THE LONG-LEAF PINE REGION. 
71 
pear to have been subsequently taken up and redeposited further down 
the courses of some of the principal streams. 
The red loam also appears in greatest foree and most characteris- 
tically along the same line, while the sands have been spread much 
further outward. 
Where the red loam is the surface material the growth consists of the 
upland oakfl and short-leaf pine; where the sands prevail the long-leaf 
pine becomes characteristic, so that, in general terms, the oak growth 
follows the margin of the older formations, while the pine prevails 
farther outward toward the coasts.* 
As has been said above, the red loam is usually found as the uppermost 
stratum of the drifted materials, and where in the drainage areas of the 
streams this capping of loam has been washed away BO ;is to bring to the 
surface the underlying sandier strata, the natural growth gives evi- 
dence of the deterioration of the soil in the association of the long-leaf 
pine with the other timber, and in its complete replacement of theother 
trees jn the sandiest localities. 
These strips and patches of pine land interlace so intricately with 
the oak and hickory lands as to render any accurate mapping of them 
impossible without close and detailed surveys. 
c. Ilammocks, &c. — (1) Ilammocks. In the long-leaf pine region of 
Florida there are patches of land in which there is a luxuriant growth 
of water, willow, white, live, and other oaks, hickories, sweet gums, and 
other hard woods. Such areas are called hammocks, and they are ex- 
tremely fertile, forming amongst the very best of the cotton lands of 
the State. The hammocks are produced by the reaction of the lime- 
stone, which underlies the State of Florida, upon the sandy loam which 
forms the soil, and, according to their position, are called high ham- 
mocks, low hammocks, and Gulf hammocks, and their yield in cotton is 
frequently as high as a bale to the acre. 
The sea island or long staple variety is almost exclusively produced 
upon the hammock lands, except in the red clay hammocks (as they are 
called) of the upper part of the State, around Tallahassee and other lo- 
calities. These hammocks are, however, about the same as the mixed 
oak and hickory and pine lands above mentioned. 
(2) Shell Prairies. Lime LTills, and Bed Lime Lands of Mississippi, 
Alabama, and Northern Florida. The Tertiary rocks of these States 
in places react upon the overlying loams in such a way as to produce 
highly fertile calcareous lands, usually of rather limited extent, and in 
detached bodies among the prevailing pine lauds. In some countries 
these form the best of the cotton lands. 
* Iu Alabama, Georgia, South and North Carolina the hilly bolt (with sand and pebbles), which bor- 
ders the older formations, has occasionally a preponderance of long-leaf pine among the timber trees, 
though the pines are here in places associated with, and even replaced by, the oak and hickory growth 
of the better class of uplands. 
