96 A STUDY OF FOREST CONDITIONS 



also considerable. The uncleared land consists of hard- 

 wood bottoms, isolated stands of longleaf pine, and stump 

 land. A large proportion of the longleaf uplands has been 

 logged within recent years. In this county the lumber 

 industry is nearly gone. The only remaining longleaf 

 pine stands are in the four southern townships and a few 

 isolated holdings in the northern part of the county. 



The New Orleans Great Northern Railroad passes 

 through the county close to the Pearl River, and the Mis- 

 sissippi Central crosses it from east to west. These rail- 

 roads, with the line connecting Monticello and Brookhaven, 

 greatly facilitate the development of the county. The 

 lumbering is done over dummy lines extending from the 

 Illinois Central Railroad. The longleaf pine timber re- 

 maining will be exhausted within a few years, and possi- 

 bilities for agriculture are excellent. 



Pine land is assessed at $15 per acre, cultivated land at 

 $10 per acre, and stump lands, old field and hardwood 

 land at $5 per acre. 



Copiah County. — The forests of Copiah County vary 

 from pure longleaf in the southeast to the hardwood hills 

 in the northwest, but the greater part of the county is 

 occupied by the longleaf hills type. This variation in 

 forest type corresponds to the change in the character and 

 formation of the soil. While the southeastern portion of 

 the county contains the Lafayette red clays, the northern 

 part consists of silts or loess of great fertility. Between 

 these extremes, the soil changes gradually. This change 

 marks the limit of longleaf pine as a pure type, for in the 

 fertile soils of the silt formation the species is rare. North 

 of this transition area, hardwoods formerly occupied much 

 of the land. The county is nearly level or gently rolling, 

 and much of it has been cultivated for many years. It 

 comprises an area of 442,000 acres, of which nearly 70 

 per cent is cleared. A considerable amount of the land 

 classed as "cleared," however, contains old field pine and 

 second-growth hardwoods. The uncleared area contains 

 pure and mixed longleaf pine and hardwoods. Very little 

 of the merchantable hardwood is left. Practically all the 



