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i8 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
On the high mountains west of the Blue Ridge 
are yet to be found grand primeval forests of 
mingled pines and hardwood trees; but the trees 
of the Blue Ridge, though there are noble ex- 
ceptions, are generally small, the forests here being 
sweet rather than majestic. And how sweet they 
are! 
Of the numberless hardwood trees that flourish 
here, the oaks perhaps stand first because of their 
numbers and the many forms in which they appear, 
from the lordly white oak to the little ridiculous jack 
oak. Conspicuous among them is that large tree that 
looks so like a chestnut, but which the native assures 
the newcomer is an oak, unanswerably clinching the 
argument with the information that "hit grows 
acorns," and with patience one learns in time to tell 
a chestnut leaf from the leaf of a chestnut oak. A 
generation ago the foothills and the lower mountains 
were covered with chestnut trees, some of them of 
enormous size. But these are gone, only a few stumps 
broad enough for a cabin floor remaining to tell the 
tale of the past. Where are they? The reckless wood 
cutter is not to blame this time, for there descended 
upon the chestnuts a blight that in a few years wiped 
them out until not a bearing tree was left on the 
lower slopes, though at higher levels they are yet so 
abundant that one looking at the mountains in early 
summer can clearly trace the ravines down their 
slopes by the rivers of chestnut bloom that brim 
them. The mountaineer's method of gathering 
chestnuts is characteristic. Going into the woods 
