THE SOUTH'S FORESTRY AND WATER 



RESOURCES* 



By HENRY S. GRAVES, Chief Forester. 



THE South today is standing on lachians is the extreme frost action. 

 the threshold of a vast indus- The ground freezes at night to the 

 trial development. The extent depth of an inch or so, and a layer of 

 of this development and, con- soil from 1 to 1^4 inches is lifted from 

 sequently, the advancement and pros- the surface by columns of ice. In the 

 perity of the South itself, depends very daytime the melting ice lets the surface 

 largely on two factors : the production earth back into place again. This 

 of raw material from the farms, for- process constantly at work allows the 

 ests, and mines, and the protection and heavy rains to remove readily the 

 development of water resources. The loosened soil from the exposed slopes. 

 South is preeminently favored in both Because of the lack in the South of 

 these respects. It is not merely the natural storage in lakes and marshes, 

 great amount of navigable waters the washing away of the soil from the 

 stretching far back into the different mountains removes the only natural 

 States, available for cheap transporta- storage reservoir for the flood waters 

 tion, but vast water powers which are and thereby decreases the amount of 

 rapidly transforming the South into a power that can be developed continu- 

 manufacturing as well as an agricul- ously throughout the year. Some of 

 tural section. the Southern rivers, like the Roanoke, 

 The development of the greatest use- which rise in the mountain regions have, 

 fulness of these water powers is most as it is, extremes of high and low 

 intimately bound up with the preserva- waters. This condition is due to the 

 tion and protection of the forests at the lack of natural storage basins, and 

 headwaters of the streams. Of the these rivers would become entirely un- 

 total estimated potential water power controllable and practically useless for 

 in the United States (36,900,000 horse- water-power development were the 

 power), 11 per cent is found in the natural protective cover at the head- 

 Southern Appalachians. In North Car- waters to be destroyed, 

 olina, South Carolina, and Georgia Injudicious timber cutting in the 

 alone there are about 1,321,000 poten- mountains, forest fires which usually 

 tial horse-power, of which so far only preceded, accompanied and followed 

 ^ per cent, or 429,000, are actually lumbering, and above all the clearing of 

 developed and are being utilized. high mountain land for agriculture, fol- 

 In the southern mountains there is lowed by improper methods of cultiva- 

 one factor that far overshadows all tion, all these things together have 

 others. The danger from erosion is brought about erosion in the mountains 

 peculiarly great in the Southern Appa- which already has produced evil con- 

 lachians, because the region has a very sequences, 

 heavy rainfall, and as soon as the soil 



hernmp A ' 11 SOIL GOES INTO THE STREAMS 



.ome^ exposed it erodes quickly and 



violently. Furthermore, the ground in The soil washed from the mountain 



this region is bare of snow during all fields goes into the streams. The de- 



of the year except a few weeks in struction of farm land in the valleys is 



winter, and is therefore subject to the enormous, especially during wet years, 



action of water during practically the In 1901, the estimated damage by floods 



entire year. in the valleys of the rivers flowing from 



Still another condition which tends to these mountains was $10,000,000. The 



increase erosion in the Southern Appa- finer eroded material is carried down 



377 



