water power, and other industries common to no one State, are essentially national in their function.

The committee recommends the passage of this bill in the expectation and belief that the total purchases of land to be made by the Government in the establishment of the proposed reserves will not extend beyond the limits of the 5,000,000 acres contemplated by the present plan. The White Mountain region has a well-defined limitation of not to exceed 800,000 acres. The Appalachian region, embracing the headwaters of the Potomac, Monongahela, and Kanawha rivers on the north and extending southward to the headwaters of the Alabama and Chattahoochee rivers, has within its boundary not more than 4,000,000 acres which it would be desirable to purchase. A considerable percentage of it consists of valley lands, which should remain permanently in cultivation and be occupied by the farms and the settlements which it is eminently desirable to leave undisturbed. Another large portion is held by private individuals, who have expressed the strongest preference for retaining their holdings, and the law now proposed provides that they may do this so long as they perpetuate the forest

cover.

It is confidently believed that the purchase by the Government of 5,000,000 acres of mountain lands as now proposed will enable the Government to so control the situation as to guarantee the permanence of the forests over an area of more than twice their extent.

It is not expected that the several States will consent to cede to the General Government the control of any forest lands beyond the limits that may be necessary for the protection of the sources of these important interstate streams, for the reasons (1) that the lands so ceded will be forever released from State taxation and control, and (2) the financial success of the national reserve which it is now proposed to establish will demonstrate to these States the fact that additional reserves owned and controlled by the State will become highly profitable sources of future revenue.

This conclusion is not based upon mere theoretical considerations but upon the actual experience not only of our own present forest administration, but also upon that of continental Europe. In Russia, Austria, Switzerland, as in France and Germany, many forest reserves are owned by the cities, villages, and states; and these reserves are so highly valued as sources of revenue that under no consideration would they be surrendered to the Federal Governments. The same will come to be true in our Eastern States.

The Federal Government having demonstrated, as it will do, the financial advantages of such an undertaking, the several Eastern States, rather than ask the Federal Government to extend the boundaries of the national reserves now proposed, will, in the future, establish many local forest reserves for the perpetuation of the timber supply and for the protection of the local streams which lie entirely within their own borders; and from these local forest areas these States will derive an increasing revenue.

To carry into effect the provisions of the bill it is proposed to appropriate an amount not to exceed $3,000,000, which sum is to be available immediately and until expended.

The following argument, which shows the urgent need of the legislation proposed, is submitted herewith as embodying the views of the

committee:

First the creation of these reserves is wise public policy. Between the census years 1850 and 1900 the population of the country increased from 23,000,000 to 76,000,000, or 330 per cent, but the money value of the lumber product which it consumed increased from $60,000,000 to $566,000,000, or 940 per cent. Both the per capita consumption of timber and the price of timber are increasing. Both of the proposed reserve regions are chiefly natural forest land, more useful for the production of timber and water than for anything else. At present their forests are being rapidly destroyed. It is estimated that 24 per cent of the Southern Appalachian region has been deforested. Deforestation means loss of power to produce future forests. It is in the public interest that these lands should be acquired and held by the Government as permanent sources of timber supply.

Second. The acquisition of these lands by the Government will be good business policy. The use of the western reserves as productive forest is only just beginning, but the Government receipts from these reserves are approximating one-half the outgo. Within a short term of years they will undoubtedly carry themselves. At the same time their property value is rising and will continue to rise, both from the increasing value of the timber and from the greater productiveness of the forest under management. With a present value of not less than $250,000,000, these western reserves are being administered at an annual cost of one-third of 1 per cent of this sum, while they are increasing in value fully 10 per cent a year. This is in addition to their enormous indirect returns to the public welfare from their indispensable relation to successful irrigation, to mining and other industries which demand lumber, to settlers, and to stock grazing. Both in the Appalachians and in the White Mountains, if the lands are acquired at present prices and in their present condition, there is an opportunity for the Government to establish reserves which will prove profitable investments under management, besides securing large benefits to the people of many States.

Third. The creation of these reserves, now or later, is a necessary policy. Sooner or later the certain consequences of the forest destruction which is now taking place will force the National Government to step in. The question is not merely that of preventing the impoverishment of the immediate localities and the conversion of productive land into a waste of barren rock. The loss of the forest is followed by that of the soil and by recurring floods. The headwaters of every important river south of the Ohio and Potomac and east of the Mississippi, including tributaries of these streams, rise in the southern Appalachians, while the White Mountains feed important rivers of every New England State except Rhode Island. The rainfall of both regions is heavy and distributed throughout the year. In the southern Appalachians it is heavier than anywhere else on the continent except on the northern Pacific Coast, and falls often in heavy downpours.

