34 



FOREST CONDITIONS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. 



Murphj. These get their material chiefly within the county. A great 

 deal of pulp wood and chestnut extract wood is shipped out of the 

 county. 



Cherokee must, of necessity, remain chiefly a forest producing county ; 

 and the chief need of the forests is protection from fire and from in- 

 discriminate grazing. This protection could best be attained through 

 a paid fire warden system, together with the adoption of the stock law, 

 which would aid in removing the principal incentive in burning the 

 woods. With these problems solved, intensive methods of forestry, so 

 much needed, would become possible. 



CLAY COUNTY. 



Clay, with an area of less than 120,000 acres, is one of the smallest 

 counties in the State. The topography is rough and the elevations high, 

 ranging from 1,700 to 5,300 feet. The ridges are narrow and average ap- 

 proximately 2,000 feet above the main valleys. The upper slopes are 

 precipitous and boulder-strewn, with a thin and rocky soil, while lower 

 down the slopes become less rugged, and the soil is deeper, and in the 

 valleys there is a deep alluvial sandy or loamy clay soil. 



The Hiawassee River and its tributaries, Tusquitee and Shooting 

 Creeks, form the principal drainage system. The l^antahala River 

 forms part of the northern border of the county; and the Tallulah, a 

 tributary of the Savannah, rises in the mountains of the Blue Ridge 

 and passes out of the county across its southern border. 



Hayesville, the county seat, in the Hiawassee valley, is some 17 miles 

 distant from Murphy, the nearest railroad station. 



In the western portion of the county about 25 per cent of the land 

 has been cleared, of which 10 per cent is now in pasture or reverting to 

 forest. This is the principal agricultural section of the county; corn 

 and hay are grown for home consumption. Hogs, goats, sheep, and 

 cattle, are raised, but the industry is not large. In the northern and 

 eastern portions of the county, not more than 10 per cent of the land 

 is cleared, and the remainder is covered with the original forest growth. 

 This part of the county is owned mostly in large tracts by lumbermen 

 and others, more than one-third of the county being thus held. 



The roads, it must be confessed, are very poor, and this fact, cou- 

 pled with the long haul to a railroad, limits lumbering to four portable 

 mills. Only the better quality of poplar, oak, and chestnut, which 

 can be sawed into first class lumber, is cut. The long haul practically 

 prohibits the cutting of ties, bark, acid wood, or pulp wood east of 

 Hayesville. Some eight or ten years ago a company cut out a large 



