40 ECONOMIC BOTANY OF ALABAMA. 



north, that it has not been in much demand hitherto, and 

 probably 80% of the area is still wooded. The region is 

 being settled up pretty rapidly now though, like many 

 other pine regions in the South. The two pines are 

 probably as abundant there today as they ever were, if 

 not more so; but the amount of white and post oak and 

 hickory must have been considerably diminished to sup- 

 ply the cooperage plants, wagon factories, and other 

 hardwood industries along the Tennessee River. 



Cattle seem to have free range in this region, or the 

 greater part of it. 



The principal forest products are pine lumber, oak 

 cross-ties, and staves. The large number of cross-ties 

 reported as produced in Lauderdale County in 1912 (see 

 below) must have come partly if not mostly from the 

 barrens. Many white oak logs are shipped to sawmills 

 in other regions or states. 



B. Tennessee Valley Proper. 



(Figures 3-8.) 



This embraces an area of about 4,100 square miles in 

 Alabama, and does not extend very far into any of the 

 adjoining states, without changing its character consid- 

 erably. References to literature have been given on 

 page 37. 



Geology and soils. — In a strip a few miles wide along 

 the southeastern edge of the region, constituting the 

 Brown's-Sequatchie Valley anticline, the strata are most- 

 ly Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian, and much folded 

 and faulted, just as in the Coosa valley, to be described 

 later. In the rest of the area the rocks are all Lower 

 Carboniferous, ranging from Lauderdale chert to Ban- 

 gor or Mountain limestone, and lie essentially horizon- 

 tally, as is the case with other Paleozoic strata for many 

 hundred miles northward from Alabama. Interstratified 

 with the Bangor limestone south of the Tennessee River 

 is a sandstone (Hartselle sandstone) varying in thick- 

 ness from almost nothing to over 300 feet, and closely 

 resembling the sandstone of the region next to be de- 

 scribed. Toward the western boundary of the state the 



