IV 
THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARK 
SINCE the easiest way for the mountaineer to 
clear the land is to girdle the trees and let nature 
do the rest, we everywhere see those dreary openings 
in the forest known as "deadenings," where spectral 
dead trunks stand among the growing corn. These 
"deadenings" are made and abandoned one after 
another as the thin soil wears out, which on the 
poorer slopes happens in a year or two. Hence, while 
the mountains are yet covered with forests, the 
clearings are everywhere apparent, and in these later 
days are increasing with alarming rapidity. 
Long ago the Southern Appalachians rose clad 
with trees above a tree-clad world. The Indian 
roamed the dense primeval forests, cultivating the 
valley bottoms and hunting in the woods. He did 
not destroy the trees — and thus the balance be- 
tween man and the forests was kept. Then came the 
white man, and wherever he set his foot the tree 
retired. Wide fields of cotton and corn covered the 
lowlands, gardens and towns sprang up as by magic. 
But on the slopes of the mountains the forest undis- 
turbed fulfilled its old-time office of calling the rains 
and holding the rivers in leash. In time the newcomer 
reached the mountains and made his clearings on the 
slopes. He also burned the woods each spring to 
