14 



WEST VIRGINIA AS A TIMBER PRODUCING STATE. 



which the sassafras, tulip tree, hackberry, sycamore, sweet gum, 

 rose magnolia, red bud, persimmon, and short-leaf pine first 

 make their appearance together with the opossum, gray fox, fox 

 squirrel, cardinal bird, Carolina wren, tufted tit^ gnatcatcher, 

 summer tanager, and yellow-breasted chat. Chestnuts, hickory- 

 nuts, hazelnuts, and walnuts grow wild in abundance. The 

 area is of gerat agricultural importance."* 



This zone covers the western half of the state, or, in other 

 words, most of the Ohio river section and much of the Potomac 

 section in the east. Among its common trees are several species 

 of oaks, including white oak, black oak, shingle oak, Spanish 

 oak, yellow oak, mossy cup oak, pin oak, and others, the yellow 

 poplar, the sweet gum, the box elder, the persimmon, the red 

 bud, the silver maple, the sweet buckeye, the pawpaw, the silver 

 bell, and the yellow pine. 



Within this zone are found the principal agricultural lands 

 of West Virginia and, for this reason, a large percentage of the 

 forest has been removed in many sections to give place to the 

 growing of grains, vegetables and fruits. Except in a few local- 

 ities where the hills are thin and unfit for cultivation the grow- 

 ing of extensive forests is impossible and should not be recom- 

 mended. There are, however, several acreg. of rough and steep 

 land on almost every farm throughout this whole agricultural 

 area where the products from well-kept- woodlots would far ex- 

 ceed in value any other crop. These woodlots would be of inesti- 

 mable value as protectors of soils and streams as well. 



Several counties, or portions of counties, including parts of 

 Preston, Barbour, Upshur, Webster, and others, lie in the humid 

 or Alleghanian faunal area of the Transition life zone. As its 

 name implies there is an overlapping in this zone of species from 

 the regions above and below it, and there are few really dis- 

 tinctive animals or plants. ' ' In the Alleghanian faunal area the 

 chestnut, walnut, oaks, and hickories of the south meet and over- 

 lap the beech, birch, hemlock, and sugar maple of the north. * 

 ****** Several native nuts, of which the beechnut, butter- 

 nut, chestnut, hazelnut, hickorynut, and ^valnut are most im- 

 portant, grow wild in this belt. Of these the cliestniit, hiekory- 



*Life Zones and Crop Zones of the United States. C. Hart Merriam. 



