LETTER OF T R A]Sr S M I T T AL. 



To the Senate and House o f Representatives: 



I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of Agriculture, pre- 

 pared in collaboration with the Department of the Interior, upon the 

 forests, rivers, and mountains of the Southern Appalachian region, and 

 upon its agricultural situation as affected by them. The report of the 

 Secretary presents the final results of an investigation authorized by 

 the last Congress. Its conclusions point unmistakably, in the judg- 

 ment of the Secretary and in my own, to the creation of a national 

 forest reserve in certain parts of the Southern States. The facts ascer- 

 tained and here presented deserve the careful consideration of the 

 Congress; they have already received the full attention of the scientist 

 and the lumberman. They set forth an economic need of prime impor- 

 tance to the welfare of the South, and hence to that of the nation as a 

 whole, and they point to the necessity of protecting through wise use 

 a mountain region whose influence flows far beyond its borders with 

 the waters of the rivers to which it gives rise. 



Among the elevations of the eastern half of the United States the 

 Southern Appalachians are of paramount interest for geographic, 

 hydrographic, and forest reasons, and, as a consequence, for economic 

 reasons as well. These great mountains are old in the history of the 

 continent which has grown up about them. The hard-wood forests 

 were born on their slopes and have spread thence over the eastern half 

 of the continent. More than once in the remote geologic past they 

 have disappeared before the sea on the east, south, and west, and before 

 the ice on the north; but here in this Southern Appalachian region 

 they have lived on to the present day. 



Under the varying conditions of soil, elevation, and climate many of 

 the Appalachian tree species have developed. Hence it is that in this 

 region occur that marvelous variety and richness of plant growth which 

 have led our ablest business men and scientists to ask for its pvesei'va- 

 tion by the Government for the advancement of science and for the 

 instruction and pleasure of the people of our own and of future genera- 

 tions. And it is the concentration here of so many valuable species 

 with such favorable conditions of growth which has led forest experts 

 and lumbermen alike to assert that of all the continent this region is 



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