Part 15

Horticulturists are just beginning to appreciate the advantages of the thermal or “no frost” zone. It was Silas McDowell, of Macon county, who first called attention to the existence of certain belts along the southern slope of the Blue Ridge and projecting spurs, wherein the fall of frost was unknown, and the season more than a fortnight earlier in spring, and later in fall than the adjacent slope on either side. So marked is the effect that a green band, in early spring, seems to be stretched across the side of the mountain. The line on both sides is clearly defined, and does not vary more than a few feet from year to year. The scientific bearings of this singular phenomenon are intelligently discussed by Mr. McDowell, in a paper published in the Smithsonian Reports in 1856. An explanation for the existence of such a belt is derived from a theoretical knowledge of the directions and commingling of air currents, determined by the conformation of the slope.

Sections of this frostless zone are found on almost every spur of the main chain of the Blue Ridge from Catawba county to Georgia, the largest area in any unbroken tract being on the side of Tryon mountain in Polk county. Its economic value for fruit and vegetable culture is inestimable. Like conditions of climate exist nowhere on the continent. The season is as long as in Southern Georgia and South Carolina, while, on the other hand, the thermometer never ranges higher than in New York, Ohio or Michigan. These conditions, for grapes, pears, peaches and apples, are perfect. The climatic conditions with respect to moisture are favorable, and in some respects superior to famous fruit growing districts.

The forest growth of Western North Carolina is a subject in which there is at present a wide and growing interest. Of the territory west of the river Catawba, more than three-fourths is yet covered with the original forest. Almost every variety of hard wood, indigenous to the eastern part of the United States, is found on the piedmont plain, or on the mountain slopes. Within a day’s journey for an ox-team grow the steel-like persimmon, the inelastic hemlock, and the impervious balsam fir. The trees in most localities are so thick as to form an impenetrable shade. Their size and quality depend mainly upon fertility and altitude. While there are poplars six feet in diameter, at the stump, and sixty feet to the first limb, cherries four feet stumpage, and walnuts eight, these are the exceptions, and the ones that become celebrated. The thousands upon which the operating lumberman must rely for his returns, are of profitable size, but not giants, as the uninitiated might infer from advertising circulars or occasional notices in the local newspapers.

Yellow pine is found in the piedmont region in considerable size and quantity. The quality is inferior to the best southern pines, but it serves very well for most domestic purposes. White pine of superior grade and large trees are found in many of the mountain valleys, but its growth can not be said to be general. The regions likely to become available, are in Madison county, Haywood and Swain. The largest white pines in the state are in the latter county on the banks of Larkie creek.

Oaks, of almost every variety, abound everywhere. It is the boast of the state that nineteen of the twenty species of oak are found within her territory; at least fourteen are found west of the Catawba river. The common white oak, which is the most valuable, grows in every valley and cove lower than 4,000 feet, and, in solidity and tenacity, is far superior to the growth of lower altitudes. The same is true of ash and hickory, which abound everywhere. The white hickory of the piedmont plains is being already purchased, and manufactured into spokes and handles. The white ash of the mountain valleys has a fine grain and firm texture. The best growth may be looked for in the dark coves. North Carolina hickory commands a ready market, large quantities being consumed by the export trade. The factory at Greensboro draws a large percentage of its supplies from the western section.

Black walnut, here, as elsewhere, was the first wood hunted out by speculators. But few trees remain within available reach of transportation east of the Blue Ridge, and those in the western counties which are yet standing, have been sold to speculators. More than twenty million feet of walnut timber have changed ownership since 1880. As fast as the railroad creeps through the valley toward its western terminus, these princes of the forest are being reduced to lumber and shipped to northeastern markets. In quality, southern mountain walnut takes high rank; in size, it compares with the trees of the flat-lands of the north. A tree was cut in Haywood county recently which measured over eight feet across the stump, and forty-seven to the first limb. Four feet stumpage is not an extraordinary size.

The predominant growth of the mountains, both in the piedmont and trans-Blue Ridge sections, is chestnut. On some ridges it is almost the exclusive growth, but occurs, in diminished numbers, though increased size, in the dark coves. The great trees are of no value, except for rails, fire-wood, and charcoal; the young and vigorous are of greater value as a cabinet wood, and for house finishing. Tons of nuts fall to the ground annually. The mountain farmer, in fact, relies upon the chestnut as a staple food for his hogs. In addition to its uses, the chestnut tree is a factor in giving character to the landscape. Its creamy bloom blends beautifully with the mellow pink of the kalmia, and brilliant scarlet of the rhododendron.

