198 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



do not thrive in shade. Proofs of this can be seen in many 

 places in the coastal plain, where fire is barred by the topography, 

 as on bluffs bordering swamps ; or by water, as on islands and 

 narrow-necked peninsulas. Such places, in which the soil must 

 have been originally much the same as in the neighbouring pine 

 forests, are nearly always occupied by what is known as 

 " hammock " vegetation, consisting mostly of hardwood trees, 

 which make a rather dense shade and cover the ground with 

 humus. ^ 



Few trees in the world are used by more people or in more 

 different ways than the long-leaf pine. For strength and 

 durability combined its wood has no superior among the pines, 

 and it ranks equally high as a fuel. The same tree is our chief 

 source of " naval stores " {i.e., turpentine and rosin).- In the 

 regions where it abounds, the log cabin of the small farmer and 

 the mansion of the wealthy lumberman or naval-stores operator 

 are mostly built (from sills to shingles), painted, fenced and 

 heated with the products of this tree. It supplies cross-ties, 

 bridges, depots, cars and freight to many railroads, and motive 

 power to some.^ The masts, decks and cargo of many a 

 schooner on the Atlantic Ocean are of this species, and some of 

 the busiest streets of our large cities have been paved with 

 blocks of its wood in the last few years. Turpentine and lamp- 

 black from it are found in every drug-store. 



As this pine grows mostly in comparatively level ground and 

 almost unmixed with other trees, it has been cut as ruthlessly 

 and wastefully as the northern white pine, and most of the once 

 magnificent forests of it are now scenes of desolation. Although 



^ The idea that fire is essential to the long-leaf pine has been expressed 

 long ago by a few other observers in the south, but has never been generally 

 accepted by writers on forestry, most of whom live in regions where the 

 normal frequency of forest fires is much less. For more extended discussions 

 of the problem see Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, vol. xxxviii. pp. 515-525, 1911 ; 

 Geol. Surv. Ala. Monog.. vol. viii. pp. 25-27, 83, Jane 1913 ; Literary Digest, 

 vol. xlvii. p. 208, August 9, 1913 ; American Forestry, vol. xix. pp. 667-669, 

 October 1913. 



- The old method of extracting turpentine has been described in The 

 Popular Science Monthly for April iSS/j and February 1896 ; and the modern 

 cup and gutter method by Dr C. H. Herty, the inventor thereof, in Bulletin 40 

 of the U.S. Bureau of Forestry, 1903. 



^ A generation ago pine wood seems to have been the prevailing fuel for 

 locomotives in the coastal plain, but most of the railroads have had to abandon 

 it on account of its growing scarcity. 



