AN APPALACHIAN FOREST RE- 

 SERVE AND THE SOUTH 



The immense importance of it to the industries of the 

 South Why the South should warmly support the projedt 



BY 



BENJAMIN LAWTON WIGGINS, L. L. D. 



Vice Chancellor, University of the South 



'"T HERE are few more hopeful signs 

 of progress in material things 

 than the growing interest on the part 

 of the American people in the protec- 

 tion of their forests. It is true that 

 our timber interests are mainly owned 

 by private capital, and in all likelihood 

 will ever be so appropriated ; but the 

 influence of these gifts of nature on 

 the general happiness and well-being 

 of the human race has always given 

 to them a semi-public character which 

 can be easily understood. Never be- 

 fore in our history, however, has the 

 subject of forestry been more earnestly 

 and widely considered than now. 



Surely the leading causes of this 

 cheering indication is a recognition of 

 the evils inflicted on all classes of so- 

 ciety by the wholesale demolition of 

 our timber districts and the growing 

 conviction that unless some prompt 

 check is imposed on this destructive 

 process, even greater losses are to be 

 expected. And, as has been frequent- 

 ly pointed out, these losses are not to 

 be confined to this generation, but will 

 be entailed on posterity. That we of 

 the south are fast awakening to the 

 sad reality now confronting the rest 

 of the country is therefore only an- 

 other striking proof of the fact that 

 the interest of each of us is the inter- 

 est of all. Hence the movement, now 

 of several years' growth, which has for 

 its object the protection of the tim- 

 ber interests in the southern Appala- 

 chian Mountain region, is at once a 

 sign and a promise of better things to 

 come. 



One of the most striking features of 

 the proposed reservation is the vast 

 area of territory stretching from West 

 Virginia and Virginia through Ten- 

 nessee and the Carolinas to Georgia 

 and Alabama. But even this does not 

 represent the actual influence exerted 

 by the vast region just indicated. For 

 we must remember that the Appala- 

 chian district is the source of many of 

 the most important rivers in fully one- 

 half of the Southern States. In other 

 words, those who are advocating the 

 protection of the Appalachian forests 

 are endeavoring to safeguard the 

 farming, commercial, and manufac- 

 turing interests of one of the most 

 important sections of the United 

 States. 



For there is scarcely an industry in 

 any of the states touched by the pro- 

 posed Appalachian reservation that is 

 not directly affected by the river-sys- 

 tems whose reservoirs are in these 

 mountain forests. This becomes plain 

 to us when we recall, for example, the 

 alarming frequency of those destruc- 

 tive freshets, due largely to the demo- 

 lition of mountain forests, which not 

 only impoverish the agricultural lands 

 by robbing the soil and bring number- 

 less woes to the farmer ; but they also 

 choke up our rivers and harbors, thus 

 obstructing commerce, and imperil the 

 rare wealth we have in the way of wa- 

 ter power to propel the machinery of 

 our mills. 



Colonel William Elliott, of South 

 Carolina, in a speech delivered in Con- 

 gress on May 14, 1901, used the fol- 



