204 WOOD AND FOREST. 



part of the Eastern Forest and characterized it. It was divided into 

 two parts by an irregular northeast and southwest line, running from 

 southern New England to Missouri. The southeast portion consisted 

 of hardwoods intermixed with conifers. The higher ridges of the 

 Appalachian Eange, really a leg of the northern forest, were occupied 

 by conifers, mainly spruce, white pine, and hemlock. The northwest 

 portion of the region, particularly Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, was 

 without the conifers. It was essentially a mixed forest, largely oak, 

 with a variable mixture of maples, beech, chestnut, yellow poplar, 

 hickory, sycamore, elm, and ash, with birch appearing toward the 

 north and pine toward the south. 



Taking the Eastern Forest as a whole, its most distinguishing 

 feature was the prevalence of broad-leaved trees, so that it might 

 properly be called a deciduous forest. The greatest diversity of trees 

 was to be found in Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina, and this 

 region is still the source of the best hardwood lumber. 



This great eastern forest, which once extended uninterruptedly 

 from the Atlantic to" the Mississippi and beyond, has now been largely 

 lumbered off, particularly thru the middle or hardwood portion, mak- 

 ing way for farms and towns. The north and south coniferous belts 

 are still mainly unbroken, and are sparsely settled, but the big timber 

 is cut out, giving place to poorer trees. This is particularly true of 

 the white pine, "the king of American trees," only a little of which, 

 in valuable sizes, is left in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. In 

 the same way in the south, the long-leaf pine, once the characteristic 

 tree, is fast being lumbered out. 



The Western or Pacific forest extends two great legs, one down 

 the Rocky Mountain Eange, and the other along the Pacific coast. 

 Between them lies the great treeless alkali plain centering around 

 Nevada, Fig. 49. In these two regions coniferous trees have almost 

 a monopoly. Broad-leaved trees are to be found there, along the river 

 beds and in ravines, but they are of comparatively little importance. 

 The forest is essentially an evergreen forest. Another marked feature 

 of this western forest, except in the Puget Sound region, is that the 

 trees, in many cases, stand far apart, their crowns not even touching, 

 so that the sun beats clown and dries up the forest floor, Fig. 50. 

 There is no dense "forest cover" or canopy as in the Eastern Forest. 

 Moreover these western forests are largely broken up, covering but a 

 part of the mountains, many of which are snow-clad, and interrupted 



