OAK FLATS. 171 



has been culled for making staves or for large-sized timber — tun 

 timber — for shipbuilding, water and willow oaks or pine having 

 replaced them. The soils, being fertile, extensive areas have been 

 drained and put under cultivation. "Where such areas are aban- 

 doned the loblolly pine with sweet gum, and if seed-bearing trees 

 be very near, water and willow and Spanish oaks establish them- 

 selves ; the pines first and most abundantly, the others later and 

 in less numbers. If not thoroughly drained, the oaks will in time 

 supersede the pine or a portion of it. 



Where the soil of the oak flats becomes at all peaty yellow pop- 

 lar occurs, but only occasional trees among the others. It is most 

 frequent in the series of counties facing the sounds. 



In a few places in the vicinity of the coast, or near large bodies 

 of water where the air is especially humid, there is a considerable 

 intermixture of beech with the oaks. 



In connection with the oak flats may be considered the greater 

 part of the alluvial bottom lands bordering the larger streams 

 that have their headwaters beyond the coastal plain region. 

 These fluvial soils are silty, a mixture of the finest clayey and sili- 

 cious particles, with a varying proportion of decomposing vege- 

 table matter intermixed. The silt becomes finer and the soils 

 more compact as the coast is neared. On the more elevated parts 

 of these bottoms where the periodic overflow is neither too fre- 

 quent, or the rise of the water too deep, there is a mixed growth 

 of broad-leaf trees. Variations in the kind of trees occur accord- 

 ing to the depth and frequency of the overflow. 



Where the soils are drier the water and willow oaks, white oak 

 and the Spanish oak with shagbark hickory form most of the 

 woods ; where wetter, ash, cottonwood, and hackberry are 

 largely intermixed, these being replaced on the wettest soils by 

 sweet gum, water gum and tupelo with cypress and some cot- 

 tonwood and swamp ash. 



The white oak and ash have been extensively culled from these 

 swamps, and merchantable cypress has been largely removed. 



These woods,- when oaks predominate in them, are practically 

 under the same conditions and require about the same system of 

 management as will be indicated for the oak flats. The white 



