IREPORT ON A BELT OF KENTUCKY TIMBERS, EX- 
TENDING IRREGULARLY EAST AND WEST 
ALONG THE SOUTH-CENTRAL PART 
OF THE STATE, FROM COLUM 
BUS TO POUND GAP. 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
In each of the several previous reports made on Kentucky 
‘timbers, attention has been called to a comparatively limited 
portion of country; and all the conditions of timber growth, 
the relative numbers of the different kinds of timbers, the 
changes that these several kinds of timbers undergo under 
certain circumstances of time or position, have been inquired 
into somewhat minutely, and in a detailed manner. Such 
previous reports have been occupied, therefore, each in its 
-own locality, with minute examinations and discussions of 
tree life, growth and changes, and there has not been much 
effort to direct attention to the similarities and dissimilari- 
‘ties shown to exist, by comparison of reports, on widely sep- 
arated localities. In other words, each previous report has 
been detailed in character and limited in locality. This 
‘report is intended to be exactly the reverse. It deals with 
a very wide extent of country, and in a more or less general 
way. Its principal objects are to embrace under one view 
‘timber growths existing under the most widely different con- 
ditions possible within the State, and to call attention to any 
marked changes that may be found to accompany such dif- 
ferences of condition, and especially to discuss the effects of 
height above drainage upon such growths. A better oppor- 
‘tunity for the latter purpose could not be had than presents 
itself to one who passes from the swamps and hilly, rolling 
-country of Western Kentucky onto the level and fertile Blue- 
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