184 



"Going into these primitive woods, we find symmetrical, solid 

 trunks of six feet and upwards in diameter, and fifty feet, or more, 

 long to be not uncommon in half a dozen or more species ; while now 

 and then we happen on one of those old sycamores, for which the 

 rich alluvial bottoms of the western rivers are so famous, with a 

 trunk thirty or even forty, possibly fifty or sixty, feet in circum- 

 ference, while perhaps a hundred feet overhead stretch out its great 

 white arms, each as large as the biggest trunks themselves of most 

 eastern forests, and whose massive head is one of those which lifts 

 itself so high above the surrounding tree-tops. The tall, shaft-like 

 trunks of pecans, sweet gums, or ashes, occasionally break on the 

 sight through the dense undergrowth, or stand clear and upright in 

 unobstructed view in the rich wet woods, and rise straight as an ar- 

 row for eighty or ninety, perhaps over a hundred, feet before the first 

 branches are thrown out." 



At present the virgin timber is almost entirely cut off, and the 

 remaining small scattered areas give only a very incomplete idea of 

 the former forests. In these present-day stands, sweet gum, pin and 

 Spanish oak, and elm reach the greatest size and yield the greatest 

 amount of lumber, while the various swamp white oaks, hickories, 

 pecan, ash, and red and Texan oak come next in commercial impor- 

 tance. There are also fair quantities of sycamore, soft maple, willow, 

 and Cottonwood, and scattered trees of honey locust, black gum, 

 hackberry, river birch, catalpa, and persimmon. 



The virgin stands run as high as twenty to twenty-five thousand 

 board feet per acre on individual acres, but the best average stand 

 over any large area was estimated at thirteen thousand five hundred 

 feet per acre, of which sixty per cent consisted of "softwoods", 

 such as gum, elm, and maple, and forty per cent of "hardwoods," such 

 as oak and hickory. Those areas which have been cut over for the 

 large mills but have not been culled by the portable mills, run from 

 one to two thousand board feet per acre, but after the small mills 

 are through there is no merchantable timber left, and there are now 

 large tracts with nothing but very young growth of gum. pecan, 

 hickory, elm, and maple, and occasional tall, slim trees of the same 

 species. 



The type that grows on the tributary stream bottoms of Hamilton, 

 White, Wabash, Edwards, and Lawrence counties is similar to that 

 of the bottomlands of the Wabash River, with the exception of certain 

 areas of tight clay soil, which, though often wet because of poor 

 drainage, are characterized by an open growth of post, shingle, pin, 

 and blackjack oaks. On the whole the various lowland white oaks 

 are more abundant here among the young growth than in the regular 



