LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 



To His Excellency, 



Governor Emmet O'Neal, 



Montgomery, Ala. 



Dear Sir: — I have the honor to transmit herewith 

 Part I of a report on the Economic Botany of Alabama, 

 by Dr. Roland M. Harper. 



The plan of the present Geological Survey, organized 

 in 1873, embraced the investigation of all the natural re- 

 sources of the State, geological, agricultural, botanical, 

 etc. The great work of Dr. Charles Mohr on the Plant 

 Life of Alabama, published in 1901, was the first of the 

 botanical series, and it was planned to supplement this 

 systematic catalogue of our native plants with reports on 

 their economic aspects. Dr. Mohr died before this part 

 of the work could be taken up by him. 



Dr. Harper, the author of this report, has been in the 

 South most of the time since 1887, and in the last ten 

 years has studied the forest conditions in all the south- 

 eastern states, particularly Georgia, Florida and Ala- 

 ama, having been employed on Geological Surveys of 

 each of these three states. His work in Alabama, begin- 

 ning in 1905, has covered something over two years all 

 told, and has extended over practically all parts of the 

 State. Since 1908 he has revisited about half of the 

 counties and has taken over three hundred photographs 

 of Alabama scenery, without cost to the Survey. Forty- 

 eight of these photographs, together with some older 

 ones belonging to the Survey collection, are used to illus- 

 trate the present report, and many others, together with 

 a great mass of field notes already in hand, will be avail- 

 able for future reports. 



Part I of the Economic Botany of the State, now sub- 

 mitted, is a geographical report on the forests and forest 

 industries of each of the natural divisions of the State, 

 together with quantitative analyses of the forests of 

 each region, something, so far as we know, not before 

 attempted for a whole state. 



This forms the natural introduction to the other 

 botanical reports which are planned to follow, viz: Part 

 H, a catalogue of the trees and shrubs, with their dis- 

 tribution and economic properties ; Part HI, the medicinal 

 plants, the weeds and other useful or noxious plants not 

 included in the preceding parts. 



Very respectfully, 

 University of Alabama, Eugene A. Smith. 



March 26, 1913. 



