

THE SHORTLEAF PINE. 



By CHARLES MOHR, Ph. D. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Among the timber trees of the Atlantic forest region the Shortleaf Pine ranks with the first 

 of those noted for their economic importance. Equally abundant, distributed over a wider area, 

 and in the quality of its wood but little inferior, it takes its place next to the Longleaf Pine. 

 When maintenance of forest and production of timber under a rational system of forestry is 

 to become the rule, this species above all others of southerly distribution will claim attention, 

 for it can be safely asserted that of the coniferous trees adapted to the climatic conditions of 

 the Southern Atlantic forest, no other can be found of better promise for the production of 

 valuable timber in the shortest time. 



HISTORICAL. 



The Shortleaf Pine, besides furnishing- to the colonists the supplies of pine timber required 

 for the construction of their dwellings, formed in early colonial times an article of export to the 

 mother country and the West Indies. Michaux, the younger, writing in the first years of this 

 century, speaks of this timber tree as becoming scarce near the ports. It seems that the specific 

 characters of this tree were but imperfectly understood by the earlier investigators of our silva. 

 They were first accurately defined by Michaux, the father, who described this tree in his Flora 

 Americana Borealis II, 204 (1803), under the name of Pinus mitis. A still more detailed descrip- 

 tion was soon afterwards given by Michaux, tlie son, in his work on American forest trees (Hist. 

 Arb. Amer., 1, 52, t. 3, 1810), with a full account of its value as a timber tree, the qualities and 

 uses of its wood, and all that was known in those days of its place in the forest. Besides the 

 account given of the tree by the Rev. M. A. Curtis, of North Carolina, in his "Trees of North 

 Carolina," little has been added to our knowledge of this pine until the publication in Professor 

 Sargent's Report on the Forests of North America, 1 of the results of the investigation which the 

 writer had carried on in the Gulf States, 8 and Professor Harvey in Arkansas. 3 



For valuable information on the occurrence of this pine on the Atlantic Coast and west of the 

 Alleghany Mountains, the writer is indebted to the kindness of correspondents active in the field 

 of botany. In regard to the area over which this species is found distributed in the Southern 

 States, the information contained in the physiographic descriptions of the several counties of the 

 cotton States, in Professor Hilgard's report on cotton production, 4 were chiefly relied upon. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



The Shortleaf Pine is widely distributed from the Atlantic Seaboard to the treeless plains of the 

 Indian Territory under 95 west longitude over 23 from east to west and 10 from south to north, 

 namely, from 31 north latitude to Long Island, New York, or 41 north latitude along the Atlantic 

 Coast, while in the interior it only reaches to 39 in western Virginia. According to F. A. Michaux, 

 the Shortleaf Pine extended originally as far north as Albany, N. Y. The tree is at present not 

 known iii New York outside of Staten Island, and its existence even in Pennsylvania is considered 



1 Forest Trees of North America, Tenth Census U. S., IX, 1884. By C. S. Sargent. 

 "C. Mohr: "Forest Trees of the Gulf Region" (Am. Jour. Forestry, Vol. I, 1883). 

 '"Forest Trees of Arkansas." (Harvey: Am. Jour, of For., Vol. I.) 

 Hilgard: Tenth Census Report, Vols. V and VI. 



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