Cause of Decay of Timber in South Carolina. 41 



Supplement to the foregoing. 



The cause of the rapid and alanning decay of the pine 

 timber in South CaroUna, is an insect or bug which was 

 first observed in the northern and eastern parts of the 

 State about six years since. It is a small black winged 

 bug resembling the weavil, but somewhat larger. A 

 great number of these bugs have been observed in the 

 spring of the year, and early in the summer, flying near 

 the roots of the trees : they pierce the bark a little dis- 

 tance above the ground, and lay their eggs between the 

 bark and wood ; in a few weeks after, these eggs hatch, 

 and a worm appears, which at its full growth, is about 

 an inch long: they immediately begin to feed on the 

 sappy part of the tree, and do not cease eating until the 

 whole of it is destroyed. 



Very considerable injury has been done by these in- 

 sects to the pines of South Carolina. In one place, viz. 

 on the Sampit creek, near Georgetown, in a tract of two 

 thousand acres of pine land, it has been calculated that 

 ninety trees in every hundred have been destroyed by 

 this pernicious insect; the adjoining lands, and many 

 tracts on the Santee and Black rivers have equally suf- 

 fered. The fact of an oak springing up in the place of 

 a fallen pine tree, and of the latter appearing when the 

 former is cut, in the southern States, is known to eveiy 

 one there. 



The indelicacy of the Edinburgh reviewers in ex- 

 pressing their disbelief of the fact related by M' Kenzie, 

 is the more inexcusable, inasmuch as their own country 

 exhibits a glaring fact analogous to that of the intrepid 

 voyager. I allude to the production of white clover, 



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