. North Carolina and its resources. sumed in orexported from the United States. This business has now, however,passed to virgin fields further south, and where the axe of thewoodman and hacker of turpentine gatherer erstwhile resounded, wenow see the plow and the pruning knife of the fruit grower and truckfarmer. Our swamp lands still yield largely of cedar, cypress, gumand similar valuable timbers. While our mountains contain vastquantities of the most valuable hard wood suitable for furniture andcabinet work. This State has for over twenty years furnished themain supply of the sweet chestnut
. North Carolina and its resources. sumed in orexported from the United States. This business has now, however,passed to virgin fields further south, and where the axe of thewoodman and hacker of turpentine gatherer erstwhile resounded, wenow see the plow and the pruning knife of the fruit grower and truckfarmer. Our swamp lands still yield largely of cedar, cypress, gumand similar valuable timbers. While our mountains contain vastquantities of the most valuable hard wood suitable for furniture andcabinet work. This State has for over twenty years furnished themain supply of the sweet chestnuts sold in the stores—the spontane-ous product of our mountain slopes. For decades. North Carolina has been the chief source of thenational supply of crude vegetable drugs. This industry has nowreached an extension and volume, the importance of which but fewoutside the medical and phaimaceutical professions appreciate. Thenumber of distinct species of important medical plants found growingwild in this State is about seven CATAWBA FALLS —McDowell county. Flora. 63 We liave already spoken of the influence of geological formationon the superimposed plant growth. A few words on the value ofindigenous plants as indicators of the agricultural worth of theunderlying soil will close this chapter. Plants, unlike animals, areunable to change their habitations and therefore in the course of timein accordance with the law of survival of the fittest, each speciesbecomes specially adapted to one kind of soil. The species which donot adapt themselves fail to hold their ground and are supplanted bythe species which do. Hence the surviving and fittest speciesbecome trustworthy indicators of the nature of the soil—if we knowon what kind of soil the species thrives best, or for which it isspecially adapted. White oaks, hickories and elms and our most common northernshade trees, thrive best on a rich, strong clay upland soil. Such soilis best adapted, agriculturally, for grasses and
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