Soil Relations and Distribution Map of the Vegetation of Presettlement Indiana

Abstract

From the original land surveyors' records and the modern soil-survey maps of Indiana counties, the presettlement distribution of beech-maple, oak-hickory, mixed (three subtypes), depressional mixed, and flood-plain forest types was correlated with the major soil types. The distribution of dry prairie and wetland was deduced largely from the soil-survey maps. From the resulting data a map was prepared of the vegetation ca. 1820, in which the forest type shown for a given catena was that of its zonal well-drained soil wherever possible. This generalized map is compared with previous vegetation maps of the state.