674 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



growth, and requireiueiics ot the ditierent kinds, and the 

 relative value of their products. 



Rich as these forests are in valuable species, they 

 have been left in bad condition as a result of lumber- 

 ing and recurrent fires. Very few remnants of the 

 original forest remain. Over large areas the forest has 

 been successively culled of its better species, and the 

 poorer species left behind have often closed their crowns 

 together and shut out the light needed for successful 

 reproduction. Stands which, from a distance, have the 

 appearance of luxuriant vii^in forest may be found to 

 consist chiefly of more or less defective trees of the 

 less valuable species, with here and there a crippled and 

 unmerchantable representative of a better kind. Of 

 late years, with the increase in value of lumber and 

 other wood products, cuttings have been heavier, 

 amounting, in prosperous seasons, practically to clean 

 cutting. Provisions for the reproduction of valuable 

 species have been generally lacking and the way has 

 been clear for the development of a second growth of 

 less desirable species. Forest fires have burned re- 

 peatedly over large areas, damaging timber and second- 

 growth, implanting seeds of decay and impairing the 

 fertility of the forest soil. 



We are at present at a low ebb in the history of 



our forests. I'he original stands are practically gone, 

 their place is occupied very largely by decrepit culled 

 forest, burned-over slashings, and inferior second- 

 growth, and fires are still frequent and destructive. 

 Before we can think of practicing intensive silviculture 

 or management in the hardwoods a transitional or in- 

 troductory stage of forestry must be traversed. The 

 problems of this introductory stage are mainly eco- 

 nomic, legislative and educational. Colonel Greeley, in 

 his address before the Third Southern Forestry Con- 

 gress at Atlanta last year, pointed out what these fun- 

 damental preliminary steps must be. In their larger 

 features they are much the same for all forest regions. 

 They consist of measures to ensure fire protection, 

 equitable tax laws, and other means to promote the 

 holding and improvement of forest lands for future 

 yields, and they also include simple and inexpensive 

 silvicultural processes in lumbering, aimed to establish 

 the beginnings of commercially useful stands of second- 

 growth. These are the much discussed "minimum re- 

 quirements," now the subject of study by the Forest 

 Service throughout the country. In the southern Ap]>a- 

 lachian hardwood region, of which the mountain hard- 

 wood lands of Georgia are a part, these simple "first 

 aid" measures consist only of such things as the ample 



A FAR LOOK OVER THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN FORESTS. THE SCENERY IN THE MOUNTAINOUS SECTION OF GEORGIA IS 

 UNEXCELLED, AND THE REGION IS UNIQUE IN THE VALUE O? ITS POTENTIAL AND APPLIED WATERPOWER AND THE 

 RICHNESS AND VARIETY OF FOREST WBICH GUARDS THE SOURCE OF THIS POWER. 



