58 FOREST CONDITIONS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. 



sheep grazing is extensive. The cleared land on the steep slopes washes 

 considerably, even when in grass, and it is estimated that about 5 per 

 cent of such land is so badly eroded as to warrant its abandonment to 

 forest growth. 



A large' part of the land has been cleared, since the county has been 

 long settled, and for this reason the forested area has a low average 

 stand to the acre compared with Watauga County. There are no large 

 timbered tracts except in the southwestern part of the county on Paddy, 

 JSTigger, Bluff, Elk, Three Top, and other mountains. There are many 

 sawmills, though none has an annual cut of more than 500,000 board 

 feet. Many of these mills cut shingles as well as lumber. Chestnut and 

 white and red oaks form the bulk of the cut, except in the southeastern 

 quarter of the county, where white pine leads. The supply of this tim- 

 ber, however, is nearing exhaustion. Locust does well all over the 

 county, though often attacked by the borer. Probably some hundred 

 thousand locust posts are annually cut for local use. 



The forest trees are about the same as those in "Watauga. Hemlock is 

 not so abundant, because more of the hemlock lands have been cleared 

 up for cultivation. White oak is the commonest oak, and is much more 

 plentiful than in Watauga County, though much of it is defective. 



Ashe will always be chiefly important as a farming county, and its 

 forest's greatest value will be for the production of firewood, small tim- 

 bers for farm use and for a local lumber supply. While some of the 

 mountain areas in the western part are largely composed of absolute 

 forest land, and can most profitably be kept in forest growth, yet taking 

 the county as a whole, there are no extended areas that are pre-eminently 

 suited for a large State or National forest reserve. 



ALLEGHANY COUNTY. 



Alleghany, comprising about 140,000 acres, is similar to both Ashe 

 and Watauga counties in its topography and soil, though somewhat less 

 rough than either. It lies largely northwest of the Blue Ridge, and all 

 but a small area south of this divide drains into New River in Virginia, 

 principally through Little River and its tributaries. The county ranges 

 in elevation from about 2,400 to 4,100 feet. 



The characteristic rocks are the granites, gneisses, and schists of the 

 Blue Ridge, which decompose into a sandy soil. In the northern third 

 of the county the soil contains clay admixture and yields good crops. 

 In this clay soil are evidences of deep erosion even on gentle slopes, but 

 most of the farms are kept in grass, and this tends to hold the soil in 

 place. The greater part of the county, however, has a lighter, more 

 porous soil, which resists erosion, and where this is the case, even the 



