CREEK LAND. 11 
they are sure to be destroyed the next time fire runs over the ground. 
Seedlings or saplings above 2 years of age are rare, and confined to 
small isolated groups, which, by some favorable circumstance, managed 
to escape fire for four or five years. 
The reproduction of shortleaf and loblolly, in proportion to the 
representation of these species on the type, is much better than that 
of longleaf, but is confined mainly to the shale and schist soils cr to 
the old fields where fires have been less frequent than in the pure 
longleaf stands. 
CREEK LAND. 
The creek land occupies 3,967 acres, 11 per cent of the whole tract, 
or 12.5 per cent of the forested area. It covers the bottoms of the 
valleys and sometimes reaches a short distance up the lower slopes. 
On the broad, level alluvial bottomlands in the lower valleys of the 
larger creeks it is often over a quarter of a mile wide, but on ascend- 
ing the creeks it becomes gradually narrower, until along the smaller 
branches it dwindles down to a width of not over one or two chains. 
The soil is deep, well watered, and enriched by the wash from the 
slopes. It supports a comparatively large number of species, the 
hardwoods greatly predominating over the pines. Of the former the 
following were noted: White oak, cow oak, post oak, chestnut oak, 
black cak, Spanish oak, red oak, willow oak, water oak, three or four 
species of hickory, beech, ash, yellow poplar (tulip tree), black gum, 
red gum, two or three species of magnolia, dogwood, sourwood, red 
and sugar maple, blue beech, a species of elm, basswood, holly, horn- 
beam, and river birch. The last two are found only in the deep, 
narrow gorges of Weogufka and Finnegotchkee creeks in the south- 
eastern part of the tract. The red and chestnut oaks are found in 
the narrow strips along the small branches flowing out of the hills. 
The other species are fairly well distributed throughout the type. 
Of the pines the loblolly is the representative species. The larger 
trees nowhere form pure stands, but occur scattered singly or in small 
groups of three or four trees among the hardwoods. They reach 
their best development on the broad, level land of the lower valleys, 
where trees over 3 feet in diameter are not uncommon. ‘The short- 
leaf pine is found mainly along the edges of the type, where it 
merges into the longleaf pine land. The proportion of the shortleat 
is insignificant, and the great majority of the hardwoods are too small 
to furnish saw timber. Longleaf pine is almost entirely absent. 
Underbrush is usually dense. It consists sometimes, but rarely, of 
thickets of sweet illicium (stink bay), and sometimes of canebrakes, but 
more often it isa mixture of various species of deciduous shrubs and 
small saplings of the hardwood species mentioned above. The ground 
cover, owing to the density of the forest and the consequent lack of 
