28 AGRICULTURAL AND MECHANICAL COLLEGE OF TEXAS. 



should engage our attention at once.* Grass and woodland fires should 

 no longer be tolerated, sapping the nitrogenous plant food from the soil, 

 destroying the young growth of timber which future generations have 

 a right to possess and use, and causing rapid run-off of surface water 

 with its resultant havoc in gullying and overflows, followed by dry 

 streams and drouth. Buildings and fences are burned, birds are driven 

 from the country, the quality of the forage grasses is reduced, and 

 other ills too numerous to mention can be laid to the negligence and 

 indifference which permit fires to run at will over our lands. 



Stock laws should be enacted, particularly a hog law, to keep stock 

 within enclosures and thereby put an end to a condition which is in- 

 tolerable in a w r ell developed agricultural region. Hogs have no place 

 in woodlands which are properly handled, since they eat the seed and 

 grub out the seedling trees needed to produce new forest growth, par- 

 ticularly on cut-over lands. One of the chief causes of burning is due 

 to stock grazing because of the erroneous belief that the range is im- 

 proved thereby. There are serious agricultural reasons why a stock law 

 is essential. 



The time will come when tree planting will be commonly practiced on 

 waste and denuded areas not needed for agriculture. This is being 

 done today in States where the increased value of land covered with a 

 young growth of timber trees has become recognized. 



TIMBERED AREAS OF THE EDWARDS PLATEAU AND THE REGIONS TO THE 



NORTH. 



The region described under this heading consists of the Edwards 

 Plateau, which is the rough, deeply eroded, southern margin of the 

 Great Plains, the Central Basin or Red Beds country, and the Car- 

 boniferous Region. (See Map 7.) Small, scattered areas of Edwards 

 Plateau formation occur far to the north of the main region and many 

 of the hills, bluffs, and isolated buttes throughout North-Central Texas 

 and westward to the Breaks of the Plains contain tree species typical 

 of the Edwards country. The southern and eastern borders of the 

 Edwards Plateau are well defined by the abrupt fault line, known as 

 the Balcones Escarpment,- rising above the prairies. 



ISText to the forest belts of Eastern Texas the Edwards Plateau is the 

 most important timbered region of Texas in spite of the fact that 

 climatic conditions tend to favor grass cover rather than forests. Ero- 

 sion has resulted in steep bluffs, deep gorges, isolated buttes, long, even 

 slopes covered with debris, and everywhere broken rock strata where 

 sufficient moisture is retained to produce a forest cover. This has been 

 encouraged during recent years by the interference of man. The de- 

 velopment of agriculture and grazing have operated to prevent the 



*See Bulletin 364. U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.. entitled 

 "Forest Conservation for States in the Southern Pine Eegion." Also Bulletin 

 1. Department of Forestry, College Station, Texas, entitled "Grass and Woodland 

 Fires in Texas." 



