PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY. 



Prince George's County lies in two physiographic divisions, which 

 give it a somewhat varied topography. The highest elevations, about 

 400 feet above sea level, occur in the northern part, extending south- 

 ward at a decreasing height through the central portion of the county 

 to form the divide between the-Patuxent on the east and the Potomac 

 to the west, where tidewater is reached. Fully five-sixths of the coun- 

 ty lies within the so-called Coastal Plain, but as its surface is made up 

 almost entirely of a succession of low hills and narrow valleys, there is 

 little resemblance here to the Coastal Plain section east of the Chesa- 

 peake. Along the lower Patuxent River, and a few of the tidal creeks 

 tributary to the Potomac, are to be found narrow strips of fresh water 

 marshes. Drainage, on the whole, is excellent, and conditions general- 

 ly conducive to a forest growth of both good volume and high quality. 

 The soils vary from light sand to stiff clay, but for the most part they 

 are sandy loams almost equally adapted to forest or farm, except on 

 the steeper slopes, where a forest cover is necessary for keeping the 

 loose soils intact. 



The Forests. 



The county 's present wooded area amounts to 41 per cent, al- 

 though its earliest history shows an area well covei'ed with forest. The 

 section along the Patuxent River was known at the time of its settle- 

 ment as ' ' The Forests of Prince George, ' ' but since it was the first to 

 be settled it has now the smallest percentage of forest land of any part 

 of the county. Throughout the county the hardwoods were early ex- 

 ploited, being in good demand for saw timber, later for railroad ties, 

 piling, and poles, so that they have now been repeatedly culled, leav- 

 ing in the original forests open places which have been reseeded by 

 the scrub pine. The first forests were almost universally of the mixed 

 hardwood type, but the process of natural agricultural development 

 has brought about two other types, the pure pine and the hardwood- 

 pine. The pine common to the county will not grow to any appreci- 

 able extent under the shade of hardwoods, but it almost invariably 

 comes in after cultivation has been abandoned on lands that were once 

 farmed. 



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