18 FOREST CONDITIONS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. 



yield of timber per acre can be largely increased in a comparatively 

 short time. The large furniture and related industries in Piedmont 

 North Carolina, which now draw the greater part of their timber sup- 

 plies from the region in which they are situated, will depend more and 

 more on the mountain forests. The demand for this material, aided by 

 improved transportation facilities and methods of manufacture, should 

 make it evident that the establishment of a maximum timber yield would 

 constitute one of the most important contributions which the mountain 

 counties could make toward the economic development of the State as 

 a whole. 



FOREST DISTRIBUTION BY TYPES. 



The forests of Western North Carolina are a part of the great Appa- 

 lachian hardwood region, which extends from southern New England to 

 the mountainous portions of northern Georgia and Alabama. These 

 forests differ from those of the central hardwood region, into which 

 they gradually merge beyond the western border of this State, in their 

 possession of several important species which do not grow beyond the 

 mountains, or grow in very small quantities. Such species as chestnut, 

 red oak, hemlock, and white pine form a large proportion of the Appa- 

 lachian forests, and scarcely appear in those of the central hardwood 

 region. 



There are two distinct classes of forests in this region; the spruce 

 forest on the tops of the highest mountains, and the hardwood forest, 

 either pure or associated with pine. On some mountain slopes hemlock 

 grows in almost pure stands, and some old fields at the lower elevations 

 have grown up to pure or mixed stands of pine; with these exceptions 

 the hardwood stand covers the whole area. 



SPRUCE FOREST. 



The spruce forest grows only on the tops and upper slopes of the high 

 mountains, and rarely below an average elevation of 5,500 feet. This 

 forest is an extension of the great spruce forest of the North, which 

 seeks increasingly higher altitudes as it extends south, and reaches its 

 southern limit on the western shoulders of Clingman's Dome, a peak 

 6,600 feet high, in Swain County. The largest spruce areas in this 

 region, as will be seen by the map, occur in Swain, Jackson, Haywood, 

 Yancey, and Mitchell counties. The distribution of the type is depend- 

 ent not only upon elevation but also upon moisture conditions and to a 

 large extent on protection from storms by the surrounding mountain 

 peaks. The type extends down only a short distance on the southern 

 slopes of even the highest mountains, but along northerly ridges and 

 slopes it sometimes descends to 4,500 feet. 



