MISSISSIPPIS FOREST RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES 



Figure 6. — Eroded soils, small farms, and poor woodlands mark much oj the north Mississippi landscape 



forest covered the rugged Tennessee Hills in the north- 

 eastern corner of the State. Loblolly and slash pines 

 also occurred in the original forests of Mississippi, but 

 apparently their occurrence was scattered. In no 

 place did they form large, unbroken, pure stands. 



Elsewhere in the State — the entire Delta, most of 

 the brown loam areas, the Pontotoc Ridge, the north- 

 ern half of the Flatwoods, and the stream bottoms 

 everywhere — hardwood forests dominated the scene. 

 In 1884, in his Report on the Forests of North America, 

 Charles S. Sargent quoted Dr. Charles Mohr as fol- 

 lows concerning the Delta: 



Along the elevated ridges fronting the streams the white 

 oak, the willow oak, the shell-bark and mocker-nut hickories, 

 the black walnut in great numbers, the yellow poplar and 

 sassafras large enough to furnish canoes of great size, the 

 mulberry, the Spanish oak, the sweet and black gums are the 

 principal forest trees. ... In the forests covering the lower 

 lands . . . the cow oak takes the place of the white oak, 



while the over-cup white oak occurs everywhere. . . . Here 

 the sweet gum reaches its greatest size, and here grow also in 

 great perfection the bitter-nut, the elms, hornbeams, white 

 ash, box-elder, and red maples of enormous size. The honey 

 locust, water oaks, and red and Spanish oaks are equally 

 common. 



Some of the details of this description may be open 

 to question, but the over-all impression of timber 

 abundance, variety of species, and large tree size is 

 undoubtedly sound. The original forests in the bot- 

 tom lands throughout the State were often similar to 

 those in the Delta. 



On the loessial bluffs fronting the Delta, the forest 

 was mainly oaks — white, chestnut, black, and some 

 cherrybark and shumard — with hickory, sweet and 

 black gum, basswood, elm, sassafras, yellow-poplar, 

 magnolia, and beech. To the east, the forest on the 

 brown loam soils graded into an oak-hickory forest; 

 and the southern part of the brown loam area con- 



