20 REPORT ON THE TIMBERS OF THE 
Bartram oak is very heavy, and white elm is good and 
plenty. Liriodendron is not very large, nor are white and 
black ash. The best have been cut out right along the road 
by a small saw-mill near the crossing. But those’ timbers 
are very fine all through the Clark river bottom, and as this 
is usually from one to three miles wide, there lies along it a 
vast body of exceedingly valuable timbers. 
Between Benton and Watch creek, two miles from Benton, 
towards Murray, the road is hilly and the timbers poor, con- 
sisting of red oak, black oak, and post oak, black-jack and_ 
black hickory. On Watch creek, the usual lowland timbers 
are found—white oak, liriodendron, black walnut, sycamore, 
birch, white elm, and red elm, with some shag hickory. 
After crossing Watch creek, for a distance of five miles, ; 
there is alternate hill and level. The surface soil in these 
levels is composed of whitish gravel, which is not cementéd 
together. The timber is almost wholly black-jack. Even on 
Wade's creek there is little change in these timbers. Imme- 
diately along the banks of the creek, most of the swamp 
timbers are found, but they are not large nor valuable, except 
near the mouth of the creek, where they become similar to 
those of East Fork of Clark river. If we except alone 
Rockhouse and Bee creeks, on both of which good lirioden-. 
-dron, white oak, black and white ash, white hickory and 
black walnut are found, the timbers are very poor through 
the high, hilly country from Wade's creek to Murray. The 
timbers along East Fork are very valuable even this high up; 
but the river bottom is growing much narrower, and the body 
of timber along it much smaller. The timbers remain essen- 
tially unchanged from Murray to the Tennessee line. 
In turning from Murray, back toward Mayfield, one enters 
upon the level sandy table land before referred to, where the 
entire forest consists of bushes. These bushes are tall and 
slim, and stand so thickly on the ground that the forest could 
never be worth very much even if the timbers were valuable 
in kind; but this they are not. Of these timbers, black oale 
forms about forty-five per.cent, red oak and scrub hickory 
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