After denudation every rain turns the shrunken streams into mountain torrents, which devastate property and bear down vast quantities of silt to obstruct navigable rivers. The sand bars thus formed accentuate the effect of alternating high and low water periods, and large Government expenditures for dredging and harbor improvements are entailed. The clearing of river channels and harbors in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama is now being urged. Yet deforestation is only in its first stage. Eventually in this country, as has been the case in France, the stripped mountains will become so inimical to the public good that the Government will have to take charge of them and reforest them. But the expense of this, when once the forests are gone, will be only less ruinous than the damage which it will check, and the remedy will require many years to become operative.

France began a work of reforesting denuded mountains in 1860, to repair so far as possible the damage which had followed the clearing of the forests under private ownership. By 1900 she had spent over $15,000,000 and acquired over 400,000 acres of land in this work, while annual expenditures were still going on at the rate of over $600,000 a year, and it was estimated that in completing the work the further purchase of over 425,000 acres of land and the additional expenditure of over $20,000,000 would be required. Owing chiefly to the necessity of acquiring for protective purposes deforested land, almost one-fourth of the State-owned forest in France must be nonproductive for many years. By creating the proposed reserves now we shall secure a property which can be made to more than pay its way. If not created soon enormous expenditures without productive return will become necessary.

The creation of these reserves is in the interest of agriculture. After clearing, more or less of the land in the South is farmed for a short time but erosion is so rapid that within from five to ten years there is not enough fertile soil left to bear crops. All

land that is truly agricultural will be excluded from the reserves. Such lands in the mountains themselves lie in narrow valleys along the streams, and after denudation are exposed to severe injury by floods. In the distant lowlands through which the waters pass on their way to the ocean the effects of deforestation are also felt in floods, which sweep out bridges, dams, and houses, and often spread barren sand over many acres of fertile fields. From April, 1901, to April, 1902, floods in the South, fed from the southern Appalachian region, did a damage estimated at $18,000,000.

The creation of these reserves is important for manufactures. The water power furnished by streams from these two regions is of great importance, both north and south, and will be more important with the development of the use of electricity. A gain of from $15 to $30 per year for each horsepower developed, on the basis of a ten-hour day, has been estimated as the advantage of water over coal in point of economy. To the future industrial progress of the South forest preservation in the Appalachians is essential. The recent rapid manufacturing development, particularly of cotton manufacturing, in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, has been largely assisted by the water power available.

In these three States alone cotton mills operated by water power are now established, which have an annual production valued at over $60,000,000. A still greater future development, which additional water powers not yet utilized promise, is endangered. A water power which is intermittent is worthless under modern business conditions. The manufacturers whose observations extend over a term of years have discovered an appreciable decline in the volume of the streams. The water power of this southern region already developed or being developed is estimated at 500,000 horsepower. The undeveloped water power is probably not less than 1,000,000 horsepower more. If the forests are permitted to take their present course a very large part of this power will be lost, entailing a severe blow to the prosperity of the South and lasting detriment to the entire country.

The forests of both regions now contain a heavy yield of mature timber. They are highly productive forests. In variety and size of hard-wood species, the Southern Appalachian region surpasses any other natural forest in the country. The tendency under private ownership of forest lands, even under management, is to the production of small timber. In the lumber industry, from the nature of the case, the law of supply and demand does not fully guard the public interest. Both Germany and France at the present time find themselves confronted with a serious situation, owing to their neglect to provide at the right time for trees which would reach maturity and furnish saw timber now or in the immediate future. Enough land is in forest, but the crop is not ready, and in consequence alarm is now being sounded in both countries. Ownership by the National Government of the reserves now proposed will help to maintain for the future a supply of lumber trees of a large size. The White Mountains and the Southern Appalachians are alike in being natural recreation grounds for a very large part of our population. Over 60,000,000 of the people of the United States are within twenty-four hours of the Southern Appalachians, and the White Mountains have long held a foremost place as a summer resort, especially for the Northern and Middle Atlantic States. Both of these regions should be guarded and handed down to the generations which follow. They are great natural blessings with which we have been endowed and which we must protect.

The question of the establishing of these reserves is not a local or a State question, but a national question. The interests affected are interstate. The evils which the reserves will check fall most heavily on distant communities, and even upon the National Government. Here again, if we are wise, we shall draw a lesson from French experience. In France the first efforts to repair the disastrous effects of torrents were made by engineers along the lower water courses. Dredging and dams, however, proved at best but temporarily effective. Only when they began to push their work up to the headwaters of the streams did they find themselves on the right road. The Government now puts into the building of levees and the improvement of navigation in rivers and harbors many millions of dollars annually. The reserves constitute a far more economical expenditure for the same purpose, in addition to their large contributions to the public welfare.

It is not right to expect the State within which these areas lie to reserve them for the benefit of other States. It is impossible for States which suffer from conditions outside their own territory to remedy them by their own action. There has been set aside in the West, for essentially the same purposes which these reserves will secure, a vast area of reserves created from the national domain and benefiting primarily the people of the West. But the interests involved both in the West and in the East are too broad to be regarded as even sectional merely. The benefits of the proposed reserves will be national benefits and their expense should be borne by the nation.

