Bottomland hardwood forests are seasonally flooded and are commonly known as swamps. These areas once covered great regions of the South but are now a patchwork system of fragmented lands. Great swamps attracted early visitors with game and fish including crawfish, fish, beaver, ducks, alligators, and many more. Lumber was one of the great resources of this country, and swamps offered early loggers two advantages: they were made up of valuable hardwoods, especially rot resistant cypress, and waterways made it easy to transport logs. Most swamps were clear-cut by the early 1900's. Some of the land was converted into farmland and is still used to raise sugar cane, soybeans, and other crops. The remaining swamp is a shadow of what it once was, but it can become a land of great trees once again. Planting efforts by citizens and government agencies have helped speed up the recovery of the swamp.