TIMBER OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 7:5 



take possession of the marshy prairies after they have been 

 sufficiently drained to allow of tree growth; it is adapted 

 to a wider range of soils than most of the other southern 

 pines, and, owing to its rapid growth and comparative 

 freedom from damage by hogs and fires, has a much better 

 chance of holding its own than the more valuable longleaf 

 pine, which is of very slow growth, so that we must look 

 forward to a not far distant time when it will form the bulk 

 of the pine supply from this region (Fig. 15). 



Forty years ago longleaf pine was the most important 

 tree of South Carolina; now the loblolly occupies that 

 position, and what happened there is more or less common 

 throughout the south. The usual height of the tree is 90 

 to 110 ft. and from 2 to 2| ft. diameter. A tree of 100 

 years is already old and subject to an early stage of decay ; 

 it possesses a fairly cylindrical stem and is often free of 

 branches for 65 ft. or more. The markets are so prejudiced 

 against the timber that it is rarely handled under its own 

 name, and resort is had to the objectionable system of selling 

 it, either by itself or mixed with true shortleaf, as short- 

 leaf pine ; the latter is a better and a harder timber, 

 though it is often almost impossible to distinguish one 

 from the other. Loblolly is largely used for railway 

 sleepers and also for piling on the teredo-infested Gulf of 

 Mexico, but for both these purposes it has to be artificially 

 treated, and the great amount of sap it contains admirably 

 adapts it for absorbing a large quantity of creosote. So 

 large is the amount of sap that by clogging the saws the 

 cost of conversion is increased 20 per cent, as compared 

 with longleaf pine, although the price in log is consider- 

 ably less. For interior work the timber has to be kiln 

 dried immediately after being sawn to avoid the fungus 

 which attacks the green timber and turns it blue ; after 

 drying it neither swells nor shrinks as the harder pines do, 



