248 



THE FORESTS OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



hickory, poplar, and some short-leaf pine. There is 

 also sweet gum, black gum, and dogwood, ash, etc. 

 I think about sixty. per cent, of the county is in 

 forest, forty per cent, cleared. Of the sixty per cent, 

 in forest, the long-leaf pine covers seventy, and the 

 other kinds mentioned the remainder. The timber 

 sawed into lumber is ninety per cent. pine. The 

 same remarks would apply to the counties of Greene, 

 Wayne, a part of Nash, Johnston, and Edgecombe! 

 except that the latter is about equally divided in 

 forestry and cleared. — G. W. S. 



Watauga. (475 sq. miles.) — Shull's Mills, Aug. 

 -31, 1882.— The forests of Watauga County are very 

 heavily wooded, and originally covered the whole 

 surface except the rock cliffs on the mountains and 

 the beds of the rivers. They now include about four- 

 fifths of the acreage of the county. The prevailing 

 growths are oak, chestnut, poplar, hickory, maple* 

 sugar tree (or sugar maple), hemlock (or spruce' 

 pine), white pine, cherry, ash, linden, cucumber, 

 buckeye, gum, birch (or mountain mahogany), beech, 

 walnut, sour-wood, dogwood, etc. The first eight 

 are the most abundant. All the forest growths of 

 the county are so mixed together that I cannot give 

 a reliable estimate of the acreage of each. The pre- 

 vailing growth depends very much on the exposure 

 and elevation of the surface, and the surface is so 

 varied that almost every square mile of the county 

 has a considerable variety of elevation and exposure, 

 and consequently of prevailing growths of timber 



