536 THE FORESTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



shrub can live iu the dark, shaded, water-covered soil. These reservoirs of drainage, generally without outlet, 

 are called cypress lakes if the water iu any part of them, too deep to allow the growth of trees, confines the 

 cypress to their more shallow borders. Here the cypress arrives at its greatest dimensions and produces timber 

 of the finest quality. These cypress lakes and cypress brakes, remote from streams, at no time of the year 

 connected with them, and always surrounded with a mire of forest swamp impassable to wagons, still retain their 

 best timber. Of late years, since swamp and overflowed lauds have become the property of the state, planters 

 have added many of these cypress tracts to their estates by purchase ; many others have been acquired by companies 

 formed to construct artificial channels by which the timber may be floated to the nearest streams. The richest 

 and most extensive of these groves of cypress, already more or less in the hands of capitalists, are found along 

 Steele's bayou, between Deer creek and the Sunflower river, in Washington county ; between that stream and 

 the lower course of Bogue Phalia, aud between the Mississippi river and Black creek above Greenville. There is 

 also a very large body of cypress inclosing the 'California brake', upon the Little Sunflower, in the counties of 

 Bolivar and Coahoma, extending through Tallahatchie county to the Yazoo river. 



"The traffic in cypress lumber in the Yazoo region dates from 1830. In 1838 it was commenced upon the 

 Sunflower river and Deer creek, ten years after the fiist settlements were established upon the banks of these 

 streams; since that time rafts have been sent regularly to New Orleans, and camps of lumbermen have been 

 established in every direction, the forests, particularly those upon the public domains, being regarded as the 

 undisputed property and lawful prey of the log-getter. In consequence the cypress groves have been, if not entirely 

 destroyed, largely culled of their best timber wherever it could be obtained without investment of capital, that is by 

 simply floating the logs to the streams at times of freshet and overflow. 



"The cutting of these cypress forests is not wisely regulated under the ownership of the state. Thesc'lands 

 have been thrown into the market at 50 cents an acre with the condition of settlement. Beneficial as such a law 

 might prove in the disposal of lands fit for cultivation, it results, in the case of timber-land unfit for the plow, in 

 the reckless destruction of one of the surest sources of public revenue. The state thus sells for 50 cents what on 

 its face is worth to the purchaser hundreds of dollars, and which, when deprived of its value and rendered forever 

 worthless, will be turned back to the state again. 



"Much of the destruction of the timber can be traced to wasteful methods practiced by the negroes. Under 

 present methods any one having rented a plantation will, for the most trifling wants, cut down a tree, regardless of 

 size, and without any effort to preserve for future use the parts not immediately wanted, so that the next quarter 

 of a century will probably see the entire destruction of the vast quantities of timber stored in the whole of this 

 great territory." 



LOUISIANA. 



The coast of Louisiana is bordered by saliue marshes and savannas extending inland from 10 to 40 miles, or is 

 covered with a scattered growth of cypress occupying extensive fresh-water swamps peculiar to the region. In 

 Vermillion, Calcasieu, Saint Martin's, and Saint Landry parishes considerable treeless areas, open grassy prairies in 

 the borders of theforest, occur. With these exceptions Louisiana was originally covered with a dense and varied forest 

 growth. The Maritime Pine Belt covered the eastern portion of the state nearly to the Amite river, or until checked 

 from further western development by the alluvial deposits of the Mississippi. Forests of pine, too, occupied the 

 western part of the state north and south of the Eed river. The pine flats of Calcasieu were covered with forests 

 formed almost exclusively of the long-leaved pine, which, farther north, mixed with oaks and various hard-wood 

 trees, extends over the high rolling country which stretches from the Sabiue northeasterly nearly to the Ouachita 

 river. The northeastern part of the state was covered, outside of the broad bottom lands of the rivers, with a 

 heavy forest of short-leaved pine (Finns mitis) mixed with upland oaks, hickories, and other deciduous trees. The 

 bottom lands and all that part of the state bordering the Mississippi were covered with a heavy growth of the trees 

 peculiar to such low, rich soil throughout the Gulf region. The high bluffs which occur at different points along 

 the Mississippi, the Atchafalaya, and other streams flowing through the western part of the state were covered 

 with a noble forest of evergreen magnolias mingled with beeches, water oaks, and gums. 



The most valuable forests of the state are still almost intact, although the pine has been cut from the banks of 

 the Pearl river and some of its tributaries, and from along the line of the Chicago, Saint Louis, and New Orleans 

 railroad, to furnish the New Orleans market with lumber. Pine has also been cut along the Sabine river, from 

 both forks of the Calcasieu, along the Red river in the neighborhood of Alexandria and Shreveport, and more 

 recently in Catahoula parish, along Little river. The river swamps and rolling hills in the eastern and northern 

 parts of the state still contain vast bodies of valuable hard-wood forest yet untouched by the ax. 



The forests of Louisiana, uninvaded as yet by the manufacturers of naval stores, have not greatly suffered 

 from forest fires. During the census year only 64,410 acres of woodland were reported as burned over by fire, with 

 a loss of only $0,800. These fires were generally set to improve pasturage, or by careless hunters camping in the 

 forest. 



A small amount of cooperage stock is made in New Orleans almost entirely from cypress aud pine, although 

 that city has long been an important point of export for oak staves and headings brought there from Arkansas and 



