12 



BOTTOMLAXD TVPE 

 (1) CYPRESS AND MIXED HARDWOJI) 



The cypress and mixed hardwood type in the original forests bor- 

 dered the sloughs and poorly drained areas of the Wabash bottoms from 

 Mt. Carmel in Wabash county southward along the Ohio and Cache, and 

 up the Mississippi to southern Union county (see Map II, facing p. 1). 

 The finest stands were in the Cache River bottoms. Limited are'is of pure 

 cypress were found on the marginal areas of sloughs, but generally cypress 

 was growing with broad-leaved species. Tupelo gum (Nyssa aqiiafica) ; 

 water hickory ; elm ; soft maple ; black and sweet gums ; \nn. swamp white, 

 swamp Spanish, cow, overcup, and bur oaks ; ash : hackberry ; honey 

 locust ; water locust ; Carolina poplar ; Mississippi cottonwood ; willow ; 

 sycamore ; big shellbark, shagbark, mocker-nut, and bitternut hickories 

 were associated species throughout the range. Beech was not an uncom- 

 mon tree on the bottomlands of the Cache and the Mississippi, but gen- 

 erally was found on slight elevations subject, however, to inundation. 

 Catalpa grew in the Wabash and the Cache basins but was absent from 

 the Mississippi. Pecan grew in the Wabash and the Mississippi but was 

 rare in the Cache basin. 



The original forests containing cypress, pure or mixed with broad- 

 leaves, could not have exceeded 250,485 acres, and probably amounted 

 to less. The wooded areas where cypress is now found in commercial 

 quantities total 31,088 acres in Alexander, Pulaski, Massac, Union. John- 

 son, and Pope counties. This acreage has an estimated total yield of 

 44,563,000 B. F. for cypress and broad-leaved species. Cypress does not 

 form more than half of the total yield, and out of a possible total cypress 

 yield of 22,000,000 B. F. not over 15,000,000 are in the yields heavy 

 enough to justify logging. 



The following quantities are given by the U. S. Census as the cypress 

 cut for Illinois. 



1S99 1,435,000 B. F. 



1909 2.183,000 B. P. 



1919 2,228,000 B. F. 



These figures indicate that the cypress of Illinois will last about seven 

 years, or until 1931, at the present rate of cutting. 



The soils in the Cache basin are largely deep silt loams. Their recog- 

 nized fertility has led to drainage projects which will eventually convert 

 much of the cypress area into crop land. This process is well advanced 

 in the Wabash country, and throughout the cypress mixed hardwood 

 region all but the wettest areas have been cleared. Over the entire cypress 

 region but 8.5 per cent of the area originally forested now has timber. 

 Clearing has been more extensive in this and the mixed hardwoods of 

 the secondary streams than in any of the other types. The change in 

 water-level, incident to drainage, results in the death of established trees, 

 and prevents re-establishment of the species, so that cypress will probably 

 disappear from the Illinois forests. 