Next to the chestnut in the glory of its bloom, comes the locust. This tree, as a scattered growth, may be found almost everywhere. It grows tall and symmetrical, and ranges in diameter from six inches to two feet. Locust is a valuable commercial wood. It is little effected by dampness or earth, and is consequently used for fence posts, and in ship-building extensively. It is also used in the manufacture of heavy wagons, for hubs.

Poplars in the Southern Alleghanies attain great size and in symmetry of form excel all other trees. The use of its lumber are almost as varied as oak, and being somewhat scarcer, it commands a higher price in the market. It is found on almost every slope and in every valley. The poplar blossom contains more sugar than the bloom of any other forest tree. The bee keeper among the Alleghanies can always rely on well filled honey combs.

Black birch is a wood just beginning to receive the attention of manufacturers, and the day is not far distant when it will take a high place among cabinet woods. The rapid consumption of walnut is warning far-seeing lumbermen to cast about for a substitute. Black gum and black birch seem to be the most available candidates. There are several varieties of birch, but none equals the product of the Southern Alleghanies in beauty of grain or richness of color. It is mainly a cove growth, and attains to workable size. Black gum is found, but only as isolated trees.

Cherry, which of American woods for ornamental purposes, is second only to walnut, is found in some sections of the mountain regions in great abundance. The Smoky range, together with its projecting spurs from the Virginia line south, is noted for the size of its cherry forests. The vicinity of Roan mountain and the headwaters of the Ocona Lufta excel all other sections. The high coves of the Balsam range also contain large and valuable trees.

Maple, linn, sycamore, cucumber, mulberry, sassafras, dogwood, sourwood, gopher, and buckeye is a partial list of the remaining deciduous trees.

Above all, enveloping the summits of the highest ranges in impenetrable shade, silent and somber, stand forests of balsam fir. The general character of these dense, dark thickets is described elsewhere. The wood itself remains briefly to be spoken of. The fir of the North Carolina Alleghanies differs from the species in the far north, both in the size of the tree and in the smoothness and density of the wood. It may be looked for in the three localities, each, however, embracing a large area of territory--the culmination of the Balsams at the corners of Haywood, Transylvania and Jackson; on the great Smoky chain, and within the ellipse of the Blacks. The “female tree,” which is cone shaped and has limbs to the grounds, is worthless except for the resin of the blister drawn out by puncturing the bark at a certain season of the year, and used as the base of medicinal preparation. The “male tree” grows to a diameter of two feet, and has a straight, clear trunk to the length of thirty to sixty feet. The wood is straight, fine grained, firm, and unelastic. It is highly charged with acetic sap, which makes the green lumber very heavy. When dried it becomes light--lighter than white pine. In color it is as white as the paper on which this is printed, and the density and firmness of the grain makes it susceptible of high polish. The same structure renders it impervious to water. The writer was shown a churn made of balsam staves which had been in use for thirty years. The wood under the surface was not even stained. This wood has received no attention from wood manufacturers, but it may some time be valuable for ship-building, buckets, and for house-finishing. For the latter purpose it will rival in color and surface the world-famed satin wood of California.

The arborescent kalmia and rhododendron, which grow along almost every mountain stream, have a practical use. The ivy and laurel, as they are locally called, attain, in some of the fertile coves, a diameter of three inches, and the roots are even larger. Their graceful crooks and turns and bulbous, burly roots, make them exceptionally fine timber for all kinds of rustic devices--fences, flower urns, chairs, etc. The wood can be worked only when green; dried, it becomes as hard as bone. Its density, hardness, and mottled grain, make it a valuable wood for pipe bowls and knobs, also for light tool handles and shuttles. No use is made of these shrubs at present, except for rustic furniture.

At present, Hickory manufactures more lumber than any other town in the state west of the Catawba. Highlands, on the Blue Ridge, probably deserves the second place, though the industry is only in its infancy. We have no hesitancy in saying that the forests in the western section are intrinsically more valuable than in the middle belt of North Carolina, or in any part of South Carolina. Five thousand square miles of area are awaiting enterprising dealers and manufacturers in wood. 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.

