tend to remain high or to go higher. It may be 

 possible to bring about an increase in markets, but 

 competition of other fuels threatens to be strong. 

 The trend toward shorter hours and the development 

 of the coal deposits in the southern part of the region 

 may effect a small increase in employment. 



Prospects for most of the other industries are not 

 much better. In 1945 the metal industry employed 

 nearly double the number it employed in 1940. If 

 it can convert itself sufficiently to the production of 

 peacetime commodities, this industry should be able 



to maintain its high employment level. The textile 

 industry, with employment slightly greater than that 

 of 1940, presumably is finding adjustment to postwar 

 conditions easier than the metal industry. Agricul- 

 ture, which declined somewhat, will probably return 

 to its prewar status. But the existing industries of 

 the region can hardly absorb more than a compara- 

 tively few thousands above the numbers employed in 

 1945. By 1950, with the previously mentioned in- 

 crease in the labor force, there may be as many as 

 112,000 persons lacking regular employment. 



MISUSE OF THE FORESTS 



In the eighteenth century, when settlement of the 

 Anthracite Forest Region began, the forests were its 

 outstanding feature. In the north were dense stands 

 of sugar maple, beech, birch, black cherry, white 

 ash, chestnut, white pine, and hemlock. The central 

 and southern counties were covered with red, white, 

 and black oaks, in many places mixed with chestnut, 

 white pine, and pitch pine; in the ravines were stands 

 of white pine and hemlock; and the ridges were 

 covered with chestnut oak. In what is now western 

 Monroe County and in Carbon County there were 

 sizable areas of scrub oak; but the rest of the region 

 had an almost continuous cover of exceptionally fine 

 timber. 



Early Exploitation 



The farmers who first settled the region cut the 

 timber to clear land for crops and pasture. During 

 the nineteenth century the felling of hemlocks for 

 tanning bark and of pines for construction lumber 

 greatly reduced the volume of softwood timber; by 

 the 1880's the sawlog-size white and pitch pines of 

 the northeastern counties were almost entirely gone. 

 Toward the end of the century sawmill operators 

 began felling the mixed hardwoods of the northern 

 counties. Meanwhile the growing anthracite in- 

 dustry was making inroads on the oak stands near 

 the mines. 



In general the forests were clear-cut and often the 

 cutting was followed by fire in the logging slash. 

 Not infrequently, because of the quantity and con- 

 dition of the slash, the fires were of great intensity; 

 even the humus was destroyed, and reproduction 

 was prevented. The maple-beech-birch forests were 

 too often replaced by stands of aspen, gray birch, 

 and pin cherry; and the oak stands by scrub oak. 



By the first decade of the present century the forests 

 were greatly reduced. Only a few virgin stands 

 remained, in inaccessible areas and recreational 

 preserves. In the neighborhood of the mines second- 

 growth oak stands were being clear-cut for mine 

 timbers. Fires were becoming more frequent and 

 more destructive, especially near the mines and in 

 Pike and Monroe Counties. Except for an increase 

 in scrub oak and aspen, however, the type distribution 

 of the original forests remained unchanged. 



In the northern counties some cleared land has 

 proved unfit for crops and even for grazing, and is 

 now being allowed to revert to forest. A considerable 

 number of farms in this area have been abandoned 

 altogether (fig. 6). Some of these are reverting to 

 forest so slowly that they need planting; and even 



Figure 6. — Some farms have been abandoned. 



Miscellaneous Publication 648, U. S. Department of Agriculture 



