FOREST CONDITIONS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA 385 



LOGGING WHITE PINE AND HEMLOCK, MITCHELL COUNTY. 



The proportion of cleared to forested 

 land varies considerably in the different 

 counties, depending on the transporta- 

 tion facilities and suitability for fann- 

 ing. In the region as a whole about 24 

 per cent of the land has at one time 

 been cleared. While most of this land 

 still produces agricultural crops, a good 

 deal of it in some counties has been 

 "thrown out," or abandoned, because 

 it is too poor and too much washed for 

 profitable cultivation. Such land usual- 

 ly produces worthless briars and bushes 

 or in some cases reverts to a scattered 

 growth of oldfield pine or hardwood of 

 little present or prospective value. 



THE FOREST CONDITIONS 



The forests of this region are largely 

 confined to absolute forest land, that is, 

 land potentially more valuable for for- 

 est growth than for anything else. The 

 forest may best serve for the produc- 

 tion of timber, or it may be required 



mainly to prevent erosion or to protect 

 and regulate a water supply. In the 

 main, the mountains are so steep and 

 the soil is so shallow that the removal 

 of the forest cover and the cultivation 

 of the land are followed in a compara- 

 tively few years by the washing away 

 of the fine surface soil and the aban- 

 donment of the land for agricultural 

 purposes. Not only have practically 

 all of the areas suitable for agriculture 

 been cleared -including the bottoms 

 along the streams, gently rolling 

 plateau land and hilltops, the lower 

 gradual slopes, and the mountain cover 

 but much absolute forest land has 

 also been cleared. It used to be that 

 farmers cleared a "new ground" each 

 year, and abandoned to "old fields" an 

 equivalent of "worn out" land. This 

 practice is now giving place to im- 

 proved methods by which the cleared 

 land is kept in good condition. Though 

 much land has been cleared for agri- 



