FOREST CONDITIONS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. 95 



alone the estimated loss was more than $6,000 per county. These esti- 

 mates do not include the indirect loss, such as the destruction of young 

 growth and the impoverishment of the soil. It is probable that from 15 

 to 30 per cent of the forest area of several of the counties is burnt over 

 annually. Much of this is burned over intentionally, and, though there 

 is some sentiment against this practice, yet the feeling is not strong 

 enough to prevent it. Forest fires rarely kill mature hardwood timber, 

 except probably in the spring after the sap has started to rise. For this 

 reason it has often been asserted that the timber is not injured by an 

 ordinary leaf or ground fire. This is far from being so, however, for 

 it has been estimated that the value of the standing chestnut timber 

 alone in this region has been reduced by at least $2,000,000, chiefly 

 through damage from fire. 



Nevertheless, the chief damage is not to the mature timber, but to 

 the young growth and reproduction. Over a large part of this region 

 yellow poplar and other valuable species have been prevented from re- 

 producing in the second growth forest by the burning of leaves and the 

 consequent killing of the seedlings when one or two years old. The 

 total damage from this cause can not be estimated, though it is surely 

 very great. For instance, a twenty-year-old stand of yellow poplar will 

 yield fifteen cords of pulpwood an acre, worth at least $2 a cord or $30 

 an acre. If this stand is killed by fire when it is two years old, there 

 will be no direct loss of anything which has a present market value. 

 But the owner will lose property which in 18 years would have yielded 

 him $30 an acre. If a man owns 100 acres of this land he will have 

 practically nothing in 18 years (unless the stand reproduces again) 

 whereas if he had protected his land against fire he would have had 

 $3,000. 



Burning the woods always results in serious injury to the soil. With 

 farm land the owner occasionally has to put back in the form of ferti- 

 lizer what he takes out of the soil in the form of crops. In the forest 

 the trees fertilize the soil with their leaves. Therefore fire, by destroy- 

 ing the leaves, makes the soil poorer year by year. The loss of the 

 leaves also allows free course for the surface water and rain to flow off, 

 washing away the richer surface soil. This results not only in the 

 slower growth of the timber, and a decrease in value of the land, but 

 it is a serious menace to land owners and water users all along the 

 streams, through the increase of floods and the deposition of sand and 

 silt. 



The way to stop fires is to prevent them from starting, which can 

 probably best be done by patrol. In this the State can take the leadinsr 



