TIMBER GROWING AND LOGGING PRACTICE 7 
the greater portion of the timber is on a slow but seemingly sure 
march to extinction and offers little promise for the better unless 
present practices are materially altered. 
A few virgin stands are still in existence, generally individual 
pieces of timberland held off the market for personal reasons by the 
owners, or else stands relatively inaccessible. Their timber is char- 
acteristically uneven-aged and uneven-sized. 
The remainder of the hardwood forests is in rather extensive 
stands of even-aged second growth that has come in where the virgin 
forest was cut clean for charcoal production. There are found espe- 
cially in southern Ohio, the highland rim of Tennessee, and in 
parts of the Ozarks in Missouri. 
In the number of hardwood species of high commercial value the 
region is exceptional. The most important are white oaks, red oaks, 
hard maple, silver maple, red maple, beech, the elms, basswood, yel- 
low poplar, black walnut, butternut, the ashes, red gum, the hick- 
ories, river birch, cottonwood, tupelo, hackberry, sycamore, and wil- 
low. Shortleaf pine, scrub or Virginia pine, and eastern red cedar 
mix with the hardwoods in some sections. 
Pure stands of any species seldom occur extensively. When cot- 
tonwood is found in pure or practically pure stands it is undergrown 
at maturity by other bottom-land species, such as soft maple, river 
birch, elm, ash, and pin oak. Characteristically the species occur 
in mixture, of which the composition varies with every hilltop or 
ridge, slope, flat, or bottom, and from one acre to another. At most, 
some one or several species have been or are numerically of enough 
importance over rather large areas to give their distinctive character 
to the forest, such as the maple and beech of northeastern Ohio, and 
the oaks and hickories of the Ozark region of Missouri, northern 
Arkansas, and the hilly section of southern Ohio and Indiana. 
Tree species of aggressive habits and little value do not threaten 
seriously to take possession of cut-over lands, with the possible excep- 
tion of ironwood here and there on restricted areas. 
In general there are in the region two main forest types to be 
considered, especially where any effort is made to obtain full crops 
of timber. These are the " upland type " and the " bottom-land 
type." Under the upland type there is also a subtype, " mixed hard- 
woods and conifers." 
As indicated by their names, the distinction between the two 
main types is based on topography and on soil moisture condi- 
tions. The upland type includes the areas of higher, well-drained 
soils; the bottom-land type is characteristic of the moister, lower 
levels of slow drainage, swamps, and periodic overflow. The two 
types are also fairly well differentiated by the tree species that 
compose them, the key species of the bottom-land type being red 
gum, cottonwood, river birch, cypress, willow oak, sycamore, willow, 
silver maple, overcup oak, and swamp white oak. The upland 
type is characterized less by key species than by the absence of the 
key species of the bottom land. Distinctive species are chestnut, 
chestnut oak, pignut hickory, post oak, blackjack oak, and shortleaf 
pine. Yellow poplar, white oak, sugar maple, black cherr}^ and 
the northern red oak are fairly distinctive but are also occasionally 
found in the bottom lands, 
