| The Heart of the Alleghenies | |||
| Chapter 6 -Natural Resources | |||
| NATURAL RESOURCES The "Tar-Heel" Joke -- Tobacco -- Favorable Conditions for Gold Leaf -- A Ruinous Policy -- Hickory -- Shelby -- In Piedmont -- Old Field Land -- General Clingman's Story -- Watauga county -- Unequalled Pastures -- Prices of Lands -- Stock Raising -- The French Broad -- Tobacco Slopes -- Fair Figures -- Henderson and Transylvania -- The Pigeon Valley -- The Extreme Southwest Portion -- Character of Wild Range -- Horticulture -- The Thermal Zone -- Forests for Manufacturers --The Gold Zone -- Mica Mines --Corundum -- Iron Deposits -- The Cranberry Ore Bank -- Copper, Lead, Tin, and Silver -- Precious Stones |
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| page 167 | "The picture represented a gloomy forest, a rude still, and a group of dirty men." Mark Twain |  |
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| page 168 | "The state of North Carolina could probably get along without the rest of the world more comfortably than any territory of equal size in the western hemisphere." Blue Ridge mountains |  |
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| page 169 | "Present tendencies indicate that tobacco will become the chief staple agricultural product of Western North Carolina." Alleghanies ; Colonel Cameron |  |
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| page 170 | "Any who are interested in agriculture, and those departments of business based upon it, should survey with care the piedmont belt of counties." Catawba ; Yadkin ; Blue Ridge mountains ; yellow pine ; oak ; hickory |  |
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| page 171 | "The native population has been tardy in taking hold of tobacco culture, the most remunerative of all crops." |  |
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| page 172 | "Tobacco, which can always be relied upon for a cash return, has been the main instrument in stimulating general industry." St. Joseph's Academy ; Hickory ; Claremont College ; Highland school ; Asheville ; Salisbury |  |
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| page 173 | [Illustration] SILVER SPRINGS, Property of Hon. J.L. Henry |  |
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| page 174 | [blank] | ||
| page 175 | "Their southern portions are level, and contain many acres of good land." First Broad river ; Shelby ; Rutherford ; Polk ; Burke ; McDowell ; Catawba river ; Caldwell ; Wilkes |  |
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| page 176 | "To an intelligent planter in Catwaba, I explained my inability to understand how soil, originally good, could be made so absolutely unproductive." |  |
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| page 177 | "Scrub oaks four to six inches in diameter, making the thicket so dense that to ride a horse through it would have been difficult." |  |
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| page 178 | "The idea of Northern newspapers, that our plantations before the war were not worked systematically, is a mistake." Swanannoa ; General Clingman ; Beetree creek ; Asheville |  |
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| page 179 | "Being cool and well watered, they are unsurpassed as pastures during at least seven months in the year.' Ashe ; Watagua ; Blue Ridge ; Yellow mountains |  |
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| page 180 | "Sheep cannot with safety be turned out on the distant mountain range, but in most localities they will find abundant subsistance upon the nearer slopes." |  |
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| page 181 | "The experiment of raising tobacco has been found successful in the lower and more sandy portions of Mitchell." Graham ; Mitchell ; Ashe ; Watauga ; Yancey ; French Broad valley |  |
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| page 182 | [Illustration] THE FRENCH BROAD CANON [CANYON]
"Western North Carolina, it strikes me, may be compared to a great picture or poem..yet there is nothing in to make money out of." |
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| page 183 | "Madison county..almost wholly a succession of hills, coves and narrow valleys, nine-tenths of it timbered with a heavy growth of hard and soft woods." Alleghanies ; Madison County |  |
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| page 184 | "Some valleys, naturally fertile, are almost wholly exhausted." WW Rollins ; Hominy creek ; Swanannoa ; Upper French Broad |  |
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| page 185 | "Ochlawaha emptying into the French Broad from the east, like its Florida namesake, is a lazy, sluggish stream." French Broad ; Asheville ; Ochlawaha (Mud creek) ; Flat Rock |  |
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| page 186 | "All the good grains produce well." Saluda mountains ; Dun Cragin ; Ochlawaha ; Little River ; Blue Ridge |  |
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| page 187 | "Among the spurs of the Balsam range and Blue Ridge, and in the valley of Green river there are many thousand acres of forest." Hendersonville ; Pink Beds ; Balsam ; Blue Ridge ; Pigeon river ; Cataluche |  |
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| page 188 | "With the assistance of its [Balsam mountains] valuable mineral deposits, it will probably be able to maintain its position." Macon ; Swain ; Little Tennessee ; Balsam |  |
