FOREST RESOURCES OF KENTUCKY. 487 



more attractive, with a growth of capital, and an increase of confidence in life. But 

 in fact a large i)art of the value of such growths as our forests would give when artiti- 

 cially planted would he immediate. At live years young hickories have a value, and 

 the trets removed by trimming out each year should pay an interest on investment. A 

 black locust becomes valuable in ten years, or nearly as soon as a pear-orchard, and 

 for thirty years thereafter sbould give a steady supply of timber. With each succeed- 

 ing year these woods become more and more valuable, as the original forests become 

 stripped of their scanty supply. The best black walnut is already priced with mahog- 

 any in Europe, bringing several dollars per cubic foot. The abundant water-ways of 

 the Ohio Valley will always make its regions of permanent forest ot peculiar value. 



Prof. L. H. De Friese, an assistant in the geological survey of Ken- 

 tucky, in speaking of the connection between geology and botany, re- 

 marks an example in Grayson County. The Coal-Measure series crosses 

 the Litchfield and Hartford road in a very irregular northwest and 

 southeast direction about 12 miles from Litchfield. North of this, on 

 through the Coal Measures to the Ohio, the Liriodendron tulipifera (there 

 called " yellow poplar ") forms a conspicuous part of the forest, its massive 

 cylindrical trunk growing from two to five feet in diameter. It is seen 

 everywhere, on low lands and high lands alike. But after crossing into 

 the Chester shale it disappears entirely, only a few scrubby trees being 

 found near the junction. After crossing this shale this tree reappears 

 on the Saint Louis limestone of the Sub carboniferous series. 



He notices another change of timber due to a modification of the sur- 

 face soil in a remarkable belt of woods crossing the Hartford and Clover- 

 port road about 12 miles from Cloverport. It is about five miles wide, on 

 a soil of thin, shaly limestone, forming a nearly level tract of land. 

 Although, at least 150 feet above the drainage, the soil is always moist, 

 and the liriodendron, chestnut, white-oak, and three varieties of hickory, 

 grow with a luxuriance that is scarcely surpassed anywhere in the State. 

 There is also found in this belt of exceptionally heavy timber growth, 

 but in less numbers, the laurel-oak, black sugar-maple, water-beech 

 water elm, etc. The change is very marked in passing on either side 

 out of this belt into the ordinary timbers.^ 



The black walnut is found scattered all through Western Kentucky, 

 in open places and about fields, where other timbers had been cut away 

 or deadened. It is all nearly second growth, however, the old forest 

 growth having been ruthlessly destroyed. The largest amount of pri- 

 mal walnut timber I found was on Beech Fork, or Clover Creek, up 

 near the headwaters; occasionally a forest tree of it is left standing in 

 other localities, but it is very rare. Even the second growth, which 

 would be valuable in time, is meeting with the same fate as the first, 

 and reckless hands are cutting it away for such rude purposes as rail- 

 making as fast as it springs up. Fronj the study I made of the walnut, 

 I find the second growth comes up only in open spots of ground where 

 it is not overshadowed and choked out by other more rapidly growing 

 and less valuable timbers. That causes it to spring up mostly about 

 dwelling-houses and cleared pieces of ground, the very localities where 

 it soonest meets with destruction. If farmers could only consider that 

 a single tree of good walnut timber is worth more than their best acre 

 of laud, they would take more pains to encourage the growth of a timber 

 which is becoming so scarce in our country, and for which there is such 

 great demand. I believe, with a little extra care, such as trimming out 

 and killing other fast-growing timbers of little or no value, taking moder- 

 ate pains to secure, in such localities as best suited the walnut, a good un- 

 dergrowth of it, etc., that a considerable forest of this valuable timber 

 might be secured and kept in Kentucky. 



^Report on the timbeis of Grayson, Brtckenridye, Ohio, and Hancock Counties, p. 6. 



