6                REPORT ON' THE BOTANY OF

exceedingly rapid return of the forests be explained. It has
not yet been possible to adopt the statistical plan of studying
our western forests shown in the report on the forests of
Greenup county, &c. When this is done, it will be seen that
the new or second-growth forests on. the "barrens" is not
nearly as diversified as the other and older forests; there being
far more variety in the trees of the old than there is in the
new forests.
  Assistant John R. Proctor, of the Kentucky Survey, has
made some important observations as to the Western forests
of the old - barrens," going to show that the conglomerate or
beds just below the coal form a natural limit to this once tree-
less area on the west. The detail of these observations will
properly find a place in the proposed memoirs on the distri-
bution of the forest trees of Kentucky.
                                        N. S. SHALER.
32