THE CONIFEROUS FORESTS OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. I 99 



some other pines are mixed with it in the census returns, it is 

 probably safe to say that at the present time the annual cut of 

 it exceeds that of any other North American tree. Of the 

 2,736,756,000 feet of "yellow pine" cut in Louisiana and 

 1,100,840,000 feet cut in Florida in 1909, probably at least 

 75 per cent, was of this species. 



The future prospects for it seem brighter than those of the 

 white pine, for as already pointed out, it is not affected much by 

 fire, the greatest scourge of some of the northern forests. The 

 long-leaf pine's worst enemy at present is the farmer, who in the 

 last two or three decades has been taking possession of the 

 once despised sandy pine lands very rapidly. 1 Notwithstanding 

 the comparative poverty of the soil, the ease with which it can be 

 cultivated and the mild climate are powerful attractions ; and 

 where the soil is given over to agriculture the production of 

 timber of course stops.- 



The Pond Cypress {Taxodtum imbricaruim or ascendens) is 

 confined to the coastal plain, from eastern North Carolina 

 (perhaps as far north as the Dismal Swamp) to southern Florida 

 (south end of the Everglades) and eastern Louisiana. It 

 extends over 150 miles inland in the Carolinas and Georgia, but 

 apparently not over 100 miles in Alabama or 60 miles in 

 Mississippi. It seems to be most abundant in Georgia, where it 

 does not form large forests, but is often the dominant tree over 

 several acres, especially in Okefinokee Swamp, where it seems to 

 attain its maximum dimensions.^ 



It grows in poor soils, usually sand, inundated part of the 

 year, but rarely if ever to a greater depth than 5 or 6 feet. 

 (High-water mark is indicated by the height of the enlarged 

 base of the trunk rather than by the knees, which are less 



^ The "wire-grass country" of Georgia, an area of about 10,000 square 

 miles near the centre of the range of this tree, increased in population about 

 60 per cent, between 1890 and 1900, and 35 per cent, between 1900 and 1910, 

 which necessitated the creation of ten new counties in that part of the stale 

 since 1904. Somewhat similar developments have been taking place in the 

 corresponding parts of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi at the same time. 



^ For valuable information about the economic aspects of the long-leaf and 

 several other south-eastern pines, see Bulletin 13 of the Division of Forestry, 

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, by Dr Charles Mohr (1896 and 1897). 



^ ?>tt Science, II., vol. xvii. p. 508, March 27, 1903 ; Btdl. Torrey Bot. Club, 

 vol. xxxii. p. 113, 1905; Tke Popular Science Monthly, vol. Ixxiv. pp. 603, 

 604, 607, 612, June 1909 ; The Auk, vol. xxx. pp. 4S5-487, October 1913. 



