8 Kentucky Agricultural J. <nt 8tation. 



one finds the northern white pine and the tender southern mag- 

 nolia-. Added to these characteristically northern and southern 

 plants is a host of individuals representing most of the trees and 

 shrubs of the eastern United States. Taking the oaks as an ex- 

 ample: Twenty of the twenty-two spe< n North Ami 

 occur in Kentucky. The live oak cf the Gulf States, and the 

 yellow oak 1 1 cllipsoidalis) of the far North are the only 

 oak species not found here. It i J probable that every one of the 

 ashes 0& lira in the State, tho the pumpkin ash (Fraximu pro- 

 funda) has not yet been collected on our side of the Mississippi 

 ae of the five East-American elms grows in Ken- 

 tucky, the southern species (IJlmus serotina), coming just within 

 our southern limits. 



The great Kentucky forests present when the B 

 tied were, it is believed, not due so much to the diversity and rich- 

 ness of our soils as to this central position and our diversity of 

 surface and climate. Some efforts have been made by early writer* 

 to find a relation between the flora of Kentucky and the geological 

 formation? exposed in the different parts of the State. The rela- 

 tion has never been clearly and satisfactorily defined and demon- 

 strated, and is certainly not a dominating influence on the dis- 

 tribution of our species. The writer has for many years been ac- 

 customed to check the plants of the State, as he observed them, on 

 small maps showing the formations, and after thus tabulating many 

 of them, has been forced to the conclusion that the conditions 

 flueneing the distribution and assembling of our trees were la 

 of the general sort which were in operation before much of the sur- 

 face of Kentucky was habitable: that moisture, temperature, means 

 of dispersal, configuration of surface, etc., control their d 

 hut ion more than soil influences. They will grow almost anywhers 

 nil any - tl, even on that consisting 1.:- :. if only 



the win; not too cold, the droughts not too severe. They 



make a hotter, more rapid growth with an abundance of plant food, 

 but will strike root and make some growth where seemingly there 

 is little or none. Some, like the swamp cypress, the swamp white 

 oak, ami pin oak. want a very wet soil and in nature are found 

 quite clo- icted to such soils, yet they will grow when trans- 



