84 



The Forests op Maryland. 



strieted to the mountains and more rugged slopes. Today the bulk of 

 the woodland is in relatively large holdings usually in the possession 

 of coal or lumber companies. 



The County was at one time a magnificent forest of virgin white 

 pine and hemlock, oak, maple, chestnut, and other of the hardwoods, 

 but subsequent culling of the best, together with great damage from 

 forest fires, have largely prevented the cut-over lands from producing 

 a high character of forest growth, in many cases none at all. Present 

 forests consist principally of young growth with scattered older trees, 

 the latter nearly always more or less unmerchantable and not con- 

 sidered fit for cutting in previous operations. Outside of the white 

 oak type of forest, which occupies the clay soils in the west-central 

 part, the forest types are largely determined by conditions of ex- 

 posure and drainage. Along the crests of the mountains chestnut, 

 birch, chestnut oak, and scarlet oak predominate, while farther down, 

 along ravines, sugar maple, beech, white oak, basswood, cucumber, 

 and in moist situations hemlock, are frequently found. When the 

 Forest Survey was made in 1913, hardwood stands of timber amount- 

 ed to 98 per cent of the whole in Garrett County, with 1 per cent of 

 the wooded area in pine, and 1 per cent in mixed hardwood and pine. 

 On the 274,483 acres of forest land there is a total stand of 447,766,000 

 board feet of timber. According to this survey, hardwood stumpage 

 of 5,000 or more board feet per acre occupies 4,484 acres, of less than 

 5,000, 264,112 acres ; pine and hemlock stands, on the same basis, occur 

 on 1,464 and 617 acres, respectively; mixed hardwood, hemlock, and 

 pine, 2,529 and 1,277 acres. 



Uses of the Forest. 



In the early days when there were no good roads and often none 

 at all, immense forests and few people to make use of them, only the 

 choicest timber could be or was removed, and that from the most ac- 

 cessible places. Later, when there began a greater and more profitable 

 demand for timber, and the undeveloped country to be opened up, 

 cutting could be carried farther back in the hills, and soon inaugurat- 

 ed a more rapid depletion of the forests. Forest fires usually followed 

 the lumbering operations in the slashings, and from that time to the 

 present have undoubtedly destroyed more timber than has actually 

 been cut. The timber business has been the County's most important 

 industry for over 50 years, but reckless methods of operation, coupled 

 with the destruction brought about by fires, is placing this industry 

 on a most unstable footing. 



