1,203,914 thousand feet, or 14 per cent of the entire output, of hard- 

 wood lumber. In 1906 they produced 1,252,604 thousand feet, or 17 

 per cent of the country's output. The percentage gain, it will be seen, 

 represents a very slight absolute gain. Missouri and Texas declined 

 somewhat, while Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana made consid- 

 erable increase. The figures indicate that this group of States has 

 nearly, if not quite, reached its maximum cut. In these States, follow- 

 ing the rule already noticed, the hardwoods are found on very fertile 

 soil. They center in the lowlands — the river bottoms and the 

 swamps. On account of their great fertility these lands are now 

 desired for farming, and clearing, and even drainage where necessary, 

 are being hastened in order to turn them to the production of cotton, 

 corn, and other crops. An exception, of course, exists in the Ozark 

 Mountains of Missouri and Arkansas, certain portions of which are 

 better adapted to hardwood timber than to other uses. Such areas 

 are relatively small. In the main, those mountains have a climate 

 and a soil which adapt them to fruit growing, for which the Ozark 

 section has already become noted. In common with the whole lower 

 Mississippi Valley, this region must be expected to change largely from 

 a timbered to an agricultural condition. 



APPALACHIAN STATES. 



The States which are here considered to form the Appalachian 

 group are as follows: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachu- 

 setts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, 

 Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and 

 Alabama. They turned out in 1899, 3,667,495 thousand feet of hard- 

 wood, which was 42 per cent of the total cut. In 1906 they produced 

 3,546,668 thousand feet, or 48 per cent. They thus increased their 

 proportion 6 per cent, although they actually fell off 121 million feet. 



While but small parts of several of these States lie in the mount- 

 ains, it is true of the region as a whole that the bulk of their hard- 

 wood timber is now to be found in the mountains. The Appalachian 

 Mountains must have fully half of the country's present supply of 

 hardwood, in spite of the fact that heavy cutting has been going on in 

 them for over a hundred years. 



There are two main reasons why this region has borne such heavy 

 cutting and still contains so much of the supply. In the first place, 

 the mountains are nonagricultural. There has been no wholesale 

 tendency to clear them for farming. Profitable farming exists, as a 

 rule, only in the valleys and on the lower slopes. Many sporadic 

 attempts have been made to farm the higher mountains, especially in 

 the Southern Appalachians, but the farms have been small and gener- 

 ally unprofitable. After the pioneers' patience or endurance has been 



[Cu-. 116] 



