8 APPALACHIAN AND WHITE MOUNTAIN WATERSHEDS. 



Therefore, in this report I desire to repeat and strongly emphasize 

 my recommendation or six years ago, that the National Government 

 undertake the purchase of a definite portion of these moxintain forest 

 lands, in order that they may, through use as national forests, be pro- 

 tected and improved. My former recomm.endation applied only to 

 the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. I am convinced now 

 that the Government should extend its purchases to the Southern 

 Allegheny and the Cumberland Mountains and to the White Moun- 

 tains also. 



A great opportunity presented itself to the Government in the 

 purchase of these lands seven or eight years ago. The influences 

 which are destroying the mountains were not then so far advanced. 

 Virgin, hardwood timber lands existed in large areas and could have 

 been bought at from $1 to $5 per acre. Within the past eight years 

 we have crossed the threshold of a hardwood timber famine, and 

 in consequence the prices of such virgin hardwood lands as remain 

 have advanced from 300 to 500 per cent. 



It will -be the wisest course under present conditions for the Gov- 

 ernment to purchase cut-over rather than virgin lands. Even cut- 

 over lands with no prospect of a timber crop inside of ten or twenty 

 years willcost as much now as virgin lands ready for the saw would 

 have cost eight years ago. Barren and eroded lands, of which 

 there is a greater area now, will cost no more to-day than in the past. 

 But considering the expense of planting timber on them and the 

 time before returns can be secured they become the most costly 

 class of lands that can be purchased. 



That the two regions tinder consideration are advancing toward a 

 condition of barrenness and sterility is the conclusion of every man 

 who has had a part in this investigation. I do not refer to the loss 

 merely of commercial timber. I mean absolute barrenness and 

 sterility — without timber, without undergrowth, without soil. In 

 1896 Prof. N. S. Shaler, of Harvard University, said: 



South, of Pennsylvania there is, according to my reckoning based on observations 

 in every State in that upland country, an aggregate ai'eaof not less than 3,000 square 

 miles where the soil has been destroyed by the complete removal of the woods and 

 the consequent passage of the earthy matter to the lowlands and to the sea. At the 

 rate at which this process is now going on' the loss in arable and forestable land may 

 fairly be reckoned at not less than 100 square miles per annum. In other words, we 

 are each year losing to the uses of man, through unnecessary destruction, a productive 

 capacity which may be estimated as sufficient to sustain a population of a thousand 

 people. 



This rate has not only been kept up ; it has been greatly accelerated. 

 Faster than was considered possible eleven years ago these regions, 

 through injudicious cutting, fires, clearing, and general misappro- 

 priation, are moving toward a forestless, soilless condition. 



If we wait till forest and soil are gone before beginning a sound 

 policy of handling these mountains, we shall invite the bitter experi- 

 ence of France, wlio at infinite pains and an expenditure of $40,000,- 

 000 is endeavoring to restore both soil and forest to her miountains 

 after a course of destruction such as ours at present. 



How the destruction of the Appalachian forests, north and south, 

 means far-reaching damage to the country is pointed out in this 

 report. The Appalachians must be almost the sole dependence for 

 the nation's future hardwood supply. If this supply fails, the 

 hardwood-using industries of the country must fail, and the entire 



