ATLAS OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 
Figure 18.—A mixed forest of birch, beech, maple, white pine, and hemlock. (Birch-beech-maple- 
hemlock.) It is confined largely to the Lake States, New England, New York, and Pennsylvania. Its 
boundaries are not always distinct from that of the northern pines, or even spruce and fir. Throughout the 
region of the northern hardwoods nearly pure stands of white pine or spruce are frequently found. As a 
rule, the sandy soils in the region are covered with pines, and the heavier soi Is with hardwoods. The familiar 
sugar-maple groves are a part of this forest. It is the chief source of the products of hardwood distillation. 
Adirondack Mountains, N. Y. Photographed by’A. G. Varela. 
Figure 19.—A mixed forest of yellow poplar and chestnut. (Chestnut-chestnut oak-yellow poplar.) 
The most valuable temperate hardwood forest in the world. It is not unlike the Pacific coast Douglas fir 
forest as regards annual precipitation, density of stand, and the development of the individual trees. The 
similarity is further heightened by the tendency at maturity to develop an understory of hemlock. It differs 
from the Pacific Douglas fir in part because of the summer rainfall to which may be assigned the pre¬ 
ponderance of hardwoods in the Appalachian Mountains and the lack of which accounts for the absence 
of hardwoods in the Northwest. North Carolina. Photographed by F. G. Plummer. 
courses the forest is made up of combinations of red 
spruce, birches, red maple, white pine, eastern hemlock, 
and balsam fir. This type of forest is in a large 
measure a transition between the swamp type and the 
type of mixed hardwood lands higher up. On the 
higher benches and the lower mountain slopes, where 
the soil is deep, fresh, and well drained, red spruce is an 
associate of hard maple, beech, and balsam fir, with a 
scattering of eastern hemlock, white pine, birch, cherry, 
and a variety of other species. The proportion of 
species in mixture depends on topographic conditions. 
The finest stands of pure red spruce are occasionally 
found on the steepest slopes in the region. Although 
the spruce-fir forest is found also throughout prac¬ 
tically the entire birch—beech-maple-hemlock region, it 
is chiefly confined to the Northern States, where its 
upper altitudinal limit may be set at about 4,000 feet 
above sea level. It is also found in the mountains of 
North Carolina and Tennessee, but at increasingly 
higher altitudes. It finds its upper limit there between 
5,000 and 6,000 feet. 
The climatic characteristics and the agricultural im¬ 
portance of this forest division are about the same as 
that of its western extension. There is this difference, 
however, that the eastern spruce-fir forests, being to 
a large extent on low but level land, and therefore 
capable of being drained, offer greater agricultural 
possibilities than similar stands at high altitudes in 
the West. 
White-Norway-Jack Pine Forest (Northeastern Pine Forest). 
(Figs. 16 and 17.) 
The mixed pine forest of jack pine, Norway pine, 
and white pine is confined largely to the Lake States. 
Stands of pure white pine (fig. IT), or with some ad¬ 
mixture of Norway pine, are found throughout the 
Northeastern States, chiefly on sandy soils. Stands of 
pure white pine, for instance, were found throughout 
the hardwood forests of the Adirondack region in New 
York, along the Hudson River, and in the Catskills. 
Pure white-pine stands occur on sandy plains and 
throughout the broadleaf forests which cover the re¬ 
mainder of the State. In Pennsylvania Vast forests 
of white pine and eastern hemlock covered both flanks 
of the Allegheny Mountains; the headwaters of the 
Susquehanna River were heavily wooded with white 
pine. In New England white pine seldom formed 
solid bodies of large extent, but usually grew mixed 
with spruce and other conifers and hardwoods. Pine 
In Wisconsin there were fewer pure stands of white 
pine except on gravelly or sandy soils. In mixture 
with hardwoods, however, whit'e pine was very 
abundant. 
In Minnesota white pine forests were confined to 
the northern and central portions of the State. They 
were not so extensive as those in Michigan, but were 
very prominent in mixture with hardwoods. 
In the Lake States the composition of the stand 
depends on the character of the soil. On the poorer 
sanely soils and farthest north the stands consist almost 
exclusively of jack pine. On moderately poor sandy 
soils Norway pine occurs either pure or in mixture 
with jack pine, while on the richer soils and on well- 
watered sandy flats it is found in mixture with white 
pine and also northern hardwoods. The jack pine 
plains, like the lodgepole pine forests of the West, 
have been extending their area as a result of repeated 
fires. The original Norway pine formed at least 10 
per cent in all jack pine stands, but as a result of fire 
this proportion has been decreased until most of the 
sandy plains are now pure j ack pine. 
The Norway pine-jack pine forests, which are par¬ 
ticularly characteristic of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and 
Michigan, are not unlike the lodgepole pine forests 
of the northern Rockies. The climate of these north¬ 
ern pineries in the Lake States is characterized by an 
annual rainfall of from 25 to 35 inches and extreme 
temperatures of from —50° to 105° F. In some parts 
of this forest region frosts may occur every month in 
the year. The last killing frost, however, usually 
occurs about May 15 and the first autumn frost by Sep¬ 
tember 20. 
Birch-Beech-Maple-Hemlock Forest. (Fig. 18.) 
This northern hardwood forest is found in greater or 
less abundance within the drainage systems of the St. 
Lawrence, the Great' Lakes, and the upper Mississippi 
as far south as southern Minnesota; throughout north¬ 
ern New England, and southward along the northern 
and southern Appalachian Mountain ranges to extreme 
northern Georgia. The area occupied by the northern 
hardwoods is probably over 50,000,000 acres, nearly 
half of which is in the Lake States. It occupies the 
fresh, well-drained, fertile soils, and its more charac¬ 
teristic hardwoods are sugar maple and yellow birch. 
The geographical extent of the northern hardwood 
forest practically coincides with the range of yellow 
forests stretched along the valleys of the Connecticut 
and Merrimac Rivers and grew along the shores of 
Lake Champlain in western Vermont. 
The most extensive and the densest white-pine for¬ 
ests in the country were found in Michigan. It was 
abundant in the northern part of the lower peninsula, 
Figure 20.—A mixed forest of white oak, shagbark hickory, and 
pignut hickory. (Oak-hickory.) Originally it was the source of the 
most valuable white oak timber. Most of the virgin timber, however, 
i n the northern and eastern part is now cut out and the land is devoted 
to agriculture. On the east this forest gradually merges with the 
chestnut-chestnut oak-yellow poplar forest, which now furnishes the 
bulk of the southern hardwoods. It is characteristic of dryer climatic 
conditions and extends farther into the prairie region than any other 
hardwood fojrest, finally giving way to the cottonwood, box elder, 
elm, and other trees along the water courses. La Porte County, 
Northern Indiana. Photographed by H. Foster. 
where, on the sandy loam soils, it grew in immense, 
practically pure forests, and on the heavier loams inter¬ 
spersed among hardwoods. In the northern peninsula, 
.especially in the basin of the Menominee River, it cov¬ 
ered the sandy plains almost to the exclusion of other 
species. 
