220 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE LONG-LEAF PINE OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



LIABILITY OF TREE3 TO BE DESTROYED BY GOATS, SHEEP, HOGS, AND CRABS. 



Mr. Editor : I have been greatly instructed in a very important branch of 

 industry, by the valuable communication of Col. McLeod on the management of 

 the Turpentine Business of North Carolina, and was much struck with the re- 

 markable fact he mentions, of the destruction or disappearance of all the young 

 growth. Of rather the absence of young trees, of that kind. 



Is it not worthy of inquiry, what can be the cause of it ? To me it has occurred, 

 whether it may not be caused by hogs or sheep, or both ? — the hogs looking for 

 and devouring the roots, and the sheep pasturing, perhaps, in the winter season, on 

 the young trees that survive the ravages of the unclean beast ? Were the whole 

 forest of pine cut down and then succeeded by a different growth, it would ex- 

 cite no surprise, because we know that according to the laws and economy of 

 Nature, growths of pine and oak, when cut off, are often succeeded by each other 

 alternately. What is here hazarded as a mere conjecture will not seem so wild 

 as it might otherwise do, when we look at Avhat has occurred in other parts of 

 the world ; as, for example — 



Darwin, in his entertaining Voyage of a Naturalist — a good school-book, pub- 

 lished by the Harpers — in Vol. II. page 289, says : 



" The history of the changes which the elevated plains of Longwood and Deadsvood have 

 undergone, as given iu General Beatson's account of the island, is extremely curious. Both 

 plains, it is said, in former times were covered with wood, and were therefore called the 

 Great Wood. So late as the year 17 16 there were many trees, but in 1724 the old ti-ees had 

 mostly fallen; and as goats and hogs had been suffered to range about, all the young trees 

 had been killed. It appears also from the official records that the frees were luiexpeotedly, 

 some years afterward, succeeded by a wire-gi-ass, which spread over the whole surface.* 

 General Beatson adds, that now this plain ' is covered with line sward, and is become tho 

 finest piece of pasture on the island.' The extent of smface probably covered by wood at 

 a former period is estimated at no less than two thousand acres ; at the present day scarcely 

 a single tree can be found there. It is also said that in 170!) there were quantities of dead 

 trees in Sandy Bay ; this place is now so utterly desert, that nothing but so well-attested an 

 account could have made me believe that they could ever have grown there. The fact that 

 the goats and hogs desti-oyed all the young* trees as they sprang up, and that in the course of 

 time the old ones, which were safe from their attacks, perished from age, seems clearly 

 made out. Goats were introduced in the yeai- 1502 ; eighty-six years afterward, iu the time 

 of Cavendish, it is known that they were exceedingly numerous. More than a century af- 

 terward, in 1731, when the evil was complete and irretrievable, an order was issued that 

 all stray animals should be destroyed. It is very interesting thus to find that the anival of 

 animals at St. Helena iu l.''>01 did not change the whole .aspect of the island until a period of 

 two hundr(;d and twenty years had elapsed; for the goats were intnxluccd in 1502. and in 

 1724 it is said ' the old trees liad mostly fallen.' There can he little douht that this great 

 change in the vegetation affected not only the land-shells, causing eight B2)ecies to become 

 extinct, but likewise a multitude of insects." 



The goat and the sheep resemble each other in habits and tastes. The sheep 

 browses, we know, on cedar and pine, and these are considered so congenial to 

 their health that watchful sheep-masters cause boughs of both to be placed in 

 their way when otherwise they might not get them. In North Carolina, my 

 impression is that feeding sheep is not in the agricultural catechism. The 

 ground is rarely covered with snow, but when it is, occasionally, may not their 

 flocks find a convenient and palatable resource in the young pine ? I think it, 

 however, much more probable that the g^runtcr is the chap that does the most 



* Bentson'e St. Helena. Imroductoi y tbiijitcr, ]i. 4. 

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