OF SOUTHWESTERN MISSISSIPPI. 95 



culled for more valuable oaks, hickories, poplar and cypress. 

 Second-growth loblolly on old fields frequently attains 

 considerable size, and is being cut for lumber. A growth 

 of 12 inches in diameter in twenty-five years is not at all 

 infrequent. 



The Illinois Central Railroad passes through the county 

 from north to south, and many years ago opened up the 

 country for farming and lumbering. Logging has been 

 done on the most extensive scale. The total estimated 

 capacity of the principal mills operating along the Illinois 

 Central Railroad in this county amounts to 700,000 board 

 feet of longleaf pine per day in the form of limiber, shingles, 

 laths, etc. Lumbering on such a scale has taken almost 

 all the longleaf pine in the county. Operations are now 

 chiefly confined to small bodies of timber in the southeast 

 townships. 



Recently the Mississippi Central Railroad has been 

 constructed through the county from the east, which will 

 give direct connections between Hattiesburg and Natchez, 

 and this will greatly foster the agricultural developemnt 

 of the county. Tram lines have penetrated every portion 

 of the county and many of them now are hauling logs from 

 adjacent counties to the mills along the Illinois Central 

 Railroad. 



The region has no valuable reproduction. Barely one 

 per cent of the stump land is free from annual fires, and 

 new growth is confined almost entirely to old fields. Much 

 of this land will in time undoubtedly be brought under 

 cultivation, but a great deal of the stump land will remain 

 idle until intensive methods of farming are more generally 

 practiced. 



Lawrence County {west of Pearl River).— The topography 

 of the western part of Lawrence County is similar to that 

 of Lincoln County, except for the strip of bottomlands 

 adjacent to the Pearl River. With an approximate area 

 of 156,000 acres, only about 34,000 acres, or a httle more 

 than 20 per cent, is listed as cleared land. In portions 

 of the Pearl River bottom-lands and the vicinity of creeks 

 the cleared land is extensive, and upland cultivation is 