Thus far this sketch has been written mainly from personal observation. We now come to a subject, however, in the treatment of which authorized publications and the investigations of other individuals must be relied upon. Our errors in what shall be said upon the subject of mineralogy will be errors of omission. There has never been anything like a systematic exploration of the Southern Alleghanies. This statement will surprise no one familiar with the country, for such a task would involve years of expensive labor, an investment which the state legislature has never shown an enthusiastic willingness to make. We might quote a page of axioms applicable to this subject. “What is worth doing, is worth doing well,” “The most economy is sometimes the greatest folly.” But we forbear the repetition of platitudes. The state publications tell us, with well-founded pride, that North Carolina was the first government in America to order a geological survey. Can she, on that account, afford to be the last state to publish a full exposition of her geological structure and mineral resources? Private enterprise, however, is annually adding to the stock of information, and gradually the general character of mineral deposits is becoming known. We were told by many a hostess during our rambles that she “had kep’ a powerful site of them rock-hunters.” The mineral excitement was highest from 1872 to 1875. Mr. King, in a paper published in Scribner’s Monthly, descriptive of a trip through the mountains in 1874, says:

“Wherever we went we found the ‘rock hunters’ had been ahead of us, and a halt by the wayside at noon would generally bring us to some denizen of the neighborhood who would say ‘Good mornin’, gentlemen; after rocks?’ And then would produce from his pockets some specimens, which he was ‘mighty certain he did’nt know the name of.’ Many a farmer had caught the then prevalent mica fever, and some had really found deposits of that valuable mineral which were worth thousands of dollars. There is no danger of over-estimating the mineral wealth of this mountain country; it is unbounded. There are stores of gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, corundum, coal, alum, copperas, barytes, and marl, which seem limitless. There are fine marble and limestone quarries, whose value was unsuspected, until the railroad pioneer unearthed it. The limestone belt of Cherokee county contains stores of marble, iron, and gold; Jackson county possesses a vast copper belt, and the iron beds of the Yellow mountains are attracting much notice. The two most remarkable gold regions are in Cherokee and Jackson counties. The valley river sands have been made in former times to yield handsomely, and now and then good washings have been found along its tributaries. The gold is found in various and superficial deposits in the same body of slates which carries limestone and iron. Before the war liberal arrangements had been made for mining in Cherokee, but since the struggle the works remain incomplete. It is supposed that the gold belt continues southward across the country, as other mines are found in the edge of Georgia. The gold in Jackson county is obtained from washings along the southern slopes of the Blue Ridge, near the mountains known as ‘Hogback’ and ‘Chimney Top,’ and Georgetown creek, one of the head streams of Toxaway, yielded several thousand dollars a few years ago. In this wild country, where the passes of the Blue Ridge rise precipitously eight hundred and a thousand feet, there lie great stores of gold. Overman, the metallurgist, unhesitatingly declares that he believes a second California lies hidden in these rocky walls. The monarch mountain ‘Whiteside’ is also said to be rich in gold.”

We are of the opinion that Mr. King overestimated the value of the mineral deposits to which he has here referred, having been somewhat misled by the prevalent excitement of the time, though of course there is no telling what may be concealed in the hidden fissures of these mighty masses of uplifted granite. 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, and the hope of things unseen, to stimulate the zeal of explorers and excite the cupidity of operators. The value of minerals, already taken out, has passed the enumeration of thousands, and the surface of the jewel-field has not yet been marked out. About 160 minerals, simple and compound, have been found within the region of which this volume professes to treat. Many of them are extremely rare, some of them of great economic value. What we shall say in this connection, is for the information and interest of the general reader. The scientist will derive his information from the technical pages of special publications. But the explorer, who goes ahead of him, will do better service by opening the great book of nature, and exposing to the world its unknown treasures.

There is written evidence that the followers of DeSoto made an exploring expedition into the Cherokee country, in search of gold. Whether or not they reached the mountains of North Carolina, is unknown. They were probably led to search for the metal in this locality, by the ornaments worn by the Indians, or information derived from them. Late in the last century, the Cherokees had preserved a tradition of a very valuable silver mine, in the Smoky mountains. They also found stones “of various colour and beautiful lustre, clear and very hard.”

About 1827, was the date of the gold excitement in Mecklenburg county, from which it spread to, and both ways along, the Blue Ridge. The discovery of this metal in Burke county, was an accident. In a little valley at the foot of the South mountains, about twelve miles from Morganton, on the way to Rutherfordton, lived an old gentleman named Brindle. A traveler stopped at his house one night, and told the story of the discovery of gold in Mecklenburg, astonished the family, particularly by his account of its great value, and the character of the metal. Mrs. Brindle, who had, in the meantime, been an attentive listener, finally interrupted: “I took a stone, powerful like that, from a chicken’s crop yisterday. I ’lowed it was so curious, I laid it up.” She thereupon produced a piece, the size of a pea, of pure gold. The traveler, of course, was quick to see how the precious stone had got into the chicken’s crop, and reasoned that there must be more where that one came from.

