194 FORESTS OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



The thick groves, particularly those of the loblolly pine, 

 might well be thinned. Very lightly at first, if the stand is very 

 thick, and the thinning repeated after several years. If the 

 stand is not so thick a correspondingly light cutting will be 

 required. Seeding pines should be left around every cultivated 

 field which in time may be abandoned, so that when cultivation 

 ceases it may quickly be seeded in self-sown pine seed, and the 

 young pines serve as a protection to prevent the washing away 

 of the soil as so much of it is now destroyed. 



The loblolly pine can be grown in a pure forest on all the 

 moister soils of this division. The short-leaf pine does well in a 

 pure growth on the better soils. On the poorer soils all the 

 groves of untended trees now have too open a stand. This may 

 be due entirely to external influences ; in many places it is 

 evidently traceable to fires. If this be due in certain cases to the 

 natural thinning out of the pine on such soils as the trees become 

 of large size, in all such cases underplanting will have to be 

 resorted to. 



FORESTS OF THE SLATE SOILS. 



The geological formation of crystalline schists and slates, which 

 extends from Person county south westward to Union, yields two 

 extreme types of soils, each supporting characteristic growth. 

 The first of these to be here described is the less suited for the 

 growth of trees, and has woods of pine and small broad-leaf trees ; 

 the second produces woods cf broad-leaf trees of a larger class and 

 no pine, and will be described further on in considering the belt 

 of red and gray loams which lies next to the west. 



The first soil referred to as being a characteristic one over a 

 large part of these counties is a usually shallow, close and stiff, 

 yellow loam, sometimes superficially sandy, derived from gray or 

 yellow slates, and is nearly confined to the southern counties : 

 Randolph, Stanly, Montgomery, and Union. The topography of the 

 districts where such soil is found is simple, the surface nearly flat 

 or gently rolling. Throughout it is ill-drained, and the variation 

 in the growth is incidental to the thoroughness of the drainage. 

 Where better drained the forest resembles a two-storied high for- 

 est. The upper story consists of a rather open growth of short- 



