•fO ECONOMIC BOTANY OF ALABAMA. 



(Every black belt county has now more women than 

 men.) On Jan. 23. 1913, the Montgomery Advertiser 

 had on its editorial page an interesting little note on this 

 movement of population, concluding with these words: 

 "Wiregrass lands are now worth more than the Black 

 Belt lands. Moreover, if the roll is called of the leading 

 citizens of any Wiregrass city, it will be found that a 

 majority of them were born in the Black Belt." (Al- 

 though this may be a trifle overdrawn, or less true now 

 than it would have been a few years ago, essentially the 

 same would be true at corresponding distances from the 

 coast in Georgia and Mississippi, too.) 



However, several comparatively recent developments 

 make it hazardous to predict what the future destiny of 

 the black belt will be. The discovery of the cause of 

 malaria about 1900, the arrival of the cotton-boll weevil 

 a few years ago, the introduction of alfalfa and the in- 

 creasing tendency to diversification of crops, the cam- 

 paign for eradicating ticks and raising more and better 

 cattle, the utilization of the abundant Rotten Limestone 

 as the principal ingredient for Portland cement, the 

 building of locks for slack-water navigation on the Tom- 

 bigbee River, and finally the fact that some of the "wire- 

 grass" counties are now just about as thickly settled as 

 the black belt, all bring new elements into the problem. 

 Just when the turning-point will come it is impossible to 

 guess, but it is certain that the decrease of population in 

 the black belt cannot continue indefinitely. 



Forest utilization. — At the present time forests occu- 

 py probably not more than 25% of the area (more than 

 that having been devoted to cotton alone in 1880, accord- 

 ing to the Tenth Census, — Smith 6 in bibliography), and 

 this is almost the only part of the state where treeless 

 horizons are common. The stock law prevails through- 

 out, and there is now almost as much pasture as plowed 

 ground. The uplands were naturally cleared and culti- 

 vated first, as in most other parts of the state, so that 

 those trees confined to swamps, river-banks, etc., are 

 relatively more abundant now than they were originally. 



Notwithstanding the limited extent of the forests, 

 they are still furnishing a considerable variety of useful 



