28 BULLETIN 24, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
ous growth on soils naturally adapted to their requirements are not 
predisposed to disease. Such trees if accidentally injured by wind, 
fire, or other agency, more readily heal over the wound. -Cotton- 
wood, in particular, grows so rapidly that even large wounds do not 
long remain exposed to infection by fungi. | 
Another important condition favoring management of the bottom- 
lands is the ease of getting the timber out. The land best suited to 
the practice of forestry les for the most part within 2 or 3 miles 
of the river, which is generally used for transportation. This renders 
logging inexpensive and obviates the necessity of constructing rail- 
roads. It also makes it feasible to leave seed trees which can be easily 
taken out after they have restocked the ground and at a cost per 
thousand feet but shghtly in excess of that for the first operation. 
Furthermore, cottonwood is commercially very valuable and is one 
of the fastest-growing trees in the United States. It yields lumber 
of good quality within 30 to 35 years. Seed production, moreover, is 
abundant and frequent. Under such favorable circumstances owners 
of cottonwood stumpage should give more attention to securing new 
crops of timber after lumbering on lands unfit for farming. 
AREAS AVAILABLE FOR GROWING COTTONWOOD. 
Though large areas of the Mississippi bottomlands, especially in 
southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas, are being made 
tillable through extensive drainage projects, and still other areas will 
be reclaimed for farming by the extension of the present levee sys- 
tem, there are extensive tracts of rich alluvial land subject to annual 
overflow of from one or two weeks to several months which afford 
ideal conditions for the growth of cottonwood. Probably the largest 
part of this unprotected land is in the lower valley, yet from Cairo, 
Tll., to the head of the river there are in the aggregate large areas 
better adapted to forest growth than to agriculture. The total area 
of such unprotected land south of Cairo, Lll., is approximately 
1,500,000 acres, distributed as follows: From Cairo to the mouth of 
the White River, 690,000 acres; from the mouth of the White River to 
Warrenton, Miss., 500,400 acres; and from Warrenton to the Mead 
of the Passes, 277,000 acres. While a portion of this unprotected 
land is sufficiently elevated to warrant cultivation, not more than 10 
or 15 per cent is at present in crops. Back of the levees there is 
considerable land poorly adapted to agriculture, such as sandy ridges 
or the beds of old sloughs which may still be inundated in very wet 
periods. While farm crops may be grown on the ridges for a few 
years, the soil soon becomes unproductive. In addition, there are 
bottomlands bordering many tributaries of the Mississippi, such as 
the Red, Arkansas, Yazoo, and St. Francis Rivers, which because of 
poor drainage or annual inundation are unsuited for farming. 
