10 REPORT ON THE TIMBERS 
it ever come, an additional drain of 6,000,000 feet of timber 
per year will be made upon the Tradewater country. It is. 
needless to say that, with such an additional demand upon it, 
the valuable available timbers of this part of Kentucky would 
be exhausted in a few years. For I shall show, further on in 
this report, that there is little hope of a young forest which 
can take the place of the old one now passing away. 
SPECIAL TIMBER VARIATIONS. 
It should be noticed that in a former report * I spoke of a 
peculiar, and, in many respects, remarkable belt of timbers. 
crossing the Hartford and Cloverport road, about twelve miles 
from Cloverport, and running a slightly varying east and west - 
course across Breckinridge and Ohio counties. The ground 
is high and nearly level, and the soil a loose, damp, sandy 
formation. The belt is about five miles wide. In passing 
down the Tradewater I found a timber belt, which, from its. 
width, the formation of the soil, and the character of the tim- 
bers, I believe to be a continuation of the belt formerly spoken 
of. It is about six miles wide and crosses Hopkins county 
between Garnettsville (now Dalton) and Providence. In this. 
strip of woods the white oak, liriodendron (yellow poplar), 
white and blue ash, white hickory, black walnut (most of 
which has been cut out), are unsurpassed in size and beauty. 
They form a marked contrast to the timbers on either side of 
the belt. If these two belts be the same, as I believe them to: 
be from similarity of characteristics, we have the remarkable 
phenomenon of a belt of the finest timbers extending, so far 
as observed, for more than one hundred miles, through other 
forests where the timbers are good, but not extraordinary, and 
following the general course of the Ohio river, though at no 
point, so far as I know, nearer to the river than ten miles. 
The belt is certainly not a level-topped, sandy range of hills. 
bordering the Ohio, for there are numerous hills and hollows 
between it and the Ohio, on none of which is the timber 
especially noticeable. . 
%* See page 65. 
112 
