510 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



whether the agricultural development of the tremendously fertile soils 

 of this region, at great expense for drainage, will follow or precede the 

 like development of the far less fertile piney woods soils, which espe- 

 cially in the shortleaf region (where stumps are no great problem be- 

 cause of rapid decay) require relatively small investment to put in 

 shape for the plow, it is certain that the deep swamps of the alluvial 

 regions will some day be reclaimed for farming. Under these circum- 

 stances forest growth, assured as it is by natural conditions, will con- 

 tinue under private ownership for a generation or more, at the end of 

 which period it will be succeeded by farm crops. Then will be time 

 enough to decide whether it is economically more sound to advocate a 

 farm woodland for each plantation — remembering that this region is 

 the American Valley of the Nile in agricultural productiveness — or to 

 depend upon the near-by true forest soils of the State for fuel and 

 other products needed on the plantation. 



Something will be said later of the value of State ownership of true 

 forest soils in the pine regions as a bar to attempts by land speculators 

 to peddle such soils off as agricultural, to the great detriment of the 

 proper development of our better soils. In the alluvial region public 

 ownership is not as necessary to combat this evil, for it requires a 

 pretty unwary investor to be persuaded that land three feet under water 

 is good farm land. And the water mark on the trees can't be conve- 

 niently obliterated ! 



Within this region there is a really considerable body of non-agri- 

 cultural land lying in strips along the chief streams between the top of 

 the levees and the normal -high-water mark. This land should be well 

 adapted to the commercial growing of cottonwood or willow.* These 

 are cheaply planted from cuttings, and inasmuch as the land, although, 

 strictly speaking, in private ownership, is untaxed, there seems some 

 possibility of interesting owners in commercial plantations. The State's 

 interest in the resultant protection to the levees should warrant it in 

 supplying the necessary planting stock. 



Shortleaf-pine Region. — In spite of the fact that roughness of topog- 

 raphy is a general condition over this region, several factors combine 

 to indicate it now and in the future as a region of farm woodlands. 

 One of the oldest railroads in the State, along which a number of thriv- 

 ing towns and cities are located, crosses the main body from east to 

 west, and it is well served with railroads throughout ; much of the 

 original virgin timber was logged years before the longleaf-pine opera- 



* See Cottonwood in the Mississippi Valley, Bui. 24, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 

 Forest Service, by A. W. Williamson. 



