MIDDLE AND EAST TENNESSEE. 11 



to the northern border of the state, East Tennessee is 

 one vast sea of big hill and mountain counties. Old 

 farms nestle in the broad and narrow valleys of foot- 

 hills, ridges, and mountains, and even climb the precip- 

 itous sides of the mountains, where the yellow pumpkin 

 often seems in danger of losing its hold and descending 

 to the valley below. Some of the finest and most pro- 

 ductive agricultural lands exist here, while the most va- 

 ried forest growth covers the hills and mountains. In 

 the western and middle portions of East Tennessee, 

 where the lower mountains appear, the growth of pine is 

 a most marked feature in its abundance on the poor, dry, 

 gravelly, and rocky slopes. But, generally speaking, 

 there are no extensive bodies of commercial pine in this 

 region, the old growth having long since disappeared 

 wherever within easy reach of transportation. Except 

 in certain localities to be mentioned later the second- 

 growth pine is of comparatively small size, and often 

 mingled with red cedar. More species of pine occur in 

 this region of the state than in any other part, although, 

 as distinguished from the northern white pine (Finns 

 stroJms), the other pines are here usually lumped to- 

 gether under the names "yellow pine" or "hard pine." 

 The possible commercial and most abundant of the 

 pitchy pines is the short-leaf (Pinus ecliinatd) , which has 

 a natural range from Maryland to Georgia and westward 

 to eastern Texas. As is well known, it is the second 

 most valuable of the Southern hardwood pines, ranking 

 in commercial importance next to the famous long-leaf 

 of more southern range. The adaptation of this pine to 

 the poor, dry hill and other slope lands of East Tennes- 

 see is truly remarkable as seen in some localities. The 

 old-school theories of the great care and nursing neces- 

 sary to reestablish a pine-forest on entirely denuded land 

 are quite upset when one sees thousands of short-leaf 

 pines in dense stands steadily taking possession of old 

 pastures and abandoned fields and quite without any 

 foregrown nurse trees of the broad-leaf kind. Even 

 under the damaging influence of tramping cattle and in- 



