MIDDLE AND EAST TENNESSEE. 9 



with fairly well-grown, open stands of sugar maple, 

 white ash, white oak, chinquapin oak, and white bass- 

 wood. The sugar maple here shows its ready adaptation 

 to bare, rocky sites, its big roots rambling over the 

 rocks and searching out accumulated mold in the deep 

 fissures; and one sees the special fitness of the often- 

 applied common name, rock maple. Its other compan- 

 ions named are seeking the large pockets and wider gaps 

 in the rocks where time has formed and laid up some 

 depth of soil. In still other localities, as already noted, 

 these bare limestone glades may run into almost pure 

 growths of red cedar, while in other sections these rocky 

 areas may have only the scattered characteristic chin- 

 quapin oak (Quercus acuminata) and occasional blue ash. 



A third very interesting forest condition of Middle Ten- 

 nessee is comprised in the plainlike stretches of heavy 

 clay and gravel or sandy soils, such as may be seen in 

 parts of Coffee and Warren Counties and on the Cumber- 

 land Plateau. 



Although in the midst of a fine agricultural region, the 

 thin, strongly calcareous nature of the soil seems to limit 

 its forest growth to a few oaks and principally the char- 

 acteristic black-jack (Quercus marilandica) . This re- 

 gion is locally well named the "Black- Jack Lands/' 

 Many miles of level or rolling country are passed over 

 with nothing but the heavy, glossy foliage of this pe- 

 culiar oak to relieve the eye. It become*" do monotonous 

 that even a cranky lover of trees is likely to tire in his 

 search for some other trees. But the black-jack occa- 

 sionally has an associate. The adaptive post-oak (Quer- 

 cus minor), a few yellow oaks, and the similar Spanish 

 oak (Quercus digitata) lend their presence in places 

 where the soil passes from predominating clay to an ad- 

 mixture of gravel; and in the moist places the winged 

 elm and willow-leaf oak (Quercus phellos) are sometimes 

 seen. Economically the timber of this region amounts 

 to but little, if anything, except for fire-wood, as the trees 

 are mostly small, ranging from two to twelve inches in 

 diameter and from ten to thirty feet in height. 

 1* 



