It has amazed men of the U. S. Geological Survey to find that the corn patch of the mountaineer often slants at an angle of fifty degrees so that it is impossible to plow. The mountaineer cultivates such a patch entirely with a hoe. When the mountain side, crop and all, slides down to the base he bears the ill luck with patience and fortitude and tries to find a remedy. He hauls rocks to brace the earth and plants another crop. He had no time to sit and bemoan his fate. Through such trials, and because neighbors were so far removed, his self-reliance and resourcefulness were of necessity developed. The mountain man learned early to face alone the hazards of life in the forest; first of all was defense of his home against wild beasts and the Indian. He knew the danger to life and limb from fallen trees, treacherous quicksand, swollen creeks, the peril of slipping mountain sides after heavy rains. Of necessity he relied upon himself; he could not wait for a neighbor to help pull the ox out of the ditch. He learned early to make his own crude farm implements at his own anvil. In short, he had to be jack-of-all-trades--blacksmith, tanner, barber, shoemaker, wagoner, and woodsman. Men of 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.