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| page 189 | "Sheep raising would be profitable, if carried on extensively enough to afford the employment of a shepherd." Franklin ; Macon ; Nantihala mountains |  |
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| page 190 | "The cereals can never be produced with profit beyond the narrow limit of home demand." Cheowah ; Graham ; Cherokee ; Clay ; Hiawassee |  |
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| page 191 | "Tons of apples are annually wasted, which, if carried to the market at reasonable cost of transportation, would furnish no inconsiderable revenue.' Catawba ; French Broad valley ; Transylvania ; Henderson ; apples ; peaches |  |
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| page 192 | "So marked is the effect that a green band, in early spring, seems to be stretched across the side of the mountain." Silas McDowell ; Smithsonian Reports 1856 |  |
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| page 193 | "The trees in most localities are so thick as to form an impenetrable shade." yellow pine ; white pine ; oaks ; Madison ; Haywood ; Swain |  |
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| page 194 | "The predominant growth of the mountains, both in the piedmont and trans-Blue Ridge sections, is chestnut." black walnut ; chestnut ; locust |  |
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| page 195 | "The use of its lumber [poplar] are almost as varied as oak, and being somewhat scarcer, it commands a higher price in the market." poplar ; black birch ; cherry ; deciduous trees |  |
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| page 196 | "This wood [balsam] has received no attention from wood manufacturers, but it may some time be valuable for ship-building, buckets, and for house-finishing." balsam tree |  |
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| page 197 | "Capital, transportation inducements, and business capacity, aided by mechanical skill are needed--three requisites to the development of a great industry, with which the region can be supplied only from abroad." |  |
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| page 198 | "Private enterprise, however, is annually adding to the stock of information and gradually the general character of mineral deposits is becoming known." Scribner's Monthly |  |
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| page 199 | "While it is not probable that a second California or Colorado exists in this section of the Alleghanies, there is sufficient evidence in the things seen...to stimulate the zeal of explorers." DeSoto ; gold |  |
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| page 200 | "The Brindletown minds...have yielded many thousands of dollars, obtained merely by washing the sand and gravel." Brindletown mines ; quartz ; gold |  |
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| page 201 | "The miners became impatient; and, naturally inferring that the source of gold was a solid vein, they applied a heavy blast, which scattered the rocks, and provided an outlet for the water, for the spring with its gold eased flowing." Hogback ; Georgetown ; Rev CD Smith ; gold |  |
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| page 202 | "It is a remarkable fact that mica veins which have yielded the best returns bear evidences of ancient work." mica ; Clarissa Buchanan mine ; Ray mine ; Bowers mine |  |
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| page 203 | "The dike shows no signs of exhaustion, though for more than a decade of years its annual yield has been very large." Lickstone mountain ; mica ; Haywood ; Yancey ; Buncombe |  |
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| page 204 | "Work has been done on more than a dozen openings in the county, and a merchantable product obtained from most of them." Brooks mine ; Macon ; Mitchell ; Jackson ; Bowers mill |  |
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| page 205 | "Corundum is a crystaline mineral of varying color, and next to hardness to the diamond." corundum ; Macon county ; Corundum hill ; Cullasaja river ; Dr Lucas ; Buck creek |  |
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| page 206 | "There are large deposits of iron ores in several localities, which will, when developed, be of great economic value." Kings mountain ; Andersons mountain; iron ore ; limonite |  |
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| page 207 | "This ore has been quarried and used in country forges for half a century, which, alone, evidences remarkable purity." limonite ; Cranberry ore bank |  |
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| page 208 | "The region of the Valley river seems to be the culmination of the mineral wealth of the Alleghanies." magnetite ; Cherokee ; Madison |  |
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| page 209 | "The rarest of the rare gems is the diamond, a very few specimens of which have been found." Brindletown ; Twittys mine ; Jackson county ; Haywood |  |
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| page 210 | "The interest of 10 years ago had in some measure died out on account of the apparent failure of all the railroad projects." |  |
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| page 211 | [Illustration] THE SWANNANOA HOTEL, Asheville |  |
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