CHAPTER VI 



SOUTHERN BOTTOMLANDS 



General Conditions. — The Dismal Swamp of Virginia and the 

 Everglades of Florida are symbolic of the dark and mysterious. 

 They have furnished a somber background for many a weird tale. 

 But they are also representative of an important type of timber- 

 iand which furnishes millions of board feet of cypress and tupelo 

 gum annually. These characteristic species are only found in the 

 wet river bottoms and river swamps of the southeastern United 

 States. 



With such a location the climate is mild to subtropical. The 

 growing season is never less than seven months and may be 

 II months in duration. The precipitation is usually over 50 

 inches annually, as a glance at a rainfall map of the United 

 States will show. The south Atlantic coast, the Gulf coast and 

 the lower Mississippi valley are all regions of heavy rainfall. 

 Absolute evaporation figures are lacking but the long growing 

 season would naturally tend to minimize the effect of the heavy 

 precipitation were it not for the great humidity of the swamps. 

 This in turn is mainly the result of the slow runoff. The water 

 from the higher lands accumulates in the low lying river bottoms, 

 converting them into swamps. Hence, it comes about that this 

 type has as much moisture available for tree growth as any in 

 the United States. In fact there is often too much. Tree 

 analyses show that while growth is very rapid on the relatively 

 high river banks the same tree species increase very slowly in the 

 adjacent but wet " back swamps." 



Besides cypress and tupelo gum the other commercially im- 

 portant species are cottonwood, red gum, white ash, Uve oak, 

 holly, mahogany and lignumvitae. Their relative abundance 

 and grouping depend upon two factors, the degree of wetness of 

 the soil and the amount of logging or clearing. In the perma- 

 nently wet back sWamps the cypress and tupelo gum have 



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