REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
47 
that we have thought proper to illustrate it in a general way 
upon the accompanying map. Great efforts have been made to 
insure correctness of representation, and it is believed that the 
distribution, as shown thereon, will not be open to the charge 
of serious error. 
On referring to the map, it will be observed that the south¬ 
ern half of the State is characterized by the hard woods, the 
northern portion by evergreens. There are numerous excep¬ 
tional localities, but this is a correct statement of the general 
distribution. Still more generally and geologically speaking, 
the evergreens belong to the Primitive, or Azoic, and the Sand¬ 
stone regions, the hard wood to the Limestone districts. 
To define geographically and more narrowly, the heavy hard¬ 
wood forests are confined principally to the northern three- 
fourths or four-fifths of the eastern portion of the State; being 
embraced within those counties which lie north of Racine along 
the lake, and extending from thirty to sixty miles inland. There 
are also forests of considerable extent in other portions of the 
State; as, for instance, in Green, Grant, Sauk, Richland, and 
Bad Ax Counties; as also along many of the streams in the 
evergreen region of the State; but they are comparatively 
isolated, and do not give character to the general district where 
they occur. 
In all the remainder of the southern portion of the State, to¬ 
gether with a strip of considerable extent along the Mississippi 
and St. Croix, as high as the northern limit of the Potsdam 
Sandstone, the surface of the country is characterized by Prai¬ 
ries and Oak Openings. 
The Prairies are among the most beautiful and the most val¬ 
uable in the world; being quite limited in extent, skirted with 
timber, for protection and fuel, and well watered by beautiful 
lakes and unfailing streams. 
The “ Openings” are a peculiar feature of Wisconsin and 
Minnesota, not being characteristic of any other State. They 
are of two kinds — the Burr Oak and the Black Oak. The 
Black Oak Openings belong to the sandy regions, and are not 
marked by any considerable agricultural capacity. The Burr 
