PIN US PAKVIFLOHA. 353 



1C very evening during the collecting season (in Carolina and Georgia) 

 the sky is illumined by a dull red glare, and in the daytime the 

 horizon is obscured by a thick veil of smoky haze. This is caused 

 by the turpentine workers. They leave immense areas of land, robbed 

 not only of its natural resources, but in a worse condition for cleaning 

 and culture than before their invasion. The loss from fire is 

 enormous ; the turpentine workers are so careless and indifferent as to 

 allow fires to run through the tracts they have worked. The 

 resin on the scarified surface of the trees burns like kerospne ; a 

 spark, a blaze, and all at once a disastrous conflagration sweeps 

 through the Pine forests with great fury, destroying millions of 

 feet of marketable timber, and leaving hundreds of acres a scene of 

 awful ruin.* 



Pinus palustris is by far the most valuable Pine of the Atlantic 

 States, and it is still the most abundant. It supplies nearly the 

 whole of the turpentine, pitch, tar and resin of American commerce 

 as well as for home consumption, and its timber is used for all 

 sorts of constructive purposes, including ship-building, house carpentry, 

 fencing, railway ties, etc. The wood is heavy, very hard, strong 

 and durable, but somewhat coarse -grained.-)- The valuable Pitch Pine 

 used in Great Britain for roofing and other constructions is obtained 

 wholly from this tree. The tops of young saplings with their tufts 

 of bright green foliage are used in New York and other large cities 

 ill the northern States for the decoration of churches and other 

 buildings in winter. 



It has long been -noted by the inhabitants dwelling near the Pine 

 Barrens that the cones of Pinus palustris are much more abundant 

 in some seasons than in others, fruitful seasons usually occurring at 

 intervals of three or four years ; even a complete failure of the crop 

 for several years in succession has been recorded. The seeds are 

 eagerly devoured by birds, squirrels, and other denizens of the forest. 

 Pinus palustris cannot be said to have a place in the British 

 Pinetum only under such exceptional climatic conditions as exist in 

 Devon and Cornwall and the southern counties of Ireland. Although 

 it has been in cultivation since 1730,:j: it is now but rarely seen in 

 this country. 



Pinus parviflora. 



A low or medium-sized tree, but sometimes attaining a height of 

 40 50 feet towards its southern limit, the trunk covered with smooth 

 greyish bark falling off in small thin scales, and with a pyramidal head 

 of spreading branches. In Great Britain the oldest trees have a bluntly 

 pyramidal head and leaden grey bark more or less corrugated by 

 resinous blisters. Branches in close-set pseudo-whorls, long and stout 

 in proportion to height and thickness of trunk, horizontal or slightly 



* L. J. Vance in Garden and 'Forest, VIII. 278. 

 f Sargent, Woods of the United States, p. 126. 

 Aiton, Hortus Kewensis, ed. II. Vol. V. p. 317. 



AA 



