32 FOREST RESOURCES OF TEXAS. 



struction stuff furnished, in which the cedar excels. Its greater and 

 permanent value lies in its capacity to furnish protection, whereby 

 soil can he collected in difficult situations; to prevent erosion from 

 sudden bursts of rainfall; and to retain a large percentage of the rain- 

 fall instead of permitting it to run off in destructive floods. 



THE LIVE OAK TIMBER BELT. 



In Texas, as in the South Atlantic States, the live oak occurs on the 

 Coast Plain. The live oak belt is particularly noticeably between the 

 Brazos and the Nueces rivers. But there is also a north and south belt 

 lying chiefly between the ninety-sixth and ninety-ninth meridians, 

 where the occurrence of live oak is more or less constant. This belt 

 includes a portion of the Edwards Plateau, in which the mountain form 

 of the live oak occurs often in patches of pure forest. But in the 

 agricultural areas of the Black and Grand prairies and in the lower 

 debris soils of the granite countiy — e. g. , southward from Llano — the 

 live oak grows to its characteristic proportions, and while in no sense 

 a considerable factor commercially, it is a most valuable tree for orna- 

 ment, shade, and the production of woodlot 'material, in a region 

 where without it farms and ranches are apt to appear desolate. In 

 the coast country, however, the live oak is at its best. In Fort Bend, 

 Brazoria, Wharton, and Matagorda counties it reaches splendid pro- 

 portions. In the neighborhood of the immediate valley of the San 

 Bernard this large growth formerly stood so close as to be literally 

 live oak forest. The heaviest of this — at least so far as observed by 

 the writer— has been deadened in breaking out cotton fields. The soil 

 here is a very deep, black, waxy alluvial sediment. Along the Brazos, 

 where the trees, though fewer, are even larger, the soil is a more por- 

 ous, sandy alluvium. This large timber suffered irreparably from the 

 Galveston hurricane of September 9, 1900. The veteran trees, 3 to 5 

 feet in diameter, w^ere especially singled out for the fury of the storm. 



The live oak of the Coast Plain westward, toward the Nueces — in 

 Live Oak County, for instance — yields noticeably to the increasing 

 aridity of the climate, becoming a more stunted open growth, although 

 stanchly holding its own as to numbers. Throughout this belt the 

 live oak is gaining ground. Formerly it was limited to strips along 

 the rivers and ''islands" in the prairie — that is, to minor drainage 

 branches. At the present time it is rapidly spreading over the grass 

 prairie. The conditions between the Brazos and San Bernard west of 

 Columbia afford an excellent illustration of this. The low divide 

 between these streams was, a generation ago, open prairie. Now, 

 except for cotton fields, it is mostly woodland. A plantation home from 

 which the town of Columbia could once be seen is now shut off from a 

 view of more than a few hundred yards in any direction. 



