16 WEST VIRGINIA AS A TIMBER PRODUCING STATE. 



treeless areas mentioned above may be added an area of 100 acres 

 or more of open glades in Pocahontas county, two or three of 

 smaller size in Webster, one in Tucker, and others in Preston, 

 Nicholas, Greenbrier, Mercer, Randolph, and Raleigh. But 

 these were as almost nothing in comparison with the 15^ mil- 

 lion acres or more of forest. No one knows how long this forest 

 had been in existence nor just how much timber it contained. It 

 had reached a state of equilibrium. ''The growth was neither 

 increasing nor diminishing but was at a standstill. The young 

 growth coming on and the old trees dying and falling^ balanced 

 each other." Marked changes^ such as the succession of certain 

 species in certain areas, took place not by years but by centuries. 

 Northern species had been swept down in the flow of ice or had 

 been distributed by other natural agencies along the cold sum- 

 mits of the mountains; others had crept from the south and 

 spread themselves along the lowlands ; and others had entered 

 from the plains of the West or from the Atlantic coast on the 

 east. 



The changes that have been brought about in the forests 

 which were thus established in the state, through the introduc- 

 tion and toleration of destructive forces, are spoken of in sub- 

 sequent chapters. 



