186 FORESTS OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



other broad leaf trees, it must be kept in a thick stand until the 

 height-growth has been nearly completed to secure clean steins. 



FORESTS OF THE PIEDMONT UPLANDS. 



The upland forests of the Piedmont plateau region are of broad- 

 leaf species and pine, or of belts of broad-leaf trees with pine 

 alternating with belts of broad-leaf trees without pine, there 

 being no areas in the original forest, if some shallow granitic soils 

 he possible exceptions, which produce a pure growth of either a 

 broad-leaf or coniferous tree. 



The sequence of belts, with and without pine, continues 

 unchanged in this State to the northwestward as far as the east- 

 ern boundary of the mountain region in Surry, Wilkes, Caldwell, 

 and Burke counties; and to the southwest, crossing the Blue 

 Ridge, and with the difference between the pine and no-pine belts 

 more accentuated from the effect of elevation, occurs to northern 

 Georgia and eastern Tennessee. 



This succession 'of forest belts, or the presence or absence of 

 pine in the woods, depends on the variations in the character of 

 the soil, as to texture, as well as in mineral constituents, and 

 drainage. The belts of soil, following or coinciding with the 

 geological terraines, lie, in general, northeast and southwest 

 courses, though the interposition of dykes, particularly granite 

 dykes, to 'the eastward, has produced more limited belts lying at 

 various angles to these ; and not infrequently this occurs when the 

 order of the rock strata has been interrupted by the mere change 

 in the direction of the outcrop. While in the original forest the 

 areas of dissimilar growth are coextensive with certain classes of 

 soils, and the samp is more or less true of the aftergrowth in culled 

 and coppiced woodland, in the great body of second growth seed- 

 ling woods the effects of these differences in soil are largely 

 obscured or altogether lost. 



The most radical change which is taking place in the great body 

 of the woodland is the change of growth from pine and mixed 

 hardwoods to pure pine, by abandoned fields being seeded in pine y 

 the place of these fields being supplied for agricultural purposes 

 by farther encroachment on the hardwood areas. But where the 



