ib- I'OWA AC ad KMT of SCfKNCT-.A. 



Fully four-fifths of the State of Arkansas is stiff covertHi 

 witli primitive forest. I)uriu<>- the his-t decade only has nmeh 

 been dooe l)y the haixl of niau toward the removal of this- 

 vast forest, hut s$> suited ai)pear to be the soils and climatic- 

 conditions to the i^reat development of an arboreal flora that 

 even in those i'e<:ions once practically ch^ared of the forest, 

 there is now a rank g-roAvth of the common forms of hardwood 

 trees; the cleared pine areas, too, g-ive promise of future val- 

 uable forests. So that Arkansas is still, practically, a forest 

 covered State. 



As a whole the State may l>e divided rouiifhly into two 

 prime areas, the irt'eater of wdiich may be denon>inated the 

 lowlands. Somethin<»- more than one-half of the total area 

 of the State will be included in this division. The renuiining 

 section comprises the Arkansas portion of the Ozark uplift,, 

 which consists of numerous somewhat parallel ranges of high 

 rocky hills or low mountains trending south of westward,, 

 and which have a constantly lessening altitude as they are 

 traversed at right angles or toward the south. To the east- 

 ward the highland area is limited by the palaeozoic .scarp, 

 which may l)c, for our pur[)os('s, indicated by the course of 

 the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad. The 

 total area above sea level is oidy about eight hundred square 

 miles or little morc^ than one and on(^-half per cent, while by 

 far the gTeater portion of the State will fall ])elow four hun- 

 dred feet elevation. This higher portn)n has a large number 

 of interesting trees and shrubs, some of which are peculiar to 

 it, but lying witliout the area [)ersonally examined, is with- 

 out the iH'oper scope of this papcM-. Attention may, however, 

 be called to the fact that very many of the loulaud trees pen- 

 etrate far within this hilly country but keep in the main, 

 along the valleys of the larger streams — the Arkansas, the 

 Little Red, the White and the Black Rivers. This is espe- 

 cially true of the cyi)ress, sweet gum, willow-oak, over<'up- 

 oak and post-oak. 



