Forest Conditions. 461 



Western States, in which the public lands are situated, 

 has been able to change its land policy from that of 

 liberal disposal to one of reservation, it alone cannot 

 save the situation. While a few of the States have 

 made beginnings in working out a policy to arrest 

 the destruction of their forest resources, which are 

 mostly in private hands, still much water must flow 

 down the Mississippi before adequate measures will be 

 taken to stave off the threatening timber famine, and 

 the energy of the various local and national Con- 

 servation associations will need to be exercised to 

 the utmost. 



1. Forest Conditions. 



Three extensive mountain systems, running north 

 and south, give rise to at least eight topographic sub- 

 divisions of the country, going from east to west. 



1. The narrow belt of level coast and hill country 

 along the Atlantic shore, from 100 to 200 miles in 

 width with elevations up to 1,000 feet, but especially 

 low along the seacoast from Virginia south; drained 

 by short rivers navigable only for short distances 

 from the mouth; a farming country, with the soils 

 varying from the richest to the poorest; some 300,000 

 square miles. 



2. The Appalachian mountain country, nearly of 

 the same width as the first section, with elevations up to 

 5,000 feet; the watershed of all the rivers to the At- 

 lantic, of several rivers to the Gulf, and of the eastern 

 affluents of the Mississippi; a mountain country, of 

 about 360,000 square miles extent, rich in coal, iron 



