MERCHANTABLE TIMBER, WESTERN PIEDMONT PINE BELT. 207 



exploitation is not so far advanced in them as elsewhere. There 

 are many mills sawing pine and soft woods in Wilkes and the 

 northern part of Alexander- counties ; mills cutting hardwoods at 

 Hickory, Morganton, Lenoir, Old Fort, Thermal Springs and at 

 other localities, while mills sawing pine are scattered through 

 the entire territory. 



Several local tanneries obtain their bark supply, chiefly chest- 

 nut oak and white oak bark, from the immediate neighborhood, 

 but they have "removed only about one-half of the available 

 ' amount in the South mountains, and that in the Brushy moun- 

 tains and on the slopes of the Blue Kidge has yet scarcely been 

 touched. The largest tanneries are at Morganton and Wilkesboro. 



The largest areas containing merchantable pine lie in Caldwell, 

 Burke, Alexander, Wilkes, and the northern parts of Cleveland 

 and Rutherford counties. Some white pine of a low grade is fur- 

 nished by the counties lying along the base of the Blue Bidge. 

 It is locally used for building material, but far the greater part of 

 the lumber manufactured is utilized in making shipping boxes 

 for local cotton and woolen mills. The northern pitch pine 

 occurs through here above an elevation of 1,300 feet, usually 

 growing with the short-leaf pine and distinguished from it under 

 the name of " black pine" ; and along the mountains, above an 

 elevation of 2,000 feet occur occasional specimens of the Table- 

 mountain pine, which finds its eastern limits on the rocky sum- 

 mits of King's mountain in the southeast and the Sauratowrr moun- 

 tains in the northeast, though in the intervening territory between 

 these two mountains and the ridge of the Brushy and the South 

 mountains it is not known to occur. All of these pines afford 

 merchantable milling timber. The scrub pine is abundant on 

 the shallow soils of the mountains and along the Blue Ridge, fre- 

 quently forming small patches of unmixed growth. The milling 

 oak timber is the white, some Spanish, red and black oak ; there 

 is a great deal of white and chestnut oak tie- timber, but not so 

 much post oak as farther eastward, the scarlet oak largely taking 

 its place: 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE FOREST. 



These forests are capable of yielding short-leaf pine, which will 



