40 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION OP THE 



After logging operations on longleaf pine lands, loblolly 

 pine often regenerates extensively. This is due chiefly to 

 its large annual production of seed and to its rapid height 

 growth at the start, which enables it the better to get beyond 

 reach of fires. Experience has shown that young pines are not 

 usually destroyed by fire after they have reached a height 

 of about 12 feet. Longleaf pine, on the other hand, pro- 

 duces a seed crop only at intervals of from four to eight 

 years, and its height growth is very slow during the first 

 four or five years. The odds, then, are clearly against the 

 longleaf, notwithstanding that its seedlings are more fire- 

 resistant than the loblolly. Hogs also destroy a great many 

 longleaf seedlings by digging up and eating the tender roots. 



Windstorms do the most serious damage to standing 

 trees in the longleaf pine forest. This is especially the case 

 near the Gulf coast. In September, 1906, owners of forest 

 land in the southeastern part of the State suffered enormous 

 losses from wind-thrown timber. From 30 to 90 per cent of 

 the merchantable timber was blown down on a strip of 

 country about 50 miles wide and 1 50 miles long. Fortunate- 

 ly, the storm occurred in the fall, a season when insects 

 and fungi do not work in fallen timber. The owners, there- 

 fore, had six or seven months in which to work up the wind- 

 thrown trees, and probably 30 per cent of the timber was 

 saved. A heavy storm during the autumn 01 1909 caused 

 a great deal of loss in the southeastern part of the State. 

 This storm was most destructive in Louisiana. 



Mixed Pine and Hardwoods Type. — This type occurs 

 along the western and northern borders of the piney woods. 

 In southwest Mississippi it extends from western Amite and 

 eastern Wilkinson Counties through central Franklin and 

 southwestern Copiah Counties. On the north it is found in 

 a narrow strip of country which is transitional between the 

 piney woods and the shortleaf and loblolly pine uplands of 

 the south central region. 



West of the Pearl River the country occupied by this 

 type is usually rolling, though in some sections the stirface 

 is extremely hilly. The level portions have long l:)een under 



