THE LONG-LEAF PINE REGION. 71 



pear to have been subsequently taken up and redeposited further down 

 the courses of some of the principal streams. 



The red loam also appears in greatest force and most characteris- 

 tically' aloug the same line, while the sands have been spread much 

 further outward. 



Where the red loam is the surface material the growth consists of the 

 upland oaks and short-leaf pine : where the sands prevail the loug-leaf 

 pine becomes characteristic, so that, in general terms, the oak growth 

 follows the margin of the older formations, while the pine prevails 

 further outward toward the coasts.* 



As has been said above, the red loam is usually found as the uppermost 

 stratum of the drifted materials, and where in the drainage areas of the 

 streams this cappiug of loam has been washed away so as to bring to the 

 surface the underlying sandier strata, the natural growth gives evi- 

 dence of the deterioration of the soil in the association of the long-leaf 

 pine with the other timber, and in its complete replacement of the other 

 trees in the sandiest localities. 



These strips and patches of pine land interlace so intricately with 

 the oak and hickory lands as to render any accurate mapping of them 

 impossible without close and detailed surveys. 



c. Rammoclzs^ &c. — (1) Hammocks. In the long-leaf pine region of 

 Florida there are patches of land in which there is a luxuriant growth 

 of water, willow, white, live, and other oaks, hickories, sweet gums, and 

 other hard woods. Such areas are called hammocks, and they are ex- 

 tremely fertile, forming amongst the very best of the cotton lands of 

 the State. The hammocks are produced by the reaction of the lime- 

 stone, which underlies the State of Florida, upon the sandy loam which 

 forms the soil, and, according to their position, are called high ham- 

 mocks, low hammocks, and Gulf hammocks, and their yield in cotton is 

 frequently as high as a bale to the acre. 



The sea island or long staple variety is almost exclusively produced 

 upon the hammock lands, except in the red clay hammocks (as they are 

 called) of the upper part of the State, around Tallahassee and other lo- 

 calities. These hammocks are, however, about the same as the mixed 

 oak and hickory and pine lands above mentioned. 



(2) Shell Prairies, Lime Hills, and Eed Lime Lands of Mississippi, 

 Alabama, and Northern Florida. The Tertiary rocks of these States 

 in places react upon the overlying loams in such a way as to produce 

 highly fertile calcareous lands, usually of rather limited extent, and in 

 detached bodies among the prevailing pine lands. In some countries 

 these form the best of the cotton lands. 



* In Alabama, Georgia, South and Xorth Carolina the hilly belt (with sand and pebbles), which bor- 

 ders the older formations, has occasionally a preponderance of long-leaf pine among the timber trees, 

 though the pines are here in places associated with, and even replaced by, the oak and hickory growth 

 -of the better class of uplands. 



