22 TIMBER Ol^ THE EDWARDS PLATEAU OE TEXAS. 



timberlands. * * * For a time the place fairly went wild, and everyone seemed 

 to be in a frenzy of excitement. Up to the time when I left nothing definite had 

 been learned, although it was known that many thousands of dollars' worth of cedar 

 had been consumed. 



ENCROACHMENT OF TIMBER GROWTH UPON THE EDWARDS PLATEAU. 



In previous paragraphs there has been occasion to mention the 

 energy with which the timber tends not only to renew itself on ground 

 previously occupied, but also to gain upon the untimbered slopes and 

 even upon the grass prairie. It was pointed out as a striking phe- 

 nomenon that the region is in reality in a gradual process of transi- 

 tion from open prairie to forest land. This phenomenon is by no 

 means peculiar to the Edwards Plateau. The Rio Grande Plain 

 strikingly illustrates it. In that region the mesquite and chaparral 

 have captured hundreds, perhaps thousands, of square miles of open 

 prairie. 



ENERGY AND RAPIDITY WITH WHICH LANDS ARE REFORESTED. 



Specific data concerning the growth rate of the various species of 

 trees in the climate of central and western Texas are not at hand. 

 Naturally, however, under the semiarid conditions prevailing on the 

 hills, this rate is slow, and the timber is characteristically hard and 

 stunted. 



Renewal is partly from young timber left on the ground, partly 

 from seedlings, and in a considerable degree from coppice growth or 

 sprouting from the stump. This latter method is especially charac- 

 teristic of oaks. Ml'. Lacey's statement that live years after a cedar- 

 brake tire on his land in Kerr County the ground was covered with 

 shin oak and Spanish oak sprouts has already been quoted. Some 

 hillsides near Austin from which the timber was cut five years ago 

 are now fairly covered with 3^oung growth. On numerous clearings 

 in the same neighborhood seedling cedar occurs in thickets. Indeed, 

 this hardy tree appears to be the most strenuous ground-gainer of all. 

 The most striking instance known to the writer of its capacity in this 

 respect is afforded by a tract on Dry Creek, near Austin, from which 

 the timber was cleared twenty-five years ago. During the past two 

 or three years this tract has again been cut, with a large yield of fuel 

 timber. Fig. 1 of PL IV shows the condition of the cedar brake after 

 twenty-five years' growth. Of course there was very little, if any, tie 

 or post timber in this, and no clear heart cedar. Mention was made 

 earlier in this paper of the prompt and rapid reforestation of denuded 

 cedar brakes by mountain oak in Bell County. These instances suffice 

 to show that the forest type of the limestone country is very strenuous 

 in maintaining its ground. 



