Agriculture, in co-operation with the Louisiana De- 

 partment of Conservation, laid out a series of perma- 

 nent experimental plots. They were established at 

 Trail m in January, 1914, the aim being to secure re- 

 liable information regarding natural reproduction of 

 long-leaf pine. 



Well Stocked With Seedlings 



Four sample tracts of one-quarter of an acre each 

 were selected of about the same character and about 

 equally well stocked with one-year-old long-leaf pine 

 seedlings. Two of these plots were fenced against 

 cattle and hogs and two left unprotected. Further, 

 one plot in each of these two series has since been 

 burned over yearly (or nearly every year) and the 

 other two protected against fires, 



A remeasurement of the sample areas was made in 

 the winter of 1919-20. The unfenced tracts were each 

 found to contain only two long-leaf pine saplings. 

 Since they originally had 734 and 813 seedlings, re- 

 spectively, this was a loss of 99.6 and 99.7 per cent of 

 the trees. The fenced tracts, on the other hand, were 

 found to contain full stands numbering 1,513 and 

 1,707, respectively, of little long-leaf trees. This is 

 the equivalent of 6,052 and 6,826 trees per acre under 

 protection as compared with 8 per acre unprotected 

 against hogs. This difference is practically accounted 

 for, it is definitely known, by the fondness of the 

 "razor-back" hogs for the thick succulent bark on 

 long-leaf pine tap-roots. Although present in widely 

 varying numbers, this famous southern forager usual- 

 ly occurs in sufficient numbers to destroy during the 

 course of the first two or three seasons, and even 



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