DISTRICT WEST OF THE TENNESSEE RIVER. Lei 
the trees along the large streams,in this part of Kentucky, 
grow to a height of eighty to one hundred feet, with trunks 
from three to seven feet in diameter. 
There is a marked peculiarity in regard to the growth 
of the beeches in the Purchase. They are not found in 
great numbers along the large streams, as they are in the 
Rough creek region, along the North Cumberland, and in 
nearly every other part of Kentucky. Along the principal 
streams, here, very few beeches are met with, and they can 
hardly be said to form a part of the timbers along Clark 
river, Little Obion river, and Mayfield creek. They are 
scattered through the bottoms of small streams, but are 
“not conspicuous even there. A Kentucky swamp without 
beeches strikes one peculiarly. I could not see any reason 
for their general absence from the bottom lands of this part 
of Kentucky. 
The abundance of Spanish oak in the Purchase country is 
worthy of note. Nowhere else,here, have I seen that timber 
form so conspicuous an element of the forest growth. 
Hickory does not form a large percentage of the upland 
forest timbers, and one will often travel for a mile or two 
without seeing a single hickory tree. Along the streams 
-and on low grounds, however, the hickory is very fine and 
valuable. I know of no finer bodies of hickory timber in 
this country, than are to be found along Clark river and May- 
field creek. The shagbark, pignut, and white hickories are 
the finest varieties, and of these I have often counted, within 
sight of where I stood, a dozen which would average ninety 
feet in height, with diameters of from two to four feet. 
Chestnut, whose unaccountable presence on one side of 
Green river, and absence on the other side, I noticed i, a 
former report (Tradewater Timbers, vol. V, this series), seems 
‘to be as arbitrarily distributed in the Purchase as anywhere. 
About five miles from Benton there is a little creek running 
into East Fork of Clark river, called Chestnut creek. It 
heads up between two high hills, whose faces form a topo- 
graphical synclinal. On these two hill slopes, facing each 
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