FORESTS OF THE PINE BELT. 



ing a foothold. Fishermen's houses have been destroyed by these 

 moving dunes and their sites obliterated, and others are menaced 

 by them. Considerable areas of forest have been destroyed by the 

 roots of trees being deeply covered with sand or the entire forest 

 buried, thus increasing the extent of the shifting dunes. Occa- 

 sional clumps of prickly ash and devilwood, which put forth adven- 

 titious roots from the young twigs as they are partly covered by the 

 sand, or -thickets of shrubby live oak, plum, and shrubs which 

 sucker freely, maintain themselves in some places for many years. 

 All oaks, except the youngest, are killed by such moving dunes. 

 Ked cedar, holly, palmetto, mock-orange and myrtle, not rooting 

 from the young wood, are quickly destroyed by the covering of 

 sand. 



A maritime dune, over two miles in length and twenty feet in 

 height, is now moving across Smith's Island, which lies at the 

 mouth of the Cape Fear river. Starting in the southwest part of 

 the island, and moving to the northward, it has already destroyed 

 the forest along the southern edge of the island. 



Commercially these forests are unimportant except where they 

 produce, on some of the islands, a limited number of red cedar 

 posts. Their protection is worthy of consideration, however, as 

 they act as a safeguard in preventing the formation of inlets 

 which would impair existing water-ways. 



THE FORESTS OF THE PINE BELT. 



These forests extend from within a few miles of the sea coast 

 inland to near the western limits of the coastal plain region, and 

 embrace the greater portion of the economic forests of the region 

 as well as cover the greater part of its area. 



FOREST TREES. 



The pines growing in this pine belt are the long-leaf, the lob- 

 lolly, the pond and in some places the short-leaf. They are for 

 the most part confined to the uplands, and form the dominant 

 growth with broad-leaf trees beneath them, or occur as a pure 

 growth. Other coniferous or resinous trees found are the cypress, 

 white cedar, and red cedar, all of which in the original forests are 



