FORESTRY 



EDITED BY DR. B. E. FERNOW, 



Director of the New York School of Forestry, Cornell Universi'y, assisted by Dr; John C. Gifford, of same 



institution. 



A NATIONAL PARK IN THE EAST. 

 The creation of a great national forestry 

 and game reserve in Northern Minnesota, 

 embracing 7,000,000 acres around the head- 

 waters of the Mississippi river, with many 

 lakes of rare beauty, well stocked with fish, 

 is being actively advocated in Congress by 

 prominent citizens of Chicago and Min- 

 nesota. The promoters of the plan are 

 not likely to experience much difficulty in 

 interesting Congress. The game and the 

 virgin forests of the United States are dis- 

 appearing so rapidly that it is exceedingly 

 important measures be taken, before it is 

 too late, to save some of the great wooded 

 areas of the continent. 



It is one of the marked features of the 

 legislative and popular indifference to their 

 best interests common to those regions 

 that such enterprises as this never originate 

 in our Southern States. Yet there, it would 

 seem, we have the most promising, most 

 adaptable and most accessible regions for 

 such purposes to be found anywhere within 

 our national limits. Nearly all of the for- 

 estry reserves that have been established 

 up to the present time are in the far North- 

 west. The chief of them, the Yellowstone 

 National Park, is inaccessible to the great 

 majority of the people. Nothing of na- 

 tional scope is to be found East of the Mis- 

 sissippi river. 



Within about a day's travel of New 

 York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washing- 

 ton and most of the Atlantic seaboard, and 

 quite as accessible to Pittsburg, Cincin- 

 nati, Louisville, Indianapolis and St. Louis, 

 there are vast stretches of virgin forests, 

 along the line of the Great Smoky moun- 

 tains, on the border between Tennessee 

 and North Carolina, that are thoroughly 



isuited to the purposes of a great game 

 ind forest preserve. Going up from the 

 lowlands at Walhalla. S. C, to the high 



•plateau surrounding Highlands, N. C, a 

 stage trip of about 30 miles, the late Pro- 

 fessor Gray,, the eminent botanist of Har- 

 vard, tells us he encountered a greater 

 number of species of indigenous trees than 

 could be observed in a trip from Turkey 

 to England, through Europe, or from the 

 Atlantic coast to the Rocky Mountain 

 plateau. The region surrounding that de- 

 scribed by Professor Gray, especially to 

 the West, with the headwaters of the Ten- 

 nessee, the French Broad and the Savan- 

 nah rivers, all within a few miles of one 

 another, with fertile valleys and mountain 

 elevations of 5,000 feet or more, and a 



density of verdure unapproached else- 

 where, is an ideal spot for a preserve, 

 where every tort of North American ani- 

 mal or fish would thrive and where almost 

 every tree or plant found within our bor- 

 ders from the Atlantic to the Pacific would 

 grow uncared for. The land in that re- 

 gion is still purchasable for a song, cer- 

 tainly at as little as or even less than that 

 obtaining in the Northwest. The climate, 

 while sufficiently severe in the winter to 

 suit the more Northern species of animal 

 life, is never sufficiently so to kill great 

 quantities of game, either by freezing or 

 through lack of winter food, as is not un- 

 common in the Northwest woods. 



Added to the climatic and the varied 

 physical characteristics of that region, 

 which especially fit it for the purposes in 

 view, there is no like region obtainable 

 where the varied and picturesque scenery 

 so admirably adds to the desirability of the 

 location. While the headwaters are singu- 

 larly devoid of lakes, there are ample 

 streams running through deep valleys and 

 gorges which render the production of 

 artificial lakes and reservoirs a matter of 

 detail and of slight expenditure. Cascades 

 and even waterfalls of very considerable 

 dimensions abound on every hand, vast 

 stretches of virgin forests, with an ever- 

 green undergrowth of laurel, kalmia, rho- 

 dodendron, etc., afford ample shelter and 

 browsing for the winter, while the steep 

 mountain sides, largely covered with boul- 

 ders and rocky ledges, from every cranny 

 of which dense vegetation springs forth, 

 furnish safe homes for all varieties of our 

 smaller mammals. 



A park that would take in the region 

 along the Smoky mountains around Cling- 

 man's Dome, or the Southern slopes 

 around where North and South Carolina 

 and Georgia meet, in the middle of the 

 headwaters of the Savannah river, or where 

 Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia 

 meet, would not be misplaced. The tim- 

 ber and mineral wealth of the regions men- 

 tioned are such that it can only be a ques- 

 tion of a few decades when the mountain 

 slopes will be denuded and when the peo- 

 ple of the vast valleys that depend on those 

 watersheds for their water supply will suf- 

 fer from the blindness of a generation that 

 could not foresee the otherwise inevitable 

 and combine its prevention with the ben- 

 efits of an enduring national park in the 

 populous East. — Scientific American. 



232 



