DISTRICT WEST OF THE TENNESSEE RIVER, Pe Mh 
Hiteen per cent. each, post oak thireeeityper cent, Spanish 
oak nine per cent., and white oak two per cent. Black- 
. jack alternates with black oak, and in some places is the only 
timber met with. From this composition we can form an 
instructive idea of what is to be the future forest of Kentucky,. 
in case no action is taken to perpetuate the present distribu- 
tion of timbers. 
The monotony of this young forest growth is broken on 
reaching West Fork of Clark river, where timbers very sim- 
ilar to those of East Fork are found, except that the bottom 
of West Fork is narrow, and the timbers are proportionally 
small and unimportant. White oak, sweet gum, and lirio- 
dendron are its most valuable timbers. After crossing West 
Fork, the country is somewhat more broken; but the same 
young forest is met with until one nears Farmington. Here 
the timber, though still all young and of the same composi- 
tion, is evidently older than that between Farmington and 
Murray, and clearly shows that the practice of burning off 
the woods ceased here before it did in the latter locality. 
About five miles from Mayfield the old forest growth is 
reached again, with considerable white oak, laurel oak, and 
pig hickory in the lower grounds, and pest oak, black oak, 
Spanish oak, and black-jack in the higher grounds. A 
change of level of fifteen feet is sufficient to produce this 
change in the timbers. About three and a half miles from 
Mayfield, Mayfield creek is reached, and the timbers become 
very valuable. They consist of white oak and liriodendron, 
which, together, form about forty per cent. of the swamp 
timbers, sweet gum, shag and white hickory, black ash and 
white ash, cypress, bartram cak, winged elm, and swamp 
laurel oak. A small saw-mill near the creek crossing does 
a great deal of local work. The timbers along Mayfield 
creek are every where very fine, and as the bottom is wide 
and the creek very tortuous, running through more or less 
of five counties of the Purchase, the body of timber that 
lies along it is very valuable. It will be difficult, however, 
to float out a large part of this timber, because, during a 
SY 
