CONDITION OF THE FORESTS OF THE PIEDMONT PLATEAU. 203 



Where neither the red cedar nor short-leaf pine appears in the 

 old fields, as in portions of Guilford, in Caswell, especially in the 

 valley of Country Line creek, in Rockingham and Forsyth coun- 

 ties, and to a less extent elsewhere, the scrub pine forms a large 

 portion of the regrowth in old fields, in many places forming com- 

 pact thickets of pure growth ; in others, thickets of the short-leaf 

 pine and scrub pine alternate. The two pines are sometimes 

 associated. When this is the case unless the short-leaf pine has 

 the advantage of a start of a few years growth, the scrub pine, 

 being the more rapid grower, will overshade it and suppress it. 

 Less frequently is the scrub pine associated with red cedar in 

 these groves. 



The scrub pine forms groves of pure growth on the granite 

 knolls which extend across the eastern edge of Cabarrus county 

 into Rowan, and the dissemination in the old fields has probably 

 been from the trees on these knolls and those growing along the 

 hills of the Haw and the Deep rivers, as the scrub pine is not 

 found at other places in this division in the original forest. 



Probably as much as one-third of the area of this division is in 

 wood, and over one-half of the wood is regrowth. A greater por- 

 tion of the regrowth, over a third at any rate, is pine and cedar. 

 There are besides large areas of waste lands, with almost no tree 

 growth of any kind, or exceedingly thinly stocked with pine or 

 oak, chiefiy post oak, black-jack oak, and Spanish oak stool- 

 shoots. 



There is almost no merchantable heart-pine suitable for milling. 

 The local bodies of regrowth pine which are now large enough for 

 small sized saw-logs will yield only sap lumber, and are not gen- 

 erally utilized on this account; but there are large quantities of 

 pine suitable for fuel. There is not very much oak, either white 

 or red oak, which is suitable for lumber. What there is lies 

 chiefly in Orange, Person, and Davidson counties; but there are 

 smaller bodies in other places. Smaller white oak and post oak, 

 suitable for railway ties, in most places is not abundant, many 

 sections not producing enough to supply the local demand. Hick- 

 ory, however, is relatively more abundant, not having been so 

 largely culled for local use; numerous spoke and tool-handle fac- 



