12 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION OF THE 



that there still remains 10,000,000 board feet. Another 

 large belt of pine land in Lowndes County, a few miles 

 south of Buttahatchie Creek, contains between 3,00^0 and 

 4,000 acres. The cut-over hill lands along the eastern tier 

 of townships in Lowndes and Monroe Counties contain 

 large areas of excellent second-growth shortleaf pine. 



None of the large shortleaf pine lumber companies are 

 at present operating in the Tennessee River hills, because 

 of the low price of this lumber. The price is kept low 

 because of competition with longleaf lumber from Southern 

 M ssissippi and Louisiana, where logging and manufac- 

 turing expenses are very much lower than in the shortleaf 

 pine hills of Northeastern Mississippi. A lumberman of 

 Northern Mississippi asserts that shortleaf pine cannot be 

 manufactured profitably while the average price remains, 

 as it is now, less than $18 per 1,000 board feet. 



Bottom-lands of the Tuscumbia River and Yellow Creek. — ^. 

 Fifty years ago the bottom-lands of the Tuscumbia River 

 and Yellow Creek were timbered with excellent white oaks, 

 willow and water oaks, yellow poplar, hickories, aJh, 

 cypress, red gum, maple and beech. Being near the 

 Southern Railroad, these lands were exploited from fi teen 

 to twenty-five years ago by stave cutters, who culled the 

 choicest white oaks for tight cooperage stock, and by saw- 

 mill men, who cut the finest yellow poplar, ash and cypress. 

 There are only a few scattered tracts on which the timber 

 has never been culled, and these, as a rule, are ten miles 

 or more from a railroad. Nearly all the bottom-land of 

 the Tuscumbia River within Mississippi is subject to annual 

 overflow, and though the land is extremely ertile prob- 

 ably not more than 3 per cent of it is in cultivation. It 

 is possible that at some future time much of this bottom- 

 land will be reclaimed by means of large drainage pro- 

 jects; but undoubtedly the greater part of it will remain 

 wild for a great many years. 



Uplands of the Tuscumbia River and Yellow Creek. — 

 The interstream areas of Yellow Creek and Tuscumbia 

 River are for the most part pine hills, from which, in almost 



