'54 



THE FORESTER. 



November, 



rather than the drier ridges where the 

 Yellow Pine is most abundant. In places 

 where the two are associated the Black 

 Pine will take the land to the exclusion of 

 the better tree and forms dense thickets in 

 all open places where it can find space 

 sufficiently light and not too much trampled. 

 It does not seem in the least disturbed by 

 the severe droughts and heat to which it is 

 often subject in July and August. It will 

 endure almost as much shade as a Cedar. 



Field No. ^ lies at the foot of the high 

 peak near Berea, known as Bear Knob. 

 It was a long time in cultivation, contained 

 an orchard, a few relics of which still re- 

 main and was last tilled in '56 or '57, the 

 owner being able to locate the date approxi- 

 mately by its relation to family affairs. 



Here the predominating growth is hard 

 wood, though some fine pines are mingled 

 with this. The growth is dense, the young 

 trees reaching up fifty to seventy feet high 

 with clean, straight trunks cleared of 

 branches for 20 to 30 and even 40 feet. 

 Many of the trees are beginning to form 

 crowns, others' are still in the pole stage 

 of growth. The cover is almost perfