SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION. 



23 



palachian species. Thence up to the tops of the higher 

 peaks there is a constant succession of changes — an inter- 

 mingling and overlapping of the lower species with those 

 which belong to greater elevations or more northern 

 latitudes. 



Thus in ascending any of the higher mountains, as 

 Mount Mitchell, which, with its elevation of 6,711 feet, is 

 the loftiest of them all, one may penetrate, in the rich and 

 fertile coves about its base, a forest of oaks, hickories, 

 maples, chestnuts, and tulip poplars, some of them large 

 enough to be suggestive of the giant trees on the Pacific 

 coast. (See PI. XLIV.) Higher up one rides through 

 forests of great hemlocks, chestnut oaks, beeches, and 

 birches, and higher yet through groves of spruce and 

 balsam. Covering the soil between these trees is a spongy 

 mass of humus sometimes a foot and more in thickness, 

 and over this in turn a luxuriant growth of shi-ubs and 

 flowers and ferns. At last, as the top is reached, even 

 the balsams become dwarfed, and there give place largely 

 to clusters of rhododendron and patches of grass fringed 

 with flowers, many of them such as are commonly seen 

 about the hills and valleys of New England and southern 

 Canada. 



In such an ascent one passes through, as it were, the wftifeievation!^^ 

 changing of the seasons. Half wa}' up the slopes one may 

 see, with fruit just ripening, the shrubs and plants the 

 matured fruit of which was seen two or three weeks before 

 on the Piedmont Plateau, 3,000 feet below; while 3,000 

 feet higher up the same species have now just opened wide 

 their flowers. Fully a month divides the seasons above and 

 below, separated by this nearly 6,000 feet of altitude. 



Remote from the railroads the forest on these moun- General forest 

 tains is generally unbroken from the tops of ridge and 

 peak down to the brook in the valley below, and to-day it is 

 in much the same condition as for centuries past. (See PI. 

 XVII.) In the more settled portions of the region, how- • 

 ever, a different picture presents itself. Along the nar- 

 row mountain valleys are the cultivated fields about the 

 settlements, where they ought to be. When the valleys ^j^^^JJ^If 

 were practically all cleared the increasing demands f or ricuiture. 

 lands to cultivate led to clearings successively higher and 

 higher up the mountain slopes, with a pitch of 20 and 30 

 and even 40 degrees. From some of the peaks one may 

 count these cleared mountain-side patches by the score. 

 They have multiplied the more rapidly because their f er- 



