LOBLOLLY PINE. 21 



homa, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, and is known under 

 many names, among them old field pine, longshucks, black slash pine, 

 frankincense pine, short-leaf pine, bull pine, Virginia pine, sap pine, 

 meadow pine, cornstalk pine, black pine, foxtail pine, Indian pine, 

 spruce pine, bastard pine, yellow pine, swamp pine, and long-straw 

 pine. 



Loblolly lumber which now reaches market is largely of second 

 growth or has been cut on land where it formerly grew sparingly or 

 not at all. It quickly takes possession of abandoned fields or tracts 

 from which other timber has been cut, and it increases in size so 

 rapidly that, where conditions are favorable, a tree 50 years old may 

 cut three IG-foot sawlogs. Millions of feet of lumber have been cut 

 from ground where old corn rows are still to be seen. Though the 

 range of this tree has probably not been much extended since the 

 country was settled, many areas and tracts have been partly or wholly 

 taken possession of by it within that time. Perhaps no other species 

 in the United States at present yields so large a lumber supply from 

 second-growth forests. Its advance into abandoned agricultural 

 lands in Virginia and North Carolina was noted by Michaux more 

 than a century ago, and it has continued until the present time. In 

 some localities the spread of loblolly pine was exceptionally rapid im- 

 mediately after the Civil War, due to the abandonment of large areas 

 on the southern plantations which before had been cultivated. Since 

 that time the loblolly has spread from the primeval forest belts in 

 Texas and in other regions west of the Mississippi into the prairies 

 adjacent. Grassland which was treeless within the memory of living 

 man has come up to pine seedlings. This has resulted from protec- 

 tion against fire. When the grass was burned yearly, as was once the 

 rule, seedling pines could obtain no foothold, and the original forests 

 bordering the prairies did well if they held the ground they already 

 had. 



The amount of loblolly pine timber in this country is not known. 

 It covers 200,000 square miles, with a stand ranging from little or 

 nothing in some parts to as high as 20,000 feet per acre or more in 

 exceptional cases. Very large areas in almost all parts of the range 

 of this tree are covered with more or less dense stands of timber in 

 the sapling pole stage and which will not be merchantable before the 

 expiration of 20, 30, or 40 years. Considering the stands of such 

 young timber, it is hardly to be doubted that the area of fully stocked 

 land is greater now than ever before. 



Descriptions of the forests and of the country's resources contained 

 in early histories and reports indicate that pine was not plentiful a 

 short distance back from the coast of Virginia and North Carolina 

 when the region was first explored. Hardwoods prevailed in many 

 districts where pines pushed in later. However, at the beginning of 



