HARDWOOD RECORD 



33 



as Mr. Pond suggests, the lumber and allied interests should take 

 hold of the proposition, and offer it the assistance calculated to 

 stimulate its development, their profit would be enormous, and the 



permanent consumption of wood would be greatly increased. There 

 is hardly any other way in which effective opposition to the use of 

 substitutes could be more easily presented. 



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Forest trees and human beings possess certain traits in common. 

 Some are aggressive, while others cannot stand competition. It has 

 always been a feature of history tliat certain tribes of men have re- 

 treated to deserts or to bleak and inhospitable climates rather than 

 fight for and hold the good countries. The same rule holds with 

 forest trees. Some withdraw to tracts where competitors cannot 

 follow. 



The great and stately white pine is a vegetable coward ; but that 

 term must be used in a pretty wide sense to be whoUy applicable. 

 This tree was found in the original forests of America occupying 

 sandy tracts, rocky hills, and uninviting situations. In its long strug- 

 gle with competitors, it lost the rich valleys and fertile hills, and 

 retreated to situations where pursuit and competition would be less 

 vigorous. It found retreat easier than fighting. 



Some people suppose that the white pine occupies sand, swamp, and 

 rocks beca^Ee it likes those conditions best. The correctness of that 

 opinion is doubtful. Probably no tree "likes" poor soU, though 

 some are seldom found elsewhere. It is true that some have lived so 

 long in such situations that they have partly accommodated them- 

 selves to their environments, in seed bearing and in other ways; but 

 it is doubtful if it should be stated as a general proposition that any 

 trees seek poor places from choice. Back of their presence there, it 

 may be taken for granted that there is compulsion somewhere. 

 Seeking the Swamps 



Cypress is a vigorous tree, of gigantic bulk and long life; but it fled 

 to the southern swamps while the white pine was taking refuge on 

 sandy tracts and rocky ridges in the North; and it fled from the 

 same enemy — other trees which demanded the best lands. 



The southern white cedar, which grows from New Jersey to Florida 

 along the coast, has likewise taken refuge in swamps, and tupelo gum 

 has done likewise, and so has water elm, though it is not of much im- 

 portance anywhere. 



The mangrove tree is one of the best known instances of trees 

 which literally ' ' got off the earth. ' ' It grows in the water- along the 

 shores of southern Florida, and has done it for a period so long that 

 its seeds have lost any land habits they ever had, and are now 

 adapted to water planting only. 



The SO0THER.N- Pines 



The southern pines resist competition feebly. The longleaf pine. 

 which sticks to the sandy land more closely than some of the others, 

 is a poor fighter for space. It is the opinion of some good botanists 

 that if left to its own resources, witli no human help, it could not 

 hold its present ground many hundred years. Grass would choke the 

 seedlings, and broadleaf trees would finally take possession. It is 

 believed that before the white man's coming, it was the Indian's 

 yearly fire that enabled the longleaf pine to hold its ground. The 

 fires burned the grass and the broadleaf seedlings, but the pines man- 

 aged to survive the scorchings sufficiently to perpetuate themselves, 

 though the stands were usually quite thin. 



There is agreement among olil writers that lobloUy or old field pine 

 in Virginia and North Carolina was scarce at the time of the first 

 settlements. It was chiefly found near the coast and the mouths of 

 the tidal rivers, to which localities it had apparently been crowded 

 by the hardwoods. After the hardwood forests had been cleared to 

 make plantations, and the plantations had been worn out by cultiva- 

 tion and abandoned, the lobolly pine found competition removed and 

 then spread- inland, and is today more plentiful than it was three 

 hundred years ago. It could not spread until man cleared the way 

 for it. 



, Ridge Timber 



The pitch pine of the eastern states, which lias various names in 

 different regions from Massachusetts to Tennessee, can hold no fertile 

 ground. Other trees crowd it out. It retreats to poor tracts where 

 its most vigorous pursuers will not follow. It will grow where even 

 white pine cannot hold out against adversity. It takes possession of 

 sterile ridges, where the soil is dry and thin. Forest fires do not 

 often hurt it, and it is safe in its poverty. 



A still more noted instance of a cowardly tree, if there ever were one, 

 is the scrub pine, also called Jersey pine, a small, jiuny tree, of poor 

 form and pitiful appearance, a very Lazarus of the forest, willing 

 to subsist on the ' ' crumbs ' ' that fall from other "s tables. It grows 

 in New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and further 

 south and west. It creeps into open spaces, and is the companion of 

 sa-safras aud huckleberry bushes. Old worn-out, gullied fields appeal 

 to this pine, because little else will grow there, and it is not obliged 

 to fight for room. 



In course of time, however, as the impoverished soil begins to re- 

 cover, broadleaf seedlings come in. As these increase in size, the 

 scrub pines die, and finally disappear. Though they have been in 

 full possession of the ground, they are unable to hold it against 

 competitors. 



Bro.vdle.\f Trees 



As a rule, the broadleaf trees are better fighters for ground than 

 the soft woods. The trees which bear broad leaves — that is, the hard- 

 woods — have been the principal means of driving the pines, cedars, 

 and cypresses to sand, rocks, and swamps. The hardwoods are handi- 

 capped, however, by their inability to prosper on poor soil. They 

 can crowd their competitors off the fertile land, but cannot follow 

 with much vigor upon sterile soil. 



The oaks may be classed as the strongest of all trees: that is, they 

 can hold their own in more kinds of soil than most others. But there 

 is great difference in this respect among the fifty-odd kinds of oak 

 in this country. The wiUow oak and the water oak, for example, can 

 follow the cypress to the very edge of the swamjj in which it takes 

 refuge from their pursuit; but they cannot follow the white pine, 

 pitch pine, and table mountain pine very high on the hills. The chest- 

 nut oak, on the other hand, can grow on ridges about as barren as 

 those where the pitch pine makes its last stand. Like the pitch pine, 

 the che.=tnut oak is about as nearly proof agiiinst forest fires as any 

 tree. 



Other oaks arc able to maintain themselves on very poor land. The 

 Imr oak is one of' them. It is usually the last broadleaf tree to dis- 

 appear from hardwood tracts, within its range, that are repeatedly 

 and severely burned. 



Age .\xd Adversitv 



It is believeil that the first trees on earth were tlie softwoods or 

 the needle-leaf species. They had full possession once, if that theory 

 is true. When the broad-leaf trees appeared, in the course of ages, 

 they had to fight for every acre they got. Up to the present time 

 they have succeeded in taking most of the fertile land, but the ancient 

 species, the softwoods, are yet able to hold the poor places. 



Pines, spruces, cypresses, and other softwoods flourish on fertile 

 land when given a chance. This is shown by the vigor of planted 

 and protected trees, in parks and in woodlots. It appears evident that 

 the softwoods did not betake themselves to sand, rocks, and swamps 

 because they liked those places better, but because they were driven 

 there by competition which they could not successfully meet. 



