I. 1. THE PITCH PINE. 71 



into a cart and carried to an abandoned tract of ground, com- 

 pletely inundated with drift sand, and capable of producing 

 merely the most useless weeds. With great haste the trees 

 were planted in this desert, amid the merriment and derision 

 of all who witnessed what was considered so fruitless an under- 

 taking. But the experiment was perfectly successful, and in 

 four straight lines stand at this moment ninety- seven pines, of 

 which number one, and the finest, is a white pine, all the rest 

 being pitch pines. They have attained the height of twenty or 

 more feet, and the measures of the circumference of several 

 are appended, as follows : — the white pine, two feet two inches ; 

 pitch pine, two feet four inches ; two feet six inches ; two feet 

 six and one-half inches ; two feet nine inches ; two feet ten 

 inches. The average circumference may be estimated at one 

 foot nine inches. Several young trees are springing up beneath 

 this little artificial forest, and the original plantation, beginning 

 to produce seed, will soon cause a perceptible difference in the 

 nature of the plain." 



These plants were probably four or five years old when trans- 

 planted. We thus find them of a diameter of from seven to 

 ten or eleven inches, or an average of seven for all, in about 

 twenty-five years. Mr. Russell recommends " to transplant 

 when the new shoot or growth is about half an inch in length." 



Young trees in every stage of growth may be found along the 

 borders of pine woods, particularly on the edges of ponds and 

 the sandy banks of streams. In the first year, they rarely ex- 

 ceed three or four inches in height ; in the second, they some- 

 what more than double their growth, but still look very slender 

 and delicate ; in the third year, they begin to assume some ap- 

 pearance of vigor, and often reach the height of eighteen inches 

 or two feet. For the first two or three years the leaves are 

 single ; afterwards they appear in bundles from the axil of the 

 single leaves. After the third year, the growth in favorable 

 situations is rapid, sometimes at the rate of two or three feet a 

 year. The best age for transplanting is two or three years. 



The pitch pine has the great advantage of not being injuri- 

 ously, at least not fatally, affected by salt water. Michaux 

 observed it growing where the ground was overflowed by the 



