112 ECONOMIC BOTANY OF ALABAMA. 



The region is being settled up so rapidly that it is dif- 

 ficult to get a reliable estimate of the relative proportion 

 of forest and clearing, but it is probably safe to say that 

 at least half of the area has not yet felt the plow. Most 

 of the long-leaf pine has been removed or culled, how- 

 ever, although a few fine stands of virgin timber can still 

 be seen, especially in Covington County. The topog- 

 raphy offers no appreciable obstacle to lumbering opera- 

 tions, so that when railroads once entered the region the 

 destruction of forests was very rapid. In the earlier pe- 

 riods of agricultural development, when pine timber was 

 worth considerably less than it is now, and much of it 

 was too remote from railroads to be marketed profitably, 

 thousands of the finest trees were deadened to make 

 room for crops, and their decaying trunks standing like 

 gaunt sentinels in the fields are still a melancholy sight 

 in this and adjoining regions, for the practice has not en- 

 tirely ceased yet. 



This region and the next are about the only parts of 

 Alabama where long-leaf pine fuel is still used as motive 

 power for passenger trains; and the growing scarcity of 

 timber will probably banish the picturesque wood-burn- 

 ing locomotive and its resinous aroma from our state 

 entirely (except on logging roads, etc.) within a very 

 few years. 



Cattle still have free range in all the counties. 



Forest products. — The production of lumber, shingles, 

 cross-ties, naval stores, etc., from the long-leaf and slash 

 pine overshadows all other forest industries in this re- 

 gion. Some of the cypress has been cut for telephone 

 poles and cross-ties, and the best of the very scattered 

 cedars have already gone to the pencil mills, but the 

 hardwoods are still almost untouched, except such upland 

 oaks as have been destroyed in clearing the land. About 

 57c of the wood-working industries of the state, other 

 than turpentine stills, sawmills, cross-tie camps, etc., are 

 located in this region. 



Although no statistics for earlier periods are accessi- 

 ble at the present writing, it is pretty evident that the 

 lumber industry has declined rapidly here in the last 

 decade or two, probably more so than in any other part 



