35o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Georgia to an altitude of about 3,000 feet, while Pinus Tceda grows from 

 Cape May to Arkansas, Texas and Central Florida, rarely more than 

 1,000 feet above sea-level. The former grows in dry soils somewhat 

 below the average in fertility, while the latter prefers or tolerates a little 

 more moisture and humus. Both are usually more or less mixed with 

 oaks and hickories, or with each other, so that opportunities for getting 

 satisfactory photographs of them are not very numerous. 



The distribution of P. echinata corresponds approximately with 

 mean temperatures of 55°-70°, and P. Tceda with about 60°-72°. The 

 latter does not seem to be capable of enduring temperatures much below 

 zero (Fahrenheit). It may be regarded more appropriately than any 

 other as the typical tree of the South. Where it abounds cotton is the 

 principal money crop, about half the population is colored, and a large 

 majority of the white voters are Democrats. In South Florida, where it 

 is unknown, there are no cotton fields, few negroes, few southern tra- 

 ditions, and many northern people; and substantially the same might 

 be said of the southern Appalachian region, western Texas, and several 

 otber places just outside of the range of this tree. 



Both species when mature have bark thick enough to withstand any 

 ordinary forest fire, and the dead leaves in the woods in which they 

 grow are likely to be burned nearly every year, with little apparent 

 injury to the trees. Trees of either species less than ten years old 

 probably suffer somewhat from fire, though. 



Both are very abundant and important timber trees, not far inferior 

 to the long-leaf pine mentioned below, and together they are now being 

 cut at the rate of several billion feet annually. Probably even more 

 trees have been cut by farmers than by lumbermen, for the soil in which 

 they grow is adapted to many staple crops. They reproduce themselves 

 very readily in abandoned fields, though, so that they are in no immedi- 

 ate danger of exhaustion. 



The Black Pins 15 (Pinus serotina), which looks very much like 

 P. Tcvda, but is more closely related to P. rigida (whose range it over- 

 laps very little if at all), is strictly confined to the sandier parts of the 

 coastal plain, where the summers are wetter than the winters. It is 

 frequent from southeastern Virginia to central Florida and southeastern 

 Alabama, but not very abundant except in eastern North Carolina, 

 where it is the dominant and characteristic tree of the "pocosins." Its 

 favorite habitat is sour sandy or peaty swamps, where the water-level 

 varies little throughout the year. 



Its relations to fire have not been specially investigated. Its wood 

 is similar to that of P. Tceda, from which it is not usually distinguished 

 in the lumber markets. 



is This is the name by which it goes in Georgia. In the books it is desig- 

 nated as ' ' pond pine, ' ' a rather inappropriate and perhaps wholly arbitrary 

 name. 



