240 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NEW JERSEY. 



a hundred years old and are not more than five or six inches in 

 diameter. Hard and prickly cones are produced in large num- 

 bers with imperfectly formed seeds. Quercus pumila* the 

 scrub or bear-oak, and the Jersey laurel f {Kalmia latifolid], are 

 abundant. There are also many interesting herbaceous plants 

 or low shrubby plants, such as the pyxie, the bearberry and the 

 trailing arbutus. 



The only tradition attached to these wind-swept, sun-scorched 

 plains is that they have always been treeless. They are often 

 dreary and black from the effects of fire, but soon Nature covers 

 them with a blanket of green, and they glow in season with the 

 bloom of wild flowers. It is always, however, a lonely place, 

 and is seldom visited save by natives, who come to gather the 

 stumps of the pines, which are full of pitch and excellent for 

 fuel. 



The Plains's condition is mainly due to fires, which are very 

 common, and which have doubtless burned for many years, 

 probably since the days of the Indian who often passed that way 

 en route to the sea-shore. In the Coastal Plain, all gradations 

 from a healthy pine forest to the scrubby plains may be seen. 

 In fact, through the effects of fire other regions are rapidly 

 becoming plains-like in character. This particular region has 

 first become plains, because it is hilly and higher in altitude. 

 It suffers more from drought, and in consequence has been more 

 easily changed by fire. It is not unlikely on the other hand 

 that the Plains have never been forested and that for ages 

 Nature has been striving to cover them with trees, but fails 

 owing to fires and the dryness of the soil. The plains region 



* The scrub or bear oak ( Quercus pumila formerly Q. ilicifolia) is very common but never reaches 

 the dimensions of a tree. It endures extremely adverse conditions and bears immense quantities of small 

 acorns. It is an excellent protection to the soil which would be otherwise bare, although it furnishes 

 food for fires. Its mast is relished by swine and other animals. It is sometimes cut for umbrella handles 

 and canes. Many of these scrub-oak regions are excellent places for pheasantries. Both the partridge 

 (Colinus virginianus) and the pheasant (Bonasa umbellus) are fond of its acorns. The Heath or 

 the Prairie Hen (Tympanuchus cupidd), which is now extinct except on Martha's Vineyard Island, 

 inhabited, it is said, the Plains of New Jersey up to 1868. Although not introduced for forestry pur- 

 poses, the scrub-oak is quite common in parts of France. 



tThe laurel is a beautiful evergreen, slow-growing shrub, which thrives on barren land in spite of 

 fire. The rich white and pink corymbs of this plant mixed with its coriaceous leaves are abundant and 

 attractive. In rich damp woods it often reaches the dimensions of a small tree, and its wood, as with 

 the crooked limbs of the red cedar, is extensively used in the construction of "rustic work," a term 

 applied to fences, paviliocs and garden furniture made of the crooked limbs and roots of several species 

 of trees and shrubs. 



