138 



CONDITIONS BY COUNTIES. 



150, or more, coal companies operating within the county. The 

 quantity of timber used in mining, through a long series of 

 years, for posts, caps, headers, ties, tipples and buildings, is 

 enormous. In the judgment of those men best acquainted with 

 the present situation the time is near when the scarcity of both 

 timber and water will become alarming if, indeed, it is not al- 

 ready so. A number of coal companies, however, are taking steps 

 to preserve the remnant of less valuable but rapid-growing tim- 

 bers still standing in the extensive cut-over forests. An enter- 

 prising company owning property on Loop creek has built an 

 immense dam near the head of that stream and is catching the 

 run-off water of early freshets for their use in mining 

 operations. 



The present lumber industry embraces the operations of 2 

 large band mills located within the county and a third located 

 near the eastern line in Greenbrier county, together with the 

 smaller operations of about 25 portable mills. These have a com- 

 bined capacity of not less than 250,000 feet per day. The large 

 mills are engaged in the removal of timber from the remaining 

 virgin tracts and the small mills are cutting wherever a few 

 thousand feet of timber can be brought together. 



The Present Forest Conditions. 



There is, perhaps, 10 per cent of cleared land in the county. 

 The remaining 446,000 acres are in forest. Only about 53,000 

 acres, however, are yet in virgin growth. The balance is cut-over 

 and w^oodlot forest owned by coal and lumber companies and by 

 farmers. It is estimated that there is an average stand of about 

 2,500 feet per acre of the less valuable kinds of timber, such as 

 black gum, beech, sugar and red maple, birch, etc. yet remaining 

 on the cut-over and woodlot land, but that at least 80 per cent of 

 the value of the original forest has been removed. Areas aggre- 

 gating 200,000 acres, or more, of cut-over lands lie chiefly in the 

 southern and western parts of the county and are largely owned 

 by coal companies. The principal virgin forest areas lie in the 

 region of Big Sewell mountain, in the eastern part of the county, 

 and, farther north, along the Meadow river. 



