DISTRICT WEST OF THE TENNESSEE RIVER. 9 
ber, in the unsawed log, is worth about $50,000. There are 
not less than 500,000 acres of land in the Purchase which will 
come within the above estimate of timber production; so, at 
this estimate, only about one four hundredth of the valuable 
timbers 1s now cleared-up annually. At this rate, the timbers 
can easily reproduce themselves, and the drain is not at all an 
alarming one. At the same rate, considering one third of 
the land to be under cultivation, the present forest of the 
Purchase alone would be worth $10,000,000 or $15,000,000. 
Even if the present drain upon the Tennessee river country 
were all turned to the Purchase, less than 2,500 acres of tim- 
ber annually would be destroyed, or only about one two hun- 
dred and fiftieth of the whole. The forests could easily 
reproduce themselves at that rate, except in the upper wood- 
lands, where, as I have elsewhere shown,* other timbers take 
the place of the white oak as that is cut away. Of course,all 
this timber weaith is not immediately available, and it is well 
that it is not so. Upon the whole, there is not much to be 
feared in regard to the present or future timber supply of the 
Purchase region. It is scarcely possible that a greater de- 
mand than the last estimate will be made upon it at any time 
in the near future. When such demand is made, however, it 
will probably be concentrated along the Clark river, where 
the facilities for cheap transportation are best, and, in that 
case, a few years would suffice to strip this stream of its most 
valuable forests. But the reserve supply of timbers, as I 
have shown above, is so great that no prospective demand 
can cause a dearth of them. 
There is one great difficulty, as I have previously hinted, 
in getting at the splendid forests of the Clark river region, 
and that is, that the stream is comparatively shallow, its bottom 
very flat, and the water sluggish. The difficulties of rafting 
on such a stream are greater than they would at first seem. 
For instance, the lumber establishments at Paducah desire 
their logs brought to them in their entire length, varying from 
thirty to seventy feet, so that they can cut from them plank of 
* Report on Tradewater Timbers. 
TIM. 1.—IO 145 
