94 FOREST CONDITIONS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. 



valuable ones. This will greatly increase the proportion of valuable 

 trees in the final-stand, and will stimulate growth, although it will prob- 

 ably not yield much immediate return in material. This operation is 

 called a cleaning. 



PROTECTION OF THE FOREST. 



Fire and stock are the two principal enemies of the forest, and do vast 

 amounts of injury every year. Outside of these and the damage caused 

 by indifferent handling, the forests of this region are subject to but little 

 injury. In some parts of the State, large areas are being destroyed by 

 insect pests, but in Western North Carolina no such general destruction 

 has taken place. Small patches of second growth pine are occasionally 

 destroyed by bark beetles, which usually spread from some tree which 

 has been weakened by injury. Such a "deadening" may be checked by 

 cutting down and burning during the winter months the bark of trees 

 which are infested. The presence of insects is discovered by exudations 

 of pitch on the outside of the tree. Several of our hardwood trees are 

 more or less injured by insects, notably the chestnut by borers. Borer 

 holes are so common in chestnuts that there is a recognized grade of lum- 

 ber called "wormy" chestnut. A large part of this, however, is due to the 

 previous injury of the tree by fire, so that the prevention of insect 

 attacks can to a certain extent be effected by stopping forest fires. 

 Decay, due to fungi, is found in many forest trees, chiefly white pine 

 and red oak. There is little that can be done under methods of forestry 

 now practicable to lessen the injury from this cause, though the cutting 

 out and close utilization of trees affected by fungus tends to lessen the 

 chances of its spreading. 



Wind occasionally blows down a few trees, though the injury from 

 this cause is less in the mountains than in any other part of the State. 



Along the tops of the ridges and in other exposed places, sleet fre- 

 quently breaks the timber considerably, allowing the easy entrance of 

 insect and fungus diseases. Nothing, however, can be done to prevent 

 this, though the encouragement of species of trees in second growth that 

 are the least easily broken, would in time tend to reduce the damage 

 from this cause. 



Fire Protection* 



Fire is the greatest destroyer of the forest, yet no organized effort has 

 ever been made in this State to prevent or control it. It has been esti- 

 mated that during 1909 the owners of forest land in North Carolina lost 

 at least half a million dollars through fires. In the mountain counties 



*For a fuller discussion of this subject the reader is referred to Economic Pacer No. 19 of the North 

 Carolina Geological and Economic Survey, "Forest Fires in North Carolina During 1909." 



