that they would be most difficult and even dangerous under such circumstances.
Mr. Pinchot being away, I was not able to learn so much of the working- plan of the forests in his charge as I had hoped; his assistant, however, showed me some of the forest which was nearest to a state of nature, but it did not seem to me as fine as what I saw later on near Marion. The great feature of these Alleghany forests is the great number of species of deciduous trees which are associated in them. Mr. Sargent has told me of forests in Southern Illinois where no fewer than seventy different deciduous trees grow on a square mile.* Oaks, magnolias, hickories, black walnut and maples, are the most valuable timber trees, but there are many others of great beauty and some utility. Except in certain parts of North- Eastern Asia such as Manchuria, Amur land and Korea—with the flora of which the Alleghany mountain forests have a great deal more affinity than, their geographical position would lead one to suppose—there is no country out of the tropics where such a wonderful variety exists, the usual feature of the forests of the north temperate zone being the presence of one or more species of trees associated in great masses of the same kind. A beech forest in Denmark or Prussia, an oak forest in Hungary or Bulgaria, or a chestnut forest in Italy, I had seen, but never a forest with such infinite variety as this, in a temperate climate. The shrubs and herbaceous plants are also very varied and beautiful; in some places Kalmia latifolia was the prevalent under-shrub, forming lovely masses of pink flowers. Cypripedium and other terrestrial orchids, Trillium, Solomon's Seal and other pretty herbaceous plants mostly known in English gardens were not so common here as they are in some more northern States. Notwithstanding the great heat, I was still too early for butterflies, which, excepting the Hesperidæ, or Skippers, were not yet abundant, and I failed to see the magnificent Argynnis diana which a month or so later is the pride of this district. I was also unable to visit the locality where that rare and very lovely little plant Shortia galacifolia grows.'f
After three or four days at Asheville I went on by rail to a place called Marion, from whence I intended to visit the mountains known as the Blue Ridge. Marion was a primitive little forest town or village where I found a lodging in a boarding-house, and shared a meal of fried chicken, corn bread, hominy and pork, with some typically Southern boarders who were curious to know my business. I hired a buggy the next day for a thirty-five miles drive through some of the most lovely forests I have ever seen; here and there were small clearings with farms where maize and tobacco seemed to be the principal crops. In the valleys and on the hillsides alike the soil seemed excessively rich, but the slovenly and neglected state of most of the farms did not indicate much pros¬ perity among the farmers, and in some places corn was being hoed by bare-footed and rather sickly-looking women, such as I have never seen working in the fields in other parts of the States. The people of these mountains are a very peculiar race, quite unlike the Americans of the
1 In 1904 I visited the remains of this forest, which has been fully described by
Professor Ridgeway.
t Shortia is also found in Japan and Formosa (see p. 341).
