1903 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



333 



in those great mountain ranges and 

 gorges as you will find anywhere in the 

 world. I did not notice that the ladies 

 wore dresses from Paris, nor that the 

 gentlemen wore diamonds in their shirt 

 fronts, but I did see the image of God 

 in the faces of those grand mountain- 

 eers, and the women the mothers, the 

 daughters, the wives strewing with 

 fresh flowers the narrow way of life. 

 You find no other strain in those moun- 

 tains. 



After spending half a day to get to 

 the top, you will have left the most 

 magnificent samples of hardwoods in 

 the valley Black Walnut and Cherry 

 and other valuable kinds. As you go 

 up the mountain, Nature changes her 

 plantings. You come to the Chestnut 

 Oak, you find the Chestnut itself, and 

 you get past them and come to the very 

 tip top of the range, where you find the 

 Balsam Fir struggling with nature for 

 a living ; but you find more than that. 

 The most beautiful flowers I have ever 

 seen in my life flowers that are seen 

 nowhere except on those mountain 

 tops are found up there, as if nature 

 were making amends for the hardships 

 Dresented. Rhododendrons are found 

 up there, and they are surpassingly 

 beautiful both in flower and foliage. 



Those rocks, the geologist who ac- 

 companied our party informed me, are 

 of the very oldest. They seem to have 

 a working plan, a relationship between 

 them and the woods whose roots encircle 

 them and cover them from observation, 

 and I suppose no plants on the face of 

 the earth have to be so industrious and 

 work so hard as the roots of those trees 

 have to do to find a sustenance from 

 those rocks. As is well known, they 

 do and they must, and, where nature is 

 let entirely alone and not interfered 

 with, that relation continues beautifully 

 and goes on from year to year and from 

 century to century, and that grand ag- 

 gregation of the finest hardwoods we 

 have in the United States continues, and 

 little sediment finds its way to the valleys, 

 although the heaviest rainfalls on the 

 continent are there, with the exception 

 of a little section in the northwestern part 

 of the United States. Still, that rain 

 permeates gradually through the leaves 



and the roots and into the rocks, and finds 

 its way out farther down in springs that 

 are the headwaters of the great rivers 

 of the Gulf States. There is much in- 

 terest attaching to those rivers and to 

 those mountains that are the guardian 

 angels of the infancy of those magnifi- 

 cent streams. Those streams are hard 

 working. There are over 6,000,000 

 spindles now in the Southern States 

 those Gulf States and those Southern 

 Atlantic States being turned a consid- 

 erable part of the time by the waters 

 that come down from those mountains. 

 There seems to be a well-understood 

 plan between the manufacturer and 

 nature in that regard. The mountain 

 holds the moisture until it is needed in 

 the summer time, and then lets it out 

 gradually. 



Up to the present time something like 

 one-fifth of all the cotton grown in the 

 Southern States has been manufactured 

 mostly in this region, and without doubt 

 the time will come when all the raw ma- 

 terial of that kind will be manufactured 

 there. People from the East are going 

 there and taking capital and skill. 

 People from the North are going there 

 and taking capital and skill and enter- 

 prise, and seem to feel very much at 

 home among the Southern people. 



But mischief is being done now. The 

 bark mill, the saw-mill, the fire, and 

 the farmer are at work denuding those 

 magnificent hills, and if the process goes 

 on it will only be a question of time when 

 the rivers will have no nursing angels in 

 those mountains, when the great rain- 

 fall on those mountains will find its way 

 down into the valleys, carrying every- 

 thing movable with it and going as a 

 torrent on its way, wreaking destruction 

 as it goes, until it reaches its level in 

 the Atlantic Ocean. You would blame 

 the farmer ? He has to struggle at best 

 to make a living in those mountains. 

 He clears the hill of wood so as to grow 

 a little corn or rye. He clears it higher 

 and higher up until he reaches the very 

 top. In a few years the soil he finds 

 there, that gives him a light crop to 

 begin with, is all gone. Where the 

 woods are let entirely alone you find 

 no wash ; but where they have been 

 stripped off immediately destruction be- 



