NATIVE VEGETATION AS AN INDEX OF SOILS. 823 
this crop, are, on the Warrior table-land, indicated by the mixed growth 
of pines (Pinus taeda, P. echinata) and deciduous trees. Judging by 
the success achieved with leaf tobacco of highest grade on soils of the 
same character in the lower part of the South Atlantic States, from 
North Carolina to middle Florida, it can reasonably be supposed that 
this profitable crop can be, not less successfully, raised in southern 
Alabama. 
In the same floral region, and also in the eastern extension of the 
Prairie belt, post oak, associated with black oak (Quercus tinctoria), 
southern red oak (Q. terana), and mockernut and pignut hickory, with 
a slight sprinkling of short-leaf pine, forms open forests, with tall 
rosinweeds, sunflowers, and phloxes in the openings, indicating a warm, 
loamy, generous soil, which is of a deep chocolate to a deep reddish color, 
resting upon ledges of the “rotten limestone.” On the hills with this 
soil covering the peach produces its choicest kinds of fruit from the 
earlier part of June to August, and the Concord grape yields its black- 
purple clusters in perfection. The dense forests of cow oak (Quercus 
michauxii), Texas white oak (Q. brevilobata (Torr.) Sargent, Q. durandii 
Buckley), nutmeg, scaly-bark, and bitternut hickories, frequently 
invested with the drapery of the Spanish moss, and in low damp situa- 
tions more deficient in drainage, the switch cane (Arundinaria tecta), 
forming impenetrable thickets, are the sure indications of a deep black 
calcareous soil, rich in humus, such as is characteristic of the Western 
prairies, noted for greatest fertility. In the eastern Gulf States this 
soil is also noted for its rich yield of forage crops of the pea family 
(Leguminosae), of which the white welilot (Melilotus alba) has proved 
the most profitable and of greatest value as an ameliorating crop. 
The so-called bald prairies, originally bare of tree growth, present 
a varied herbaceous vegetation of a xerophile character, including vavi- 
ous grasses, the Compositae already mentioned, golden-tlowered St. 
Johnsworts, Umbelliferae (Polytaenia nuttallit), white and purple 
flowered prairie clovers (Kuhnistera candida, K. gattingert), pink- 
flowered evening primrose (Xylopleurum speciosum), etc. This vegetation 
denotes a shallow and drier prairie soil, which, though easily worn out, 
is adapted to all kinds of root crops and forage plants. 
On the Metamorphic hills of the Mountain region the extensive oak 
forests (white oak, Southern red oak, black oak (Quercus velutina)), point 
to a deep fertile soil, the result of the decomposition of the basic horn- 
blendic rocks and schists. In years past these lands were to a large 
extent devoted to the production of small grains, chiefly wheat, but 
owing to the pressure of competition with the wheat fields of the vir- 
gin prairie soils of the far Northwest, these lands are at present, in the 
South, almost entirely given over to the cultivation of cotton and of 
indian corn. The peanut is said to thrive especially well on the lands 
of the above character. Sorghum is largely raised throughout this 
Metamorphic area to supply fully the need of sirup. Its region can be 
