WHITE CEDAE OR JUNIPER SWAMPS. 175 



Although the cypress does not discriminate in regard to mineral 

 fertility of soil, it is so exacting in regard to moisture that the 

 area which is really adapted for its best growth for timber is 

 exceedingly limited. The trees growing on the margins of the 

 swamps, and in swamps where the moisture is very unequally dis- 

 tributed through the growing season have a far larger proportion 

 of sap than those in the deep swamps and are often seriously 

 affected with hollows. 



Although young cypress trees in all stages of development are 

 to be seen scattered through the forests, their number, in com- 

 parison with the competing sweet and water gums is insignificant. 

 Their height-growth, however, is rapid until the trunk begins 

 the formation of the characteristic short, flattened, spreading 

 crown. After the attainment of the height-growth, the diameter 

 growth, the stage of most rapid accretion, is sufficiently rapid. 

 The trees at this stage have a diameter of from 11 to is inches, 

 and are from 80 to 100 years old, and are still largely sapwood. 

 The diameter-growth after this becomes gradually less, until in 

 some of the oldest and largest trees there are as many as thirty 

 rings of annual growth to an inch of diameter. The length of 

 time required to reproduce the forests which are now being util- 

 ized will not be less than 200 or 250 years, and many of the large 

 trees in the existing forests are over 300 years old. Tor most of 

 the purposes, too, for which the timber is used, that of the more 

 rapid-growing white cedar is equally as well adapted. The area 

 of such swamp land suitable for the growth of cypress is not far 

 from 300,000 acres, while the area of gum swamp is over 1,200 

 square miles. 



WHITE CEDAE OE JUNIPER SWAMPS. 



The woodland in which the white cedar is the dominant tree 

 ■occupies small shallow swamps, " bays "; or not infrequently there 

 occur groups of a few trees disseminated through gum and cypress 

 swamps, or more rarely in beech and yellow poplar flats where the 

 soil and moisture-conditions become favorable for the develop- 

 ment of the white cedar and less favorable for that of the larger 

 broad-leaf trees. 



