28 



FOREST CONDITIONS IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. 



Table Mountain Pine. — Table mountain pine grows only on the dry 

 tops of the higher ridges and is of no great importance, though it is 

 occasionally cut for lumber in the Unaka Mountains along with short- 

 leaf and pitch pine. 



White Pine. 



White pine occurs chiefly along both slopes of the Blue Ridge, and 

 along the valleys of the French Broad, Pigeon, Tennessee, and Hiawas- 

 see rivers. While it may extend to the top of the Blue Bidge it is 

 rare above an altitude of 3,500 feet. There are pure stands in small 

 groves, but it is usually mixed with hardwoods, and may form, over 

 considerable areas, from 10 to 15 per cent of the stand. The mature 

 trees are tall, and usually stand out prominently above the surround- 

 ing hardwoods. The timber is much sought after, and, except in 

 remote places, the best trees have been culled out, and it is now being 

 cut and transported by wagon or flume, from twenty to thirty miles to 

 the railroad. 



White pine reproduces well in old fields and unburned woods, and 

 in favorable situations young trees grow very rapidly, often making an 

 annual height growth of two feet. On both sides of the Blue Ridge, 

 and in most situations in the plateau type, this tree is of first import- 

 ance. In the reforesting of cutover and waste lands, seed trees of white 

 pine should be reserved. 



Red Spruce. 



Red spruce, known locally as "he balsam," is confined almost entirely 

 to the spruce forest of the higher mountains, though a few straggling 

 trees descend into the hardwood forest below. In the richer situations 

 on comparatively level ridges and more gentle slopes, it attains a con- 

 siderable size, and specimens 3 to 4 feet in diameter and 90 feet in 

 height are not uncommon. On the poorer, exposed situations, however, 

 mature trees are from 6 to 18 inches in diameter and from 30 to 60 

 feet in height. This tree almost always occurs mixed with balsam, the 

 two forming 95 per cent of the stand of the spruce type, where spruce 

 alone furnishes from 50 to 80 per cent and averages about 60 per cent. 

 Spruce is being used chiefly for pulp wood, though lumber is cut in 

 several places, and in one county spruce is used in a small way for the 

 manufacture of doors and blinds. 



Spruce reproduces well where moisture is abundant and where the 

 forest is open. One area in Yancey County, where the old trees had 

 been killed by disease, has almost perfect spruce reproduction, but un- 

 fortunately this condition is rare, and the greater part of the new 

 growth under the old trees in the spruce forest is of balsam. 



