334 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



July 



gins, and the debris is washed down 

 from the hills until the primitive rock 

 is reached again. All the disintegra- 

 tion that has been going on there for 

 centuries back is washed away when 

 the roots are destroyed, and no new dis- 

 integration taking place, the wash from 

 those hills goes on down, covering the 

 little farms and the valleys and wreaking 

 destruction until it reaches its level in 

 the Atlantic Ocean. The fires do a very 

 great deal of mischief in that mountain 

 range. The bark mills furnish a market 

 for the bark of the magnificent Chestnut 

 Oak, the great tree furnishing a ton of 

 bark when cut down for the purpose of 

 getting that bark, and let lie until the 

 next fire comes so that it may be de- 

 stroyed. 



The proposition now, with regard to 

 remedying the evils that are going on 

 and multiplying, is that the United 

 States Government should own those 

 mountain tops not necessarily to dis- 

 turb the homes of any of the people 

 there. There will be work enough for 

 all the people who now live in those 

 mountains in the care of the forest re- 

 serve. The United States Government 

 now possesses 70,000,000 of acres of 

 forest reserves in the Western States, 

 and is planning new reserves. The 

 President of the United States has power 

 to create a forest reserve whenever he 

 thinks it wise, and our late Presidents 

 have thought it wise, and new reserves 

 are being planned continually. The 

 South has no forest reserve. It should 

 have. There should be a reserve reach- 

 ing as far as the rivers require protec- 

 tion in their infancy. Every river from 

 the Mississippi northward to the Poto- 

 mac finds its rise in that range of moun- 

 tains. The rivers on the northwest of 

 the mountains, like the Tennessee and 

 the Ohio, are also fed, so that the people 



living on the Tennessee and the Ohio 

 are just as much interested as the people 

 living in all those Gulf States and those 

 Southern Atlantic States. The taking 

 care of the agricultural interests of the 

 Southern people is imperative upon the 

 nation. The United States will suffer 

 whenever any one feature will suffer. 

 The progress and prosperity of our com- 

 mon country will be retarded whenever 

 the interest of any one section is retarded. 

 The destruction going on in the Appa- 

 lachian range at the present time is detri- 

 mental to the progress and prosperity of 

 all the United States. It will not cost 

 a great deal of money for the United 

 States to buy those lands and hold them 

 as a forest reserve, and put roads through 

 them, and beautify them, and sell the 

 crop of wood that may be harvested 

 every year, which will furnish more than 

 is now produced, conserve the best in- 

 terests of the forest, and provide a de- 

 lightful summering place for all the peo- 

 ple of the valleys between that range of 

 mountains and the Gulf States on the 

 one side and the Atlantic coast on the 

 other. The man from the North will 

 go down there in summer. The man 

 from the South will come up there in 

 summer. The expense of caring for 

 the reserve will be abundantly found in 

 the annual crop of woods that may be 

 sold. 



These are the plain statements with 

 regard to the proposed Appalachian 

 Forest Reserve. I regard it as my duty, 

 and the duty of the scientists associated 

 with me, to consider the interests of 

 every human being under the American 

 flag who produces anything out of the 

 soil. It is our duty to give the country 

 the facts, to inform Congress along those 

 lines, so that they may do their duty, 

 not only to those of us who live now, 

 but to future generations. 



