1905 



FORESTRY ANI> IRRIGATION 



139 



necessary to go back a long distance 

 into the woods to find first-class stands 

 of either of them. Poplar attains 

 magnificent size in the coves of the 

 mountain districts and in the rich river 

 bottoms of central Tennessee and Ken- 

 tucky, but its best development is 

 reached in the higher mountains of 

 Tennessee and North Carolina. White 

 oak reaches its best development in the 

 river valleys of Tennessee and Ken- 

 tucky. White poplar always forms a 

 small proportion of the timber of the 

 area ; it very often forms a large pro- 

 portion of the merchantable timber. 

 White oak is present in very much 

 greater numbers than poplar over the 

 region as a whole, and occasionally 

 forms over 50 per cent of the stand. 



Lumbering has had a serious effect 

 on the reproduction of both poplar and 

 white oak. When the white oak is cut, 

 as a general rule it is partially replaced 

 by inferior species, as the red and 

 black oaks. Thus in many cases where 

 the virgin stand tontained over 50 per 

 cent of white oak, the second crop con- 

 tains less than 10 per cent. Often 

 when poplar has been lumbered, only 

 the best trees have been cut, and as 

 these were comparatively few in num- 

 ber and occurred at irregular intervals 

 the forest has not been opened up 

 enough to let in sufficient light to allow 

 young poplars to start growing. In . 

 addition, poplar seedlings are very 

 easily injured by fire; even slight 

 ground fires kill them. Fires have 

 been very common throughout the re- 

 gion, and thus successful reproduction 

 of poplar has often been greatly hin- 

 dered. 



Hemlock occurs over a small por- 

 tion of the region, and white pine over 

 a still smaller part ; both confine them- 

 selves to the mountainous sections. As 

 a rule hemlock has not been considered 

 merchantable, because it is generally 

 impossible to log and sell it in northern 

 markets in competition with hemlock 

 from Michigan and Pennsylvania. The 

 little remaining white pine is lumbered 

 in a few localities on a large scale, and 

 the supply will soon be exhausted. 



Chestnut is very abundant. It forms 

 a large proportion of the stand in the 

 mountain districts, but decreases in 

 quantity westward, until it practically 

 disappears in western Tennessee and 

 Kentucky. Mature chestnut is dam- 

 aged more severely by fire than any of 

 the other species of the region. A 

 considerable part of its mature timber 

 is defective for this reason. Much of 

 the timber is also wormy. In the past 

 but little chestnut has been cut for 

 lumber, but the output is now increas- 

 ing. A new use for chestnut, which 

 has developed very rapidly in the last 

 few years, is for making tannin ex- 

 tract. For this purpose all grades and 

 sizes of chestnut above about five inch- 

 es in diameter are used. There are a 

 number of factories making the ex- 

 tract, one of which consumes 150 cords 

 of this wood daily. This industry 

 makes possible the utilization of the 

 limbs and tops and the defective chest- 

 nut which otherwise would be wasted, 

 and materially assists in conservative 

 management by making this timber 

 more valuable and cleaner logging 

 practicable. 



Chestnut oak is abundant in the 

 mountains, its stand decreasing west- 

 ward. It is confined chiefly to the 

 ridges, and in most sections is short- 

 bodied and of little value for sawlogs. 

 It is usually expensive to lumber be- 

 cause of its inaccessibility. The chief 

 value of chestnut oak in this region 

 has been for tanbark, for which, in 

 some places, it has been largely cut. 



Red and black oak are most abun- 

 dant in the western lowland part of the 

 region, where they often form over 70 

 per cent of the stand. In addition to 

 their use in large amounts for lumber 

 and slack cooperage, they are also now 

 extensively cut along the navigable 

 rivers for railroad ties, for which pur- 

 pose preservative treatment has recent- 

 ly made them available. These oaks 

 form but a relatively small part of the 

 forests in the eastern mountainous dis- 

 tricts, where in the past almost none of 

 them have been cut, owing to their 

 low market value. But now lumber- 



