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HARDWOOD RECORD 



AMERICAN FOREST TREES. 



Shortleaf or Yellow Pine. 



Pin us cchinata — Mill. 

 Pinus mitis — Michx. 



This tree flourishes from New York to 

 northern Florida; through West Virginia and 

 Tennessee and the Gulf states, southern Mis- 

 souri and eastern Texas. 



In the states of New York, New Jersey, 

 Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Caro- 

 lina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisi- 

 ana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, 

 Indiana, Kansas and Ohio it is 

 known as yellow pine ; in North and 

 South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, 

 Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, 

 Texas and Arkansas as shortleaf 

 pine; in Virginia as bull pine; in 

 Delaware as shortshat pine; in Mis- 

 souri as pitch pine; in Florida as 

 poor pine; in North Carolina as 

 shortleaved and rosemary pine, also 

 as North Carolina yellow pine and 

 Carolina pine; as slash pine in Vir- 

 ginia- in Alabama and Mississippi 

 as oldfield pine. 



Shortleaf pine ranges in height 

 from forty to a hundred and twenty 

 feet. In shape it is pyramidal, with 

 spreading, regular branches which 

 give it a stately appearance. Louns- 

 bery says: "Dark, but clear 

 against the autumn sky, this hand- 

 some tree raises itself on the sandy 

 hills, or in the flat meadows. It 

 breathes a sense of sturdiness. Often 

 we see its leaves so clothed with . 

 .lust that the very life of their 

 coloring appears to be gone; then 

 they are washed by the rain and 

 their sombre brightness is re- 

 stored." 



The leaves are from three to. five 

 inches long ; dark green in color.and 

 growing closely along the branches 

 in groups of two or three; they are 

 needle-shaped and .very slender; 

 hollowed on one side and rounded on 

 the other; remaining always green; 

 sheathed at the base. 



The branchlets are purplish-green ; 

 stout and waxy when young. The 

 bark is brown; it is very rough and 

 much broken into discs. The tree 

 blooms in May or June, and its fruit 

 is a cone about two inches long, 

 solitary, with scales thick at the 

 apex and tipped with a prickle 

 which disappears soon after maturity. 



The bulk of the country's supply of hard 

 pine is obtained from the longleaf, short- 

 leaf, Cuban and loblolly species of the Gulf 

 and south Atlantic states. It differs from 

 soft pine in that it is much stronger, heav- 

 ier, tougher and more resinous, and the an- 

 nual rings are much more pronounced. Eoth 

 ' says that no method of invariably distin- 

 guishing these several species of wood has 



FORTT-FQTJRTH PAPER. 



ever been discovered. Any or all of them 

 may be delivered in response to a demand 

 for southern hard pine. Many lumbermen 

 regard shortleaf pine as good as longleaf of 

 equal weight and can identify the two only 

 by environment. The name mitis as applied 

 to the former species refers only to the soft, 

 delicate foliage of the tree. 



Shortleaf pine is valuable and ornamental 



TYPICAL FOREST GROWTH SHORTLEAF PINE, 

 ARKANSAS. 



fur interior trimmings, flooring, ceiling, ship 

 building and construction work. When used 

 for fuel it gives off great heat and burns 

 with a large, brilliant flame. The grain of 

 the wood is exceedingly handsome, showing 

 long streaks of deep gold, though perhaps not 

 so rich in coloring as the wood of Pinus 

 palustris, or longleaf pine. It is closely 

 grained and of variable quality. 



Sogers says that in the lumber trade of 

 the eastern and southern states the shortleaf 

 ranks next to the longleaf pine as one of the 

 most important lumber trees. Just a shade 

 inferior to the former in quality, this species 

 is likely, by its vigor and wide range, to be- 

 come greatest of them all in economic im- 

 portance as the exploitation of the timber 

 lands of the South progresses. Against the 

 destructive agencies at work the 

 longleaf cannot hold its own. Its 

 ultimate extinction must follow 

 present methods of lumbering and 

 orcharding. But the shortleaf pine, 

 less sensitive to injuries, more pro- 

 lific of seeds, able to renew itself 

 indefinitely by throwing up suckers 

 from the stump, and to survive 

 shading of its saplings better than 

 the longleaf and Cuban pines, has 

 a distinct advantage over these, its 

 compeers, in the South and East. 

 The distribution of the species is 

 over a vaster area, and each grove 

 is the center of a growing and 

 widening territory. It industriously 

 colonizes adjacent land abandoned 

 by the farmer or' the lumberman. 

 In a free fight with hardwood trees 

 this pine is the wiuner, and the 

 young forests it is planting will be 

 marketable in eighty to a hundred 

 years. The forest center of this 

 species is west of the Mississippi 

 and below the Arkansas river. This 

 great tract was practically un- 

 touched at the time the tenth 

 Census Eeport, issued in 1SS0, esti- 

 mated its merchantable timber then 

 standing at 87,000,000,000 feet 

 board measure. This counted only 

 the area in Texas, Louisiana and 

 Arkansas, and left out the forests 

 in Missouri and Oklahoma. There 

 is little of the vast eastern territory 

 once covered by the shortleaf pine 

 that has not been worked to some 

 extent by lumbermen, especially 

 where railroads made possible the 

 distribution of the lumber. In the 

 past twenty-five years astonishing 

 inroads have been made on the 

 southwestern forests. 



In regard to the qualities of the 

 wood, lumber of Pinus echinata is 

 often preferred to that manufac- 

 tured from Pinus palustris, because 

 the latter is harder, and is there- 

 fore more difficult to work. Sash, blinds, 

 doors and interior finish are made from the 

 wood. It is steadily growing in popularity 

 for trim in moderate priced houses, and is 

 an especially attractive finish for bedrooms. 

 The picture with which this article is il- 

 lustrated was made in one of the finest belts 

 of shortleaf yellow pine in the country run- 

 ning through southern Arkansas. 



