CLASSIFICATION OF THE FOREST. 15 



of the wind would have to be taken account of in choosing and group- 

 ing species for planting. 



The periodical recurrence of Gulf hurricanes has had a profound 

 effect on the history of forest extension and on the present aspect of 

 the forest on the coast plain. For example, in the hurricane of 1875 

 a vast area of pine in Montgomery and San Jacinto counties was de- 

 stroyed. Following the burning of the debris, a thicket of hardwood 

 especially scrub oak — appeared very generally, thus changing, at 

 least for years, the type of the forest. In the hurricane of Septem- 

 ber 9, 11)00, the loblolly pine and the white oak in the coast country 

 west of the Trinity were blown down in enormous quantity, thus dis- 

 turbing the forest equilibrium and consequently, for the present, the 

 type. The most evident effect of these storms is written in the ragged, 

 uneven growth of timber in much of the coast country. This is 

 especially noteworthy on the lower Brazos and the San Bernard, and 

 may easily account for the occurrence of an occasional veteran in a 

 ragged forest of small trees and dense undergrowth. 



CLASSIFICATION OF THE FOREST. 



THE EAST TEXAS TIMBER BELT. 



Formerly an unbroken forest of the same general character covered 

 the great plain of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, from Virginia through 

 the Carolinas, Georgia, northern Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Lou- 

 isiana, and Arkansas to eastern Texas, and from the foothills and 

 mountain slopes of the southern Appalachians to the sea. The com- 

 mon characteristics of this vast region, to which are due the general 

 homogeneity of its forest, are abundant rainfall, low elevation, and 

 warm temperature. Although the Coast Plain itself continues toward 

 the Rio Grande, the further extension of this forest is checked near 

 the Brazos River by the drier climate of the southwest. Here its 

 vanguard is broken into straggling detachments, of which only the 

 hardier push onward along the prairie streamways or up the deeper 

 canyons of the hills. It is a striking phenomenon, this breaking up 

 and gradual dwindling away of so vast and vigorous a forest. Not 

 only in Texas, but far to the north, through the Indian Territory, Kan- 

 sas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, the same thing ma}^ be seen. Like a 

 vast wave that has rolled in upon a level beach, the Atlantic forest 

 breaks upon the dry plains — halting, creeping forward, thinning out, 

 and finally disappearing, except where, along a river course, it pushes 

 far inland. 



This east Texas timber belt may be subdivided into the following 

 types: 



Swamp and bayou forests, chiefty in the Coast Plain. 



