DISTRICT WEST OF THE TENNESSEE RIVER. 5 
diameter. At a distance, this forest appears very heavy on 
account of the height and extreme density of these young 
timbers; but on nearer approach, not an old tree can be 
found. This peculiar growth extends beyond Murray, and, 
as I afterwards found, occupies the entire table land, to: 
which I have previously called attention. I examined 
closely this young forest, and found that its principal 
timbers are black oak and red oak, and _ that scarcely a 
single white oak is to be found. My study of the Trade- 
water timbers had convinced me, that wherever the present 
forests of Kentucky are, by any means, destroyed, white oak 
does not form an element of the new forest growth, but that 
it is wholly supplanted by black oak and red oak. (See 
Report on Tradewater Timbers, vol. V, this series.) I at 
once concluded that the whole forests of this table land had 
been destroyed thirty or forty years ago, and that the new 
forest had succeeded that universal destruction of timbers in 
which the white oak had perished forever. I then passed 
off into the head waters of West Fork of Clark river and 
those of Mayfield creek, and noticed that as soon as these 
streams became large enough to have considerable bottoms, 
and to have water in their beds the year round, that in these 
bottoms the old forest timbers, consisting of white oak, pop- 
lar, and other timbers commonly met with, still exist. But 
these timbers are limited strictly to the swamp, at whose 
margin they give way abruptly to the young forest. Of 
course, the mystery was at once solved. Fire is the only 
agency that could destroy the forests over such a wide area, 
and leave none but the timbers in damp places standing 
intact. I had before studied the effects of burning off the 
woods upon the forest timbers, and had pointed out the fact 
that the people living along the foot of the Black Mountains 
of Kentucky are rapidly destroying some of the finest tim- 
bers in the United States, by pursuing this practice year after 
year. (See Report on North Cumberland Timbers, vol. IV, 
this series.) It immediately suggested itself to me that the 
151 
