10 TEXAS STATE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



need for which wood is used. Corn, wheat, potatoes and all manner of 

 vegetables were produced in astonishing abundance. Wild bees stored 

 away an endless supply of honey in the hollow trees of the forests, 

 which they divided with every ax-man in the land. Domestic animals 

 thrived on the range most of the time and multiplied rapidly. To con- 

 dense into the fewest possible words what could be lengthened into a 

 long and interesting story, there never existed a country that abounded 

 so lavishly in the necessities of life as did this East Texas country dur- 

 ing the war. 



These good times, however, could not have lasted much longer, be- 

 cause in the absence of firearms wild game deer, turkey, squirrels, 

 pigeons, doves, quail, etc., had multiplied so rapidly that they were 

 fast becoming a constant menace to crops, and in a few more years they 

 would have completely devoured the products of the fields and gardens 

 in spite of the various contrivances which were already being improvised 

 for their discomfiture. 



TIMBER. 



Name all the trees that grow in North America, save the spruce, 

 redwood, chestnut and poplar, and you will have a list of trees growing 

 in East Texas. Off-hand, I shall attempt to mention some of them : 



Oak Red-oak, white-oak, black-oak, overcup, chestnut-oak, pin-oak, 

 post-oak, black-jack and blue-jack, belonging to the oak family. Elm 

 Red-elm, large-leaf-elm, slippery elm. Hickory White hickory, black 

 hickory, shell-bark hickory and other varieties. Pine Short and long- 

 leaf, mostly short-leaf in this particular portion. Black walnut, ash, 

 mulberry, hackberry, sweet gum, black gum, ironwood, hornbeam, sugar 

 maple, white maple, beech, catalpa, sycamore, holly, persimmon, sassa- 

 fras, chinquapin, red and black haw, various kinds of whortleberry, lin, 

 cedar, pecan, cypress, black locust, paw-paw, may-apple, alder, willow, 

 switch and button, wild plum different varieties myrtle, birch, red- 

 bud, wild-cherry, sumach and buckeye. 



The most numerous are oak, pine and hickory, and are prevalent 

 throughout the section of country under consideration. Nearly all the 

 species growing in the bottoms can be transplanted upon the uplands, 

 and with care and attention will live and thrive. Trees of the pine, 

 oak. hickory, cypress, walnut and gum families grow to an immense size, 

 often measuring over three feet in diameter, and over one hundred feet 

 tall. There are no very large bodies of these timbers now, as they have 

 been consumed by sawmills. The hard timbers never existed in large 

 areas, but flourished in different portions of every county in the district, 

 inhabiting the creek and river bottoms. However, red-oak and hickory 

 frequently of large size and in abundance are found on the uplands. 



The pioneers preferred these forests of mixed timber, because they 

 saw in them every essential to a high and progressive civilization. Wood 

 and water were the great natural forces that were to be employed in 

 the development of the country. Land that fostered such timber was 

 known co be productive. Deer, wild turkey, squirrels, coons, opossums, 

 foxes and other wild game excited the sporting spirit ever present in 

 the "Old South/' and no amount of timber, no forest, however dense, 

 no trees, however big or tall, baffled the pioneer white man backed by 



