THE LONGLEAF PINE. 



By CHARLES MOHR, Ph. D. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



The Longleaf Pine is the tree of widest distribution and of greatest commercial importance 

 in the Southern Atlantic forest region of eastern North America, covering, with scarcely any 

 interruption, areas to be measured by tens of thousands of square miles and furnishing useful 

 material. 



The timber wealth of the forests of Longleaf Pine, much of which is still untouched, has given 

 rise to industries which involve the outlay of vast capital and an extensive employment of labor, 

 thus closely affecting the prosperity of a large part of the Southern States as well as the indus- 

 trial and commercial interests of the whole country. 



With the impending exhaustion of the pine forests of the North, the lumber interests of the 

 country are steadily tending to center in the South, attracted chiefly by the forests of Longleaf Pine. 



The Old World, which has heretofore depended almost entirely upon the pine forests of Canada 

 and of the Northern United States for timber for heavy construction, is already importing a large 

 amount of hewn and sawn square timber and of lumber from the Southern pine forests. Most of 

 the lumber used for ordinary building purposes in the West Indies, on the coast of Mexico, and 

 in many of the States of South America is furnished by the mills situated in the Longleaf Pine 

 region. The unprecedented increase, during the last quarter of a century, of the population in 

 the timberless regions of the far West, as well as in the country at large, enormously augments 

 the drafts made upon these forests, threatening their eventual exhaustion and ultimate destruc- 

 tion unless measures are taken by which these supplies may be perpetuated. The solution of the 

 difficult problem of devising such measures can come only as a result of a study of the life history 

 of the Longleaf Pine, of the conditions required for its growth and best development, of the laws 

 regulating its distribution, and of the possibilities for its natural or artificial restoration. 



HISTORICAL. 



The economic importance of the Longleaf Pine was well recognized in early times. Bartram, 1 

 in tlie year 1777, in his wanderings along the western shore of Mobile Bay, had his attention 

 attracted by three very large iron pots, or kettles, each with a capacity of several hundred gallons, 

 near the remains of an old fort or settlement, which he was informed were used for the purpose of 

 boiling down the tar to pitch, there being vast forests of pine in the vicinity of this place. " In 

 Carolina," this writer proceeds, "the inhabitants pursue a different method. When they are going 

 to make pitch they dig large holes in the ground, which they line with a thick coat of good clay, 

 into which they conduct a sufficient quantity of tar and set it on fire, suffering it to burn and 

 evaporate for some time, in order to convert it into pitch, and when cool, put it into barrels until 

 they have consumed all the tar and made a sufficient quantity of pitch for their purposes." 



Humphrey Marshall, one of the earliest writers on North American forest trees, 2 mentions 

 the Longleaf Pine under the name of the "largest three-leaved marsh pine, as accounted equal to 

 any for its resinous products." In North Carolina crude resin, tar, and pitch figured as important 

 and valuable exports during the later colonial times. During the period from 1766 to 1769, $130,000 



1 Burtram's Travels through North and South Carolina. Philadelphia, 1791. 



'' Humphry Marshall: "Arbustrum Aiiiericanum," or the American Grove. Philadelphia, 1785. 



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