Yes till an entrepreneur who only likes a tree for it can be made into-I give you the "Eastern Spruce Forest"( used to be) Cheat Mtn,WVa,, once upon a time in a land close, close near, there existed this unique ecosystem( the Lorax surely wept) Somebody( may have been West VA CO( nowadays WestRock) decided with the scarcity of jobs and the burgeoning Virgin stands of all Kinds of timber that existed on this beautiful Mtn( ridge to you Rocky Mtn Folks) it was too good to exist, what with the "burden of the white man" to rape, pillage , exploit Let the timbering begin, the Forest had developed at the end of the Ice Age when conditions had become good enough for the more cold and Sub Alpine species to get a toehold after the logging had begun ( still many scars left to this day) the formerly dark Forest floor( with up to 3 ft of Humus) was exposed, with the piles of slash and subsequent drying, lightning strikes and whatever else abounded with fire burning the topcover down to the bedrock. There was even a Glade or forest of 3 ft sassafras trees that were soon pillaged, this area exists today with a shade of its former glory with the old 'Shay Locomotive " track based at Cass,WVa, still chugging up the Mtn to the old logging community of"Spruce", its a good wayside when you are tripping on the East Coast.
And its fair to say it will never recover completely to what it once was( the same with most clear-cuts) if anyone is interested" Tumult on the Mountains" by Roy Clarkson- looks at the West Virginia lumber industry circa 1770-1920, the area to this day still harbors some unique animals such as the "Hellbender Salamander"( big sucka) at least in the Appalachians at large, not around here( at least I have never seen any, all I have seen are the standard size black ones called spring lizards) only said to be around 520 left in the wild plus other species and subspecies. So despite the warm smarmy platitudes of the so-called "conservatives" we as a race are pretty good at screwing Mother Nature.
