GEXERAL SURVEY OF TEXAS WOODLANDS. 



recurrence of grassland fires which, in the ages gone by, effectually 

 kept out the woody vegetation. Within the memory of men now living 

 in the Edwards Plateau counties this region was primarily grass cov- 

 ered. The reduction of fires, brought about by fencing and the division 

 of large areas into smaller farms and ranches, together with over- 

 1 maturing, have been followed by an invasion of woody growth, thickets, 

 and wide areas of timber covering which constitute one of the most 

 interesting and remarkable of land transformations. Open grassland 

 still occupies large areas but most of the land is covered with either 

 a -oattered, scrubby growth or with timber of sufficient quality to be 

 classed as timbered land. 



Map 7 Edwards Plateau Timber Types. 



1 Edwards Plateau proper. 2 Extension of forest types in the Central 

 Basin and Carboniferous regions. 



There is not sufficient moisture to permit of dense forests, except in 

 the sheltered and well watered canyons. The appearance of the tree 

 irrowth in ir<'noral i? that of a semi-arid region. As one goes west and 

 northwest from the deeply eroded eastern face of the Edwards Plateau 

 the quality of the timber growth decreases, and the continuity of the 

 forest disappears. Throughout the more extreme limits of the region 

 here described, tree -irrowth of the true Edwards Plateau type is con- 

 fined to stream borders or to the summits of the hills and ridges. 



