36 



FOREST CONDITIONS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. 



GRAHAM COUNTY. 



Graham County, with an approximate area of 193,000 acres, borders 

 on the Tennessee line. It is extremely mountainous, with several peaks 

 over 5,500 feet in elevation, and shows an altitudinal range of about 

 4,000 feet. The Cheoah River and a few smaller streams drain the entire 

 county, and empty into the Little Tennessee River 'which forms the 

 northern border. The soil of the narrow valley bottoms is quite fertile, 

 though restricted in extent. The most rugged and inaccessible part of 

 the county is the western half, occupied principally by the Snowbird 

 and Unaka Mountains. Only 10 per cent of the county is cleared and 

 scarcely four-fifths of this is true agricultural land. 



Two-thirds of the county is owned in tracts of a thousand acres or 

 over, principally by lumber interests, and one company alone controls 

 about a third. The water powers of the Cheoah and Tennessee Rivers, 

 of great potential value, are now controlled by power companies. 



The western third of Graham County, of which not more than 2 per 

 cent is cleared, contains a large amount of valuable hardwood timber, 

 where less than 10 per cent is cut over or culled. Much of this area 

 averages more than 10,000 feet per acre of oak, poplar, cherry, ash, 

 chestnut, and hemlock. 



A branch of the Southern Railway now skirts the northern boundary, 

 running down the Little Tennessee River in Swain County. A branch 

 line may be built soon to go up the Cheoah River ; this will put a large 

 area of virgin timber within reach of the markets. 



Here, as elsewhere, the former practice of splashing and driving has 

 been superseded by the use of logging railroads. Fifteen years ago an 

 attempt was made to exploit poplar timber by splash dams on Little 

 Snowbird, West Buffalo, and Big Santeetlah Creeks, but the loss was 

 too heavy for even that excessively wasteful period of lumbering, and 

 the attempt was abandoned. Along the Little Tennessee River, how- 

 ever, much timber has been floated out and a considerable part of the 

 adjoining forest has been culled of much of its best floatable timber. 

 Two narrow-gauge logging roads now enter the county, one of them 

 crossing the county line at an elevation of between 3,200 and 3,300 feet 

 above sea level. 



Lumbering is the chief industry, with an annual cut of no less than 

 15,000,000 board feet. Most of the county is too remote from the rail- 

 road to make the cutting and sale of tanbark and cordwood profitable, 

 though one company states that from 8 to 10 cords per acre of extract 

 wood are left after heavy logging. Farming is of importance in the 

 valleys and is usually carried on in connection with stock raising. 



