170 



SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION. 



flora intermingle there. A list of the trees native to the region of 

 the pi'oposed reserve is given heivafter. We (ind there the largest 

 remaining Ijodies of these forests in their virgin condition, th(> lai'gest 

 and highest mountains east of Colorado, and the largest mountain 

 masses covered with hard- wood forests in the United States. 



The slopes of these mountains contain the sources of the Tennessee, 

 the Savannah, the Broad, the Catawba, and other rivers, and important 

 tril)utaries of the Ohio. This fact is doubly signihcant Ijecause this 

 region has none of the extensive glacial gravel deposits which serve in 

 the more northern States as storage reservoirs for water, and so aid 

 the forests to maintain uniformity of flow in the streams. Hence this 

 measure stands on a basis of its own, and need not be regarded as cre- 

 ating a precedent for similar action in other cases. 



This should be a national forest reserve, for the reason that the 

 problems and dangers which it is intended to meet are national. It is 

 true that a few States are now establishing State forest reserves, and 

 it is believed that the measure now proposed will encourage such a 

 movement on the part of other States. In New York large expendi- 

 tures are being made to purchase reserve forest lands Ij'ing entirely 

 within that State, about the headwaters of important streams which 

 also lie within the limits of the State. But the great mountain masses 

 of this proposed national forest reserve lie in several States, and the 

 streams which rise among them flow through and are of importance to 

 more than as many others. The combined annual income of the sev- 

 eral States grouped about this region is but little greater than the 

 appropriation carried by this bill. 



It may be urged against this measure that it is a new departure for 

 the Government. But the Western forest reserves have been set aside 

 out of the public domain which was purchased b}' the Government at a 

 time when the nation was composed largely of the Eastern States. Out 

 of the lands so purchased nearly 50,000,000 of acres of forest-covered 

 lands have been set aside as national forest reserves and parks for the 

 purpose of perpetuating a timber supply in the Western States and 

 Territories and for preserving forever the sources of their more impor- 

 tant streams. Furthermore, the Government has recently been pur- 

 chasing lands in the East for militar}^ parks and reservations and for 

 other purposes. Hence it may be asserted in all fairness that what is 

 now proposed is new neither in principle nor practice. In view of the 

 importance of the measure now proposed in behalf of the hard-wood 

 forests of the country, and considering the fact that there are no pub- 

 lic lands covered with hard-wood forests, and that neitner individuals 

 nor the States adjacent to this region can reasonabh^ oe expected to 

 establish such forest reserves as are absolutel}' essential, it is evidently 

 the duty of the General Government to take the present step. 



It will be asked how far the management and care of such a forest 

 reserve will prove an annual expense to the Government. Attention 



