oak, and the willow oak, with ash trees, elms, walnuts and hickories, 

 cover the richer black lands, composing fine woods, full of useful 

 timber of large dimensions. As a timber region for export, it 

 has yet no importance, only a limited quantity of oak staves 

 reach the seaboard by the Mobile and Tombigbee rivers. The 

 richest agricultural districts of the State are embraced in these 

 regions. At its northern limits it borders upon a deposit of 

 drift, which traverses the State from northwest to southeast, 

 4 to 5 miles wide at its southern, reaching gradually towards its 

 northern end a width of 30 to 35 miles. Like the great coast pine 

 belt, it is covered with an almost continuous forest of the yellow 

 pine, whose products so far serve only to supply the demand of 

 the surrounding country. 



Beyond this drift belt, in the eastern half of the State, the 

 generous red lands of the metamorphic region are covered, where 

 not deprived of it by cultivation, with magnificent oak forests. 

 Here, at an altitude of from 800 to 1,200 feet above the level of the 

 Gulf, the types of a Southern vegetation are missing, but the 

 occurrence of the water and willow oak, the overcup and Spanish 

 oak, as well as the frequency of large yellow pines, which cover 

 the crests of the elevated rocky mountain ranges, and the more 

 barren hills with a rocky, siliceous soil, still impress on this re- 

 gion, a Southern character. The latter tree is replaced, gradually, 

 towards the north, by the short leaved pine, Finns mitis, which fur- 

 nishes, in the upper district, a great part of the lumber of excellent 

 quality. The more sterile and broken mountainous country, east 

 and west, embracing the mineral lands of the State, is covered 

 with dense forests of black and red oaks, the smooth hickory, 

 sparsely intermixed with scrub pines. In the more elevated 

 ranges, the mountain chestnut oaks, and the chestnut tree, prevail, 

 the latter rapidly dying out. The numerous fertile valleys are har- 

 boring fine woods, composed of trees delighting in a richer soil. 



The third and most northern sylvan region of the State begins 

 with the limestone formation of the Tennessee valley. Species 

 of the woody vegetation, characteristic of the lower latitudes, 

 are no more seen, or when met with, as dwarfed stragglers. The 

 maples, the tall hickories, the stately elms, walnuts, wild cherry, 

 hackberries, nettle trees, with shady groves of beach, make up 

 the forest growth, bearing the same character as the forest flora 

 of the western declivity of the Appalacian Mountains, south of 

 the Ohio river. The Southern magnolias are represented here by 

 the umbrella tree, the cucumber tree, and the mighty white pop- 

 lar, or tulip tree, 



