, and which are 

 of the least value for farming. 



Gilmer County. 



In Volume V, pages 139-141, of the State Reports, there 

 is a description of the forests of Gilmer, from which those por- 

 tions relating to original and present forest conditions are re- 

 published here, as follows : 



"The Original Forest Conditions. 



"The county once had a superior hardwood forest. White oak, 

 yellow poplar and black walnut were the most valuable of the pre- 

 dominant hardwoods. The white oak, especially, has been much 

 sought after on account of its freedom from defects and its unusual 

 durability. Chestnut, hickory, beech, basswood, white ash, sugar and 

 red maple, red, black, chestnut and scarlet oak, locust and sycamore 

 were other common hardwoods. White pine is said to have grown on 

 Tanner and Lynch Creeks in the northern part of the county. Hem- 

 lock and pitch pine grew in small quantities throughout the county, 

 the former along the streams and in cool ravines, the latter on dry 

 ridges. Red cedar grew in abundance on Cedar Creek and in small 

 quantities in other parts of the county." 



"The Present Forest Conditions. 



"There are about 13,000 acres of excellent virgin forest lying in 

 the southwestern part of the county on the waters of the Right Fork 

 of Steer Creek. All of this, except about 1,000 acres, is in the hands 

 of operators who will probably manufacture the white oak found there 

 into staves within the next few years A tract of 1,700 acres in the 

 northern end of the county comes under the head of cut-over forest. 

 All the rest of the woodland is owned in small scattered boundaries 



