156 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. conifers. 



to land-owners in central and southern France in the expectation that its cultivation on sterile soil 

 would increase the prosperity of the country. 1 It has not, however, flourished in Europe, where only 

 a few of the trees planted at that time survive in southwestern France 2 and in northern Italy. 3 



Invaded from every direction by the axe, a prey to fires which weaken the mature trees, destroy 

 tender saplings and young seedlings, and impoverish the soil, 4 wasted by the pasturage of domestic 

 animals, 5 and destroyed for the doubtful profits of the turpentine industry, the forests of Long-leaved 

 Pines, 6 more valuable in their products and in their easy access than any other Pine forests in the world, 

 appear hopelessly doomed to lose their commercial importance at no distant day. 



1 See Annates de Fromont, ii. 308 (Rapport fait a la Societe Roy ale matter raked away from the tapped trees to protect the boxes from 

 et Centrale d' Agriculture, par F. A. Michaux, Sur le Pinus austra- accidental conflagrations. These fires often spread widely, killing 

 lis). — Annales de la Societe d' Horticulture de Paris, 1831, 192. — young trees, and stunting the growth of older ones, and burning 

 Soulange-Bodin, Annales de Fromont, ii. 381 (Observations sur la deeply into the gashes made in the trees of abandoned turpentine 

 Culture du Pinus australis) ; iii. 176 (Resultat de Semis de Pinus orchards, hasten their death or so weaken them that they fall with 

 australis). — Annales de Fromont, ii. 377. — Ivoy, Annales de Fro- the first gale. (See Ashe, Bull. No. 7, North Carolina Geolog. 

 mont, iv. 284. — Me'ron, Rev. Hort. 1841, 51. (See, also, Journal Surv. [Forest Fires : Their Destructive Work, Causes, and Preven- 

 d' Horticulture Pratique de Victor Paquet, i. 280. — Poiteau, Rev. tion\.) 



Hort. 1843, 109.) 5 Cattle have been turned into the Pine forests of the south 



2 M. L. de Vilmorin, Garden and Forest, x. 112, f. 14. since white men inhabited the country ; indirectly pasturage has 



3 Nicholson, Garden and Forest, ii. 567. inflicted enormous injury to these forests through fires set in the 



4 Fires, which have long ravaged the forests of Long-leaved spring when the Pine seeds are germinating to burn off the old 

 Pine, threaten their extermination. Lighted in early spring in all herbage. The direct loss by cattle breaking down young trees and 

 parts of the maritime Pine belt, first by the Indians and then by by biting off their tops is also considerable. Hogs, which in the 

 their white successors to improve the scanty pasturage of the forest southern states are habitually pastured in the forest, inflict great 

 floor, they are gradually consuming the fertility of the soil and injury on the Long-leaved Pine forests by devouring the sweet 

 destroying all seedling Pines and other undergrowth, and seedlings seeds of this tree, of which they are particularly fond, and by dig- 

 and young plants are now scarce except in regions which have been ging up the seedlings for their thick succulent tap-roots, which 

 protected by natural barriers. Fires are especially destructive in they also find palatable. 



the forests which are worked for turpentine, where they are set in 6 Pinus palustris is also often called Georgia Pine, Yellow Pine, 



spring for the purpose of destroying chips and other combustible Hard Pine, and Pitch Pine. 



EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 



Plate DLXXXIX. Pinus palustris. 



1. A cluster of staminate flowers, natural size. 



2. Diagram of the involucre of the staminate flower. 



3. An involucre of a staminate flower, enlarged. 



4. An anther, front view, enlarged. 



5. An anther, side view, enlarged. 



6. An end of a branch with pistillate flowers, natural size. 



7. A scale of a pistillate flower, lower side, with its bract, enlarged. 



8. A scale of a pistillate flower, upper side, with its ovules, enlarged. 



9. A scale of a pistillate flower, side view, enlarged. 



10. Tip of a leaf, enlarged. 



11. Cross section of a leaf, magnified fifteen diameters. 



12. A terminal winter branch-bud, natural size. 



Plate DXC. Pinus palustris. 



1. A fruiting branch, natural size. 



2. A cone one year old, natural size. 



3. A cone-scale, lower side, natural size. 



4. A seed, natural size. 



5. Vertical section of a seed, enlarged. 



6. An embryo, enlarged. 



7. A seedling plant, natural size. 



