4 JOURNAL OF THE 



with what difficulties a tree has to strug-gle, under the 

 chaii^^ed condition of civilization, in order to grow up 

 and reach maturity. They also show the pressing" 

 need for a more efficient, or at least common sense, 

 method of dealing with our forest lands if there are in 

 the future to be any forests. 



A brief statement of the facts noted in regard to 

 these pine lands, summarized from the same bulletin, 

 will serve to show the deplorable condition of these 

 lands at the present time and how they were when 

 covered with virgin forests. 



There are four pines found in the eastern section of 

 North Carolina. Only two of these are, however, gen- 

 erally enough distributed to be of economic importance. 

 These are Piffiis paliistris (Miller) the long leaf pine 

 and Pimis taeda (Linne) the loblolly pine, called in 

 eastern North Carolina short leaf or old field pine. 

 The loblolly pine has numerous close allies in eastern 

 America and Europe, thoug-h it is a very distinct tree 

 from any of these. Its growth in the virgfin forest is 

 conlined to the wet margins of the swamps, to "ham- 

 mocks" in the swamps and to the moister lands with 

 sand or loamy soils, even when sometimes immersed. 



The long leaf pine has in North Carolina reached 

 the farthest northerly extension of emy pine in its sub- 

 section of the g-enus Pinus. Taking the sum of like 

 morpholog-ical characters as expressing the greatest 

 relationship and starting with the white pines, which 

 are the most northerly distributed pines of America, it 

 will be found that the sub-section of the genus Pinus, 

 to which the long leaf pine belongs, is farthest from 

 the white pines, /. c, heis fewer like characters in com- 

 mon, and at the same time has tlie most southerly ex- 

 tension ol any pines of America. The congenitor of 



