THE FOREST FLORA AND CONDITIONS 

 OF MIDDLE AND EAST TENNESSEE.* 



BY GEORGE B. SUDWORTH, 



DENDROLOGIST, DIVISION OF FORESTRY, U. S. DEPARTMENT 

 OF AGRICULTURE. 



IN the short space of time allotted I can not hope to 

 give any but a very rapid survey of the forest conditions 

 of Middle and East Tennessee, a mere impression of the 

 volumes possible to tell of its great forest resources. 



Perhaps one who has never traversed this long, nar- 

 row state, and who compares it on the map with its 

 neighbor states, is apt not to be so wonderfully im- 

 pressed with what Tennessee really contains. Its ap- 

 pearances are, however, very deceiving. There is no 

 other Southern state which can compare with Tennessee 

 in the valuable timber resources it has had and now has. 

 There is no other Southern state that comprises within 

 its length and breadth the same widely diversified forest 

 conditions. 



Glancing over its present three great natural geo- 

 graphical divisions (East, Middle, and West Tennessee), 

 it is the middle ground where nearly all the important 

 Northern timber trees meet with those of correspond- 

 ing importance from the South. Incidentally we may 

 say in parentheses, too, that Tennessee is the land where 

 our large Eastern forest-trees grow larger and our small- 

 est trees grow largest. Species that mophologically must 

 be classed as trees, though elsewhere mere bushes in size, 

 are, when found in the forests of Tennessee, veritable 

 trees in stature. The great cottonwoods, tulip-trees, and 

 sycamores of the Mississippi Valley lands are unsur- 

 passed in their gigantic size, while the huge yellow pop- 



*Read before the atitumn meeting of the American Forestry Asso- 

 ciation held in Nashville, September 22, 1897. 



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