The original Delta was covered by enormous stands of oak, gum, cottonwood, hickory, pecan, elm, pine, and cypress, with some trees perhaps 500 years old. Cypress and tupelo grew in the bottoms along with water-tolerant oaks such as overcup and Nuttall oak, named for the British botanist who first described it in the Arkansas Territory in 1819. In the 1880s, railroads provided the transportation needed to make lumber a key part of the Delta's economy, bringing saw mills, jobs, and towns devoted to lumber and special wood products in eastern Arkansas. From the end of the 19th century into the first three decades of the 20th century, the Delta underwent major transformation as forests were cleared, swamp land was drained, overflow-prone land was protected by flood control projects, and former wilderness was cultivated by planters, worked by logging companies, or developed by railroads. Bottomland hardwoods provided benefits including aesthetics, flood control, habitat, hunting, recreation, sediment control, timber production, and water quality. Reforestation efforts in Arkansas later encouraged tree planting through incentives from agencies and organizations, and in 2008 Crittenden County had approximately 8,637 acres enrolled in government cost-share programs to plant hardwoods, including more than 7,000 acres in the Conservation Reserve Program, which offers annual payments to participants who establish cover on environmentally sensitive lands. Original Delta forests remaining fell to 50 percent by the mid-1920s, 37 percent by the mid-1950s, and 15 percent by the mid-1970s.