80 ECONOMIC BOTANY OF ALABAMA. 



barism and the cupidity of unprincipled selfishness with 

 the wantonness of unbridled license." The same could 

 be applied with equal justice to almost any state in the 

 Union; and the lumberman certainly deserves some 

 censure. 



And yet if it were possible for us all to live on fish, 

 game, wild fruits, etc., or on food manufactured from 

 the atmosphere, without cultivating the soil, Alabama 

 could come pretty near supplying the whole South with 

 timber. Thirty years or more ago it was confidently 

 predicted by conservative scientists that the pine forests 

 of West Florida and adjacent Alabama would be exhaust- 

 ed in a very few years ; but there are still immense areas 

 of virgin timber in that section, simply because the soil 

 is not very rich, and the population is still so sparse that 

 if every able-bodied inhabitant should engage in lumber- 

 ing they could hardly keep the trees cut down. Vast 

 forests are still standing in Maine, Minnesota, Canada, 

 etc., not because their resources are unknown or of little 

 value, but because the soil and climate of those regions 

 are not favorable to agriculture.* 



Stock laws. — The ranging of domestic animals in the 

 forests, where it is still permitted, has an important in- 

 fluence, tending to retard the growth of underbrush and 

 of some trees and probably favoring others, somewhat 

 as fire does. Like fire, grazing returns mineral plant 

 foods quickly to the soil, but unlike fire, it also returns 

 nitrogen, probably with interest. Every county and beat 

 in the state decides for itself whether stock shall be al- 

 lowed to run at large within its borders or not ; and these 

 local laws do not seem to be codified, so that it would be 

 impossible to ascertain their exact status throughout the 

 state at the present time without a great deal of corre- 

 spondence with county officials. In general, however, in 

 regions where there is still considerably more forest than 

 farm land the cattle, sheep, hogs, etc., are allowed free 



*An interesting paper by Hu Maxwell on the timber resources 

 of the South, on pages 41 and 42 of "The South the nation's great- 

 est asset" — which is part 2 of the Manufacturers' Record for 

 March 27, 1913 (vol. 68, no. 12) — brings out still more clearly the 

 fact that the exhaustion of our forests is not as imminent as some 

 have predicted. 



