252 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



the records of the United States 

 Weather Bureau, the average date of 

 the last killing frost is April 19, and 

 the latest recorded date in the spring is 

 May 13. The average date of the first 

 killing frost in autumn is October 19, 

 the earliest recorded date October 2. 

 If we take the average dates, the season 

 of growth is exactly six months, or 183 

 days, in length. The culmination of 

 the flowering season of pine barren 

 plants is in August, when a larger per- 

 centage of plants is in bloom than at 

 any other season of the year. 



An examination of the underground 

 systems of pine barren plants brings 

 out some important principles of plant 

 growth. The rainfall is sufficient dur- 

 ing the year for the superficially rooted 

 annuals and perennials, but there are 

 critical periods when no rain falls, and 

 then certain marvelous leaf structures, 

 which control loss of water, become ef- 

 ficient. With the deep-rooted trees it 

 is otherwise, for during the critical 

 period of dry weather their deep root 

 systems enable tliem to get a supply of 



water from the subsoil. These consider- 

 ations indicate that most of the pine 

 barren plants have methods of endur- 

 ing drought, or of evading or escaping 

 it.i 



Xo more inviting region in its almost 

 primeval conditions lies so accessible to 

 the busy dwellers in our large centers 

 of population, such as New York and 

 Philadelphia. The region, having a 

 salubrious climate, should attract the 

 health and pleasure seekers, and the 

 state of New Jersey should preserve in- 

 tact large stretches of the forest so that 

 the healthy and the sick, the wealthy 

 and the poor, can derive benefit from 

 the life-giving air of the pines. 



' The soils of the pine barren region are sandy 

 with a gravelly subsoil, and the rate of percolation 

 of water throvigh the layers of soil from different 

 localities shows that water passes through beach or 

 dune sand more quickly than through pine barren 

 sand, and through pine barren sands more rapidly 

 than through soils covered with a deciduous forest. 

 Experiments on the water-holding capacity of these 

 types of soils show that dune sand retains 33 per 

 cent of water which falls as rain, the pine barren 

 soils 45 per cent, and the deciduous forest soils 56 

 per cent. These matters are considered at some 

 length in The Vegetation of the New Jersey Pine 

 Barrens, by John W. Harshberger, published by 

 Christopher Sower Company, Philadelphia, 1916. 



This colonial log schoolhouse at Speedwell shows the style of old pine barren architecture and 

 construction. Photograph used through the courtesy of Professor Herbert N. Morse 



