CONIFEROUS FORESTS 343 



covered with a worthless scrub of birch, aspen, bird cherry, and other 

 fireweed trees, averaging about ten feet tall. 



The white pine is one of the world's most important timber trees. 

 It was originally so abundant, and its wood is so easily worked, that it 

 has been used for almost every purpose that does not require great 

 strength, hardness or durability. Millions of houses have been built 

 of it, and probably hundreds of millions of dry-goods boxes. On 

 account of its growing within easy reach of some of the oldest and most 

 thickly settled parts of this country the value of its lumber which has 

 been placed on the market in the last 300 years doubtless exceeds that 

 of any other North American tree. 8 At the present time the leading 

 states in the production of white pine lumber are Minnesota, Wisconsin, 

 Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York and 

 North Carolina, in the order named. But if the figures for the last 

 census had been computed on a basis of equal areas, Massachusetts 

 would rank first, New Hampshire second, and Minnesota third. 



The Red or "Norway " Pine (Pinus resinosa) has a range approxi- 

 mately concentric with that of the white pine, but smaller. It is con- 

 fined to the glaciated region, except that it has been reported from two 

 or three counties in central Pennsylvania and one in West Virginia. 

 In some places in the neighborhood of the upper Great Lakes it forms 

 pure stands with little undergrowth, 9 something like the long-leaf pine 

 forests of the south; but it is more commonly mixed with jack pine, 

 white pine, or other trees. It grows in dry, usually sandy soil, nearly 

 devoid of humus. Its climatic relations are perhaps sufficiently indi- 

 cated by its distribution. 



This species withstands fire almost as well as some of the southern 

 pines to be discussed later, and it resembles them in general appearance, 

 too. In mature trees the branches and foliage are too high up to be 

 injured by ground fires, and the bark is thick enough to be reasonably 

 fireproof. But even when the bark is burned through by a severe fire, 

 making a large scar, the tree is not necessarily killed. At what age it 

 becomes immune to brush fires has not been determined, but in the 

 devastated pine lands of Michigan above mentioned there are many 

 vigorous red pine saplings among the birches and aspens, as well as 

 occasional tall trees of the same species which must have survived many 

 fires. 



The wood is so similar to that of the white pine that it is not usually 



s For valuable notes on the economic history of this and other pines see 

 Bulletin 99 of the U. S. Forest Service, by Hall and Maxwell, 1911. 



9 There are two illustrations of such forests in Minnesota in The Popular 

 Science Monthly for November, 1912 (p. 535), and another on page 10 of a 

 report on the Wood-using industries of Minnesota published by the State Forestry 

 Board in 1913. 



