344 BOTANY AND PALEONTOLOGY 



twenty bushels of corn, or ten bushels of wheat an acre. The low bottoms 

 or true bottoms, as they are generally called, are exposed to inundation; 

 but when they can be cultivated, produce, annually, eighteen hundred 

 pounds of cotton, or seventy to eighty bushels of corn. Of course wheat 

 cannot be raised on this soil. 



Would it not be well for the proprietors of these apparently uncultivable 

 bottoms, to ponder and compare the difference in the results of agricultural 

 pursuit upon the poor upland soil which they cultivate, and the rich low- 

 land which they leave untouched and useless ? The difficulties attending 

 the drainage are great indeed ; but the cost of digging trenches and build- 

 ing dams would be richly and tenfold repaid. 



It would have been well to mention with each of the geological forma- 

 tions of the State a greater number of botanical species as characteristic of 

 the soil. But this examination is already too long, and the following 

 catalogue of the plants naturally growing in Arkansas, indicating the 

 geological and physical relations of each species, as far as they could be 

 ascertained, may supply the deficiency of the general remarks. This cata- 

 logue is not the result of my own labor only. Indeed, if I had only quoted 

 the species of plants which I have found myself, the enumeration would 

 have been very incomplete. Dr. D. D. Owen, the Principal Geologist, and 

 Professor E. T. Cox, who visited some counties of Arkansas during the 

 spring, collected many species of plants, which were given me for deter- 

 mination. The species growing in the fall were collected by myself. But 

 by far the greatest number of plants ever collected in Arkansas were seen 

 and published by the celebrated botanist, Nuttall, who, about twenty years 

 ago, spent much time in exploring Arkansas and the western plains. The 

 results of his explorations were at various times published in the memoirs 

 of scientific societies, especially those of the Academy of Sciences of Phila- 

 delphia, which are scarcely attainable now. Thus, I considered it a service 

 rendered to science, to mention in this catalogue all the species seen by 

 Nuttall, and which did not come under my examination. These species 

 of Nuttall are marked in the catalogue by a *. 



A glance at the amount of practical information, for medicinal, agricul- 

 tural, and even mechanical purposes, that can be derived from a catalogue 

 of plants like this, will suffice to show the reason of its place in the reports 

 of a State Geological Survey. There is not a farmer, whatever his circum- 

 stances are, that would not be benefited by applying the plants to his use, 

 according to their various properties. It is true that, generally, plants, 

 even the most common, are unknown to the inhabitants of the country, 

 and that English names, or popular descriptions, cannot give sufficient in- 

 dications to direct them to the true species. But if a science be unknown 

 to many, that is no reason to consider it worthless. The only good way 

 to make people acquainted with the useful and the dangerous plants, 



