EI^ISHA MITCHELIy SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. 5 



the long- leaf pine is the Cuban pine, Pinus cnbensis 

 (Goert) which is found in Florida, Georgia, and the 

 West Indies, while other nearly allied species are found 

 in Mexico and the tropics. 



Byrd, Lawson,^ and the other early historians and 

 eulogizers of eastern North Carolina unanimously as- 

 sert that the long leaf pine extended over all the higher 

 sandy land from Nansemond county, Virginia, south- 

 ward. It was abundant in Hertford, Perquimans and 

 Gates counties, where a tree of this species is rarely 

 ever seen now, and through Bertie county which was 

 then called the "Pine Forest" and which is now cov- 

 ered with a heavy growth of loblolly pine. Long leaf 

 pines must have been common in the Pamlico peninsu- 

 lar as tar kiln mounds, now covered with large trees 

 of other species, are frequently seen as one rides along 

 the road. Within the last fifty years the upland for- 

 ests of Wilson, Edgecombe and the northern section of 

 Wayne counties were composed almost entirely of long 

 leaf pine, while at the present time the loblolly pine 

 has g-otten possession of this land wherever the soil 

 was sufficiently moist to support the growth. South 

 of the Neuse river over the rolling- dry sandy soil of the 

 "pine barrens" the long leaf pine held undisputed pos- 

 session. These lands are two poor and dry for the 

 loblolly pine to grow upon until the soil has been cul- 

 tivated and fertilized. The only tree which disputed 

 the control of these lands, with the long leaf pine, was 

 a small oak, the sand black jack oak, ^iiercus cates- 

 boei (Michx) which is w^orthless for all timber purposes. 

 As the long leaf pine after having been worked for tur- 

 pentine was burnt off of these tracts or was cut for 



* Byrd writing in 1728- Lawson in 1701. 



