INTRODUCTORY. 



THE two papers on the forests of Tennessee em- 

 braced in this pamphlet were read at a meeting of the 

 American Forestry Association held in Nashville in one 

 of the buildings on the Centennial Grounds September 22, 

 1897. They were listened to with the greatest attention 

 by a highly cultivated and appreciative audience. The 

 destructive agencies now in operation will soon sweep 

 from this country the last vestige of the primeval forests, 

 which have been the wonder and admiration of Europe 

 and should be the pride of the people of the New World. 

 The addresses contained in this pamphlet have reference 

 especially to the extent, character, and distribution of 

 the forest-trees in Tennessee. The first settlers in the 

 state found the whole country covered by a solemn, mys- 

 terious, and seemingly interminable forest. There was 

 not a foot of prairie land in the state, unless the bald spots 

 on the tops of the higher mountains may be so called. 

 There were no breaks in the continuity of the woodlands, 

 except on a few rocky points and in some narrow, wind- 

 ing openings where the streams flowed. For miles and 

 leagues there was a shadowy canopy of arboreal growth, 

 in which the deadly reptile lay concealed and the savage 

 enemy lurked and the bear and the wolf, the deer and the 

 panther, found a safe refuge during the day from their 

 common enemy, man. To the pioneers it must have been 

 a dismal sight to find all the land shrouded in the deep 

 gloom of the forest, to catch but seldom the cheering rays 

 of the summer sun, to walk at midday through the dark 

 and melancholy woods that stretched from mountain to 

 valley, from plain to river, from state line to state line. 



It was not until about the year 1850 that land-owners 

 in the best agricultural districts of Tennessee began se- 

 riously to consider the necessity of taking care of their 

 wooded lands not for lumber, but for fire-wood. At 

 that period there was very little stone-coal used in the 



(3) 