THE APPALACHIAN FOREST RESERVE.

LOCATION.

The portion of the Appalachian region under consideration for the location of this reserve extends from Maryland southwestward, comprising parts of Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, and lying between the Piedmont Plateau on the southeast and the Appalachian Valley on the northwest. It consists of parallel chains of mountains, as the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany on the southeast and the Únaka Mountains on the northwest, with an irregular mountainous table-land lying between. The prevailing trend of the system is from northeast to southwest. Numerous smaller ranges, separated by narrow valleys and deep gorges, extend between the principal chains, some parallel and others at right angles to the parallel ranges. The whole region comprises an approximate area of 17,500 square miles, having an approximate length of 350 miles, while the width varies from 35 to 65 miles. It is not proposed that the reserve shall embrace any considerable portion of this section, nor that every part of the reserve shall lie contiguous to all the others. The discretion is left with the Secretary of Agriculture to purchase such lands as may be readily acquired and such as will prove most adaptable to the purpose in view.

RELIEF.

This is preeminently a region of mountains, and is of paramount importance for physiographic as well as for forest reasons. It includes the most prominent geographic features of the Southern States and contains the highest mountains east of the Mississippi River. Mount Mitchell, in North Carolina, is the highest peak, having an elevation of 6,712 feet. Over forty peaks and 6,500 acres of land, lying in the Blue Ridge and Unaka mountains and intervening ridges, have an elevation of over 6,000 feet, while the whole region has an approximate altitude of 2,500 feet. The slopes, though steep, are seldom precipitous, being rounded and softened by age, and are mostly covered by a deep soil which is kept porous by the decaying vegetable matter, the mulch of the forest, and held in place by the roots of the trees, shrubs, and grasses growing upon it. In many of the transverse ranges, however, the bare and precipitous sides, carved from great masses of granite, lend a touch of variety to the scenery, and wherever the forests have been destroyed the soil, deprived of its support from the roots of the trees and the decaying leaves that cover it, quickly yields to erosion and yawning gullies scar the face of the hills.

DRAINAGE.

This region is drained by many large rivers, most of which rise in the Blue Ridge, for, though not the highest, this range is the oldest, and constitutes the divide for waters flowing east and west. On Grandfather Mountain, the highest point in the Blue Ridge, are two springs within a few feet of each other, the waters of one of which, flowing north, find their way by the New or Great Kanawha River into the Ohio and thence into the Misssssippi: while the other, flowing east, forms the headwaters of the Yadkin, which flows southeast through North and South Carolina and empties into the Atlantic Ocean.

In this region rise many of the large rivers of the United States and all of the largest rivers south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi. The James, the Roanoke, the Yadkin, the Catawba, the two Broads, the Saluda, and the Chatooga flow into the Atlantic; the Coosa and Chattahoochee into the Gulf; the New finds its way by the Kanawha into the Ohio; while the Tennessee, with its large tributaries-the Holston, the Watauga, French Broad, Big Pigeon, Hiwassee, and Little Tennessee-flow into the Mississippi. In addition to these dozens of other streams flow outward in all directions from this region and justify its claim to be considered one of the most important watersheds of the United States.

WATER POWER.

The descent of these streams is necessarily very rapid. Heading at altitudes of from 3,000 to 6,000 feet and leaving the foothills at from 1,000 to 2,000 feet, they must fall from 2,000 to 4,000 feet within the mountain region. Thus the Linville River, which rises on Grandfather Mountain, in North Carolina, descends at one place a distance of 90 feet in a linear distance of 100 feet, while in its whole length of 36 miles, to where it empties into the Catawba, it has a total fall of 3,030 feet. This rapid descent of its streams has given rise to one of the most prominent topographic features which mark this region, namely, the deep and narrow gorges which have been cut through the mountain ranges, many of which are from 500 to 2,000 feet deep. The most noticeable of these gorges are those of the New River and Laurel Fork of the Holston River in Virginia; the Watauga, the Nolichucky, the French Broad, and the two gorges of the Doe River in Tennessee; the Tallulah River in Georgia; and the Big Pigeon, Little Tennessee, Nantahala, and Hiwassee in North Carolina.

The rock formation of the greater part of this section consists mainly of gneissic rocks, bedded slates, and limestones, having generally a northeast to southwest strike. But owing to the elevation and rapidity. of the streams, the general course of the larger rivers has been but little modified by the geologic structure, and they lie directly across the strike of the rocks. The resulting conditions produce occasional falls and cascades, but for the most part the descent of these rivers is accomplished in a series of rapids which furnish opportunities for the development of ample water power by the construction of dams at convenient locations. Where the trend of the rivers lies along the strike of the rocks, as is the case in northern Georgia, the water descends by shoals and cascades, some of which are of great height, and large water powers could be easily developed. The following table has been compiled showing the possibilities in this direction: