FEATURES OF WARRIOR AND COOSA TABLE-LANDS. 69 



saccharatum), sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas), ground nuts (Arachis 

 hypogaea], and more rarely the Irish potato, presenting a system of 

 diversified farming like that practiced throughout the mountain 

 region, with the difference that in the richer soils of this subdivision 

 the production of cotton, the staple crop of the South, has assumed 

 far greater proportions. 



Among the cultivated fruit trees the peach takes the first rank, no 

 other part of the State producing this fruit in greater perfection than 

 the lower metamorphic hills and plains, where also the grape is suc- 

 cessfully cultivated, and is, owing to the drier atmosphere, less liable 

 than elsewhere to the injuries caused by fungoid diseases. Pears and 

 apples are of a thrifty growth all over the mountain region and pro- 

 duce abundant crops of high quality, particularly the latter, in situa- 

 tions on the higher levels. 



TABLE -LANDS OF THE WARRIOR AND COOSA BASINS. 



PHYSIOGBAPHICAL FEATURES AND CLIMATE. 



This area comprises about 4,500 square miles, including all of Cull- 

 man, Winston, Walker, and Blount counties, nearly all of Marshall 

 and Dekalb, and small portions of Etowah and Cherokee counties, 

 with the detached spurs of the Cumberland Mountains in the north- 

 eastern part of the Tennessee Valley in Jackson County. About three- 

 quarters of this area contains the coal measures, with their drainage level 

 above the Subcarboniferous limestone lands. 



The extreme southern spurs of the westerly Alleghanian ranges, 

 including the Cumberland Mountains and all of the strata of the lower 

 coal measures and underlying Subcarboniferous rocks, constitute this 

 floral subdivision. It comprises the extensive table-lands drained by 

 the Warrior River and of the coal field drained by the Coosa River, 

 covering fully three-quarters of the area of the mountain region, and 

 also the valleys with their water level not below TOO or 800 feet above 

 the sea. 



The lower Carboniferous sandstones and conglomerates form the 

 surface rock of these table-lands. Their surface is furrowed by the 

 narrow beds and deep gorges through which the numerous tributaries 

 of the main channels of drainage have worn their way. The soil 

 resulting from the disintegration of the strata is a light, more or less 

 sandy, loam, and where shallow, full of thin rocky fragments. 



The mean annual temperature on these highlands at their average 

 elevation of from 800 to 1,500 feet is about 55 F., with a mean of 45 

 for the winter and 75 for the summer months; average minimum 12 

 in January, and maximum 87 in August. The mean annual precipi- 

 tation amounts to 55 inches; mean for the winter months 18 inches, 

 for the summer months 14 inches. The larger streams forming the 



