the Blue Ridge did not clear their land after the manner of the
German farmer in Pennsylvania, who uprooted his trees. Instead, it was
done by belting the tree. He notched a six-inch band around the trunk,
removed the bark which prevented the sap from going up and thus killed
the tree from lack of nourishment. A field of such trees he called a
deadening. The roots were left to rot and enrich the soil but the
hillsides were so steep that the fertility from wood soil soon washed
away and another deadening had to be made before another crop could be
planted. Though crops were scant, the forest itself was ample and
sometimes brought him rich returns if he managed right.

A timber cruiser would come into the community, prospecting for a lumber
company, and examine the standing timber. After he reported back to the
company, a lawyer was sent to sound out the landowners--to see if they
were willing to sell their surface rights. When the legal matters were
attended to, the lumber company sometimes bought as much as seventy
thousand acres of forest. Woodsmen were brought in to work along with
the mountain men. Portable sawmills were set up and busy hands--sawyers,
choppers--set to work leveling the giant trees.

The owners calculated it would take twenty-five years to cull out all
the large timber and by the time that job was finished there would be a
second growth ready to cut. With this in view, hardwood and rich walnut
were cut and used with utter extravagance and disregard for their great
worth; full-sized logs of the finest grade were used for building barns,
planks of black walnut found their way into porch floors, walnut posts
were used freely for fencing by the mountaineer himself.

So profuse was the supply up until a quarter century ago that no thought
was given to its possible disappearance through wasteful methods of
lumbering, frequent forest fires, and the woodsman's utter carelessness
and disregard for the future.

A timber cruiser in Knott County, Kentucky, once came upon an old woman
chopping firewood beside the door of her one-room cabin. Upon
examination he found it to be a fine species of walnut. After talking
with her he learned that she owned hundreds of acres of timber, much of
which was covered with walnut such as she was ruthlessly burning in the
fireplace. He spent days going over the acreage and offered the old
woman a fabulous price for the larger timber, at the same time assuring
her, through wri