The Brindletown mines, as the diggings in this locality have since been known, have yielded many thousands of dollars, obtained merely by washing the sand and gravel. Quartz, containing a very large percentage of gold, has been found in these south mountain spurs and valleys. The practical difficulty experienced by miners, is the incontinuity of veins, for which even the richness of the gold deposit, where it is found, does not compensate. Upon the whole, at Brindletown, the best results have been obtained from washings of the drift deposits. Colonel Mills is, at present, the largest operator. The region includes a tract taking in the corners of McDowell, Burke, Rutherford, and Cleveland. Gold is found in the washings of the First Broad below Shelby; in Polk, at Sandy Plains, Morrill’s mills, Hungry river, Pacolet river, and other places. Rutherford county is rich in gold. Along the John’s river, in Burke, there are prospects which are favorable to an extensive mining industry. The placers also follow Lower creek into Caldwell county. It occurs in placers and veins in Catawba, and in placers in Watauga, Ashe, and Alleghany. It must not be understood that mines are being operated everywhere gold is found. In fact, there are very few places where anything is being done, and the work at other places is carried on in a very primitive fashion.

In the French Broad valley gold exists in placers and veins near the warm springs; on Cane creek, and elsewhere in Buncombe, and in placers on Boylston creek, in Transylvania. Further exploration of the upper French Broad valley will undoubtedly discover other localities. In the valley of the Little Tennessee, gold has been found near the Ocona Lufta river, and on Soco creek, in Swain county; at the head of the Tuckasege, in Jackson; in the vicinity of Highlands, and on Briertown creek, in Macon; and in Graham. Beyond the water-shed, in Jackson county, is a region rich in gold. In the Horse cove, or Sequilla valley, a few years ago, a hand could pan out two to five dollars per day. It has never been found or even looked for except in placers. The zone runs across Cashier’s valley into the Georgetown and Fairfield valleys. Its existence, in quartz veins, near Chimney Top mountain, is well established. The deposits in Georgetown valley have yielded more largely than any other locality in this region. The zone seems to pass around the southern base of Hogback mountain, thence across the Blue Ridge into Transylvania, making its appearance, as has been noted, on Boylston creek. We are indebted to the Rev. C. D. Smith, of Franklin, for the following incident:

Several years ago, in Hogback mountain, deposits of gold were discovered in a ravine, which were worked up to a spring pouring over the rocks. It was noticed that gold came up in the sands from the spring. In order to pan these daily deposits, a basin was formed, and rich yields resulted. However, the miners became impatient; and, naturally inferring that the source of the 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 ceased flowing. No vein was discovered. They “had killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.”

Mica has yielded more money to this mountain region than any other of her store of minerals. The zone follows almost the direction of the Blue Ridge. Productive mica veins are found only in granite dikes, and when the mica zone is spoken of the zone of these dikes is meant. There are exposures of mica outside the belt, but no productive mines have yet been found. Neither can all dikes be relied upon, for they may be filled with barren matter or the crystals may be too small for use. There seems to be a law of size which holds good throughout the vein, and by which proprietors are guided. Other dike deposits, again, are all that could be desired in respect to size and quality but the mica is worthless, either because of imperfect crystalization making it gnarled and gummy, or it is spotted by magnetite, some of it in the form of very beautiful clusters of vines and ferns. It is a remarkable fact that the mica veins which have yielded the best returns bear evidences of ancient work. The Clarissa Buchanan mine, in Mitchell; the Ray mine, in Yancey; and the Bowers mine, in Macon, were operated by the much-speculated-about prehistoric race of mound-builders. Other mines, in each of the localities named, were operated. In some, as in the Ray mine, shafts were sunk deep into the feld-spar, and in others tunnels were run in, showing that the miners were men of some advancement in the arts. It is proved, by an examination of the dump-piles, that mica was the object of the search, and that only large and clear crystals were taken away. They worked only in fieldspar, probably having no tools for removing anything but soft rock. Their work always stops when a granite ledge interferes with further progress. Little more is known of the use to which these people put mica, than of the people themselves. Many of the mounds in the North contain large sheets, over skeletons, from which it is inferred that it was used to cover the bodies of illustrious personages after interment, and that use may account for the zeal with which it was sought. It has been inferred by some archæologists that it was used for mirrors and windows in their temples, which is not improbable, though there is little evidence to sustain the theory.