TIMBER GROWING AND LOGGING PRACTICE 15 
The oaks and hickories reproduce well by seed under fairly open 
old stands. Six to eight inch trees are often heavy seed bearers. As 
seedlings they withstand considerable shade. On sites where oak 
and hickory predominate, seedlings of hickory are often the most 
numerous of all advance reproduction in the stand. 
Red gum seedlings are seldom found in quantity under old stands. 
When old stands made up of a good proportion of red gum are cut, 
however, the seedlings spring up in abundance. It appears that the 
seed lies dormant in the fallen leaves and surface soil and sprouts 
promptly when the old trees are cut. Red gum also reproduces to 
some extent from root suckers. 
Ash seed apparently has the property of retaining its vitality for 
several }^ears when lying on the leaf-covered ground of the forest. 
At least this seems the most logical explanation of the great abun- 
dance of young ash trees on many cut-over areas, especially as ash 
produces heavy crops of seed only at intervals of several years. 
Some trees native to the region, cottonwood, willow, silver maple, 
river birch, and the elms, ripen and scatter their seed in the spring 
or early summer. This is disseminated partly by the wind and 
partly by the streams which carry it away at flood and later deposit 
it in situations suitable for germination and development. The Mis- 
sissippi River is at times fairly green with seed of one or more of 
these species. Such seed germinates the same season and clothes 
the land with small trees. Species ripening their seed in the fall 
may germinate at that time if weather conditions are favorable or 
may hold over until the following spring. There is thus a double 
prospect each year of a new crop of trees from seed. 
Beech and cypress are reproducing very little and apparently will 
eventually disappear from the stands of the central hardwood re- 
gion. Beech might do better if hogs were generally eliminated from 
the stands. Beech reproduced from root sprouts does not develop 
well. 
In the Missouri Ozarks, old shortleaf pine trees 7 or 8 inches in 
diameter and 25 to 40 feet tall, left in logging operations as 
suppressed and worthless, are bearing seed and effecting ample 
reproduction within a radius of several times their height. 
A herbaceous ground cover of heavy grass will seldom prevent 
hardwood seedlings from establishing themselves. Elm in particu- 
lar invades such areas and is followed closely by ash, hickory, black 
cherry, and maple. On the bottoms reproduction is seldom found 
on areas densely clothed by the great nettle and poison oak, but these 
occur only as small patches here and there. 
MUCH LAND PRIMARILY SUITED TO TIMBER PRODUCTION 
Although over a large proportion of this region the land is admir- 
ably suited to general agricultural pursuits, this is not true every- 
where. In many of the hilly and sparsely settled counties the 
acreage of improved land in farms and the actual number of farm- 
ers was less in 1920 than in 1910. Some of the land is too far from 
railroads or even from good highways for profitable farming. Nor 
has fruit growing had any pronounced success in all the places 
where it has been tried out. Because of rough topography and stony 
character 10,000,000 acres in the Missouri Ozarks, mostly in the east- 
