100 



tent, are located indiscriminately through the forests separated by 

 tracts of green timber of greater or less extent. Old White Top 

 Mountain near Cheat Bridge seems to have been the nucleus of the 

 trouble in that region. The clearing made by a pioneer settler on 

 this mountain, the opening of the Parkersburg and Staunton turn- 

 pike through the forest here, the old saw mill and the camps of 

 General Reynolds' soldiers located here in the winter of 1861, the 

 injuries by the three engagements of September and December, 

 1 86 1, followed by forest fires, storms and drought in later years, fur- 

 nished a succession of favorable conditions for the increase of the 

 injurious scolytids, so that when the drought of 1882 impaired the 

 health of other portions of the forest on this mountain, hosts of 

 these beetle were ready to attack the injured trees from which they 

 seem to have spread to those that were healthy and green, thus re- 

 sulting in the wholesale death of thousand's of dollars worth of val- 

 uable timber. 



PROBABLE EXTENT OF THE DAMAGE. 



Colonel Hutton stated that about a|75 per cent. 01^170,000 acres 

 on Cheat waters and 10 per cent, of 140,000 acres on Gauley and 

 Elk waters were dead. S. L. Riger, of Phillippi, stated that two- 

 thirds of the 100,000 acres on Cheat waters was dead. From my own 

 observations, I should judge that forty per cent, of the trees were 

 dead of the 15,000 to 20,000 acres near Cheat Bridge. Col. Huttons' 

 estimates are probably as near correct as it is possible to get them, 

 from these we judge that at least 1,500,000 dollars worth of timber 

 is now dead in the spruce forests of West Virginia. 



PRESENT VALUE Ol DEAD TREKS FOR LUMBER AND TIME THEY MAY ME 



PROFITABLY WORKED. 



Statement of Mr. George Steel, of Winchester, W. Va., foreman 

 of an extensive logger's camp: 



"I have been here three years. We keep on an average 45 men 

 and 10 teams. We cut and run into the river about ten million 

 feet of logs each year. We have been cutting these dead trees 

 right along, and I can not see much difference as to decay. The 

 dead trees that we are cutting now will make very good lumber, 

 and it is my belief that they will be good for lumber for at least 

 three years. No large trees have died in this locality to my knowl- 

 edge since I have been here." 



On visiting the extensive saw-mill belonging to the same company 

 located at thfc mouth of Cheat river, the following statements were 

 obtai ed from Mr. Kysor, superintendent of the mill: 



"The first logs we sawed here was in August, 1889, about 200,000 

 feet of which was felled in 1884 and 1885, only about 5 per cent be- 

 ing discarded or thrown into the slab pile. The logs from tree.s of 

 this cutting that were dead when felled made third-class lumber. 

 The logs sawed last spring were from trees cut all the way from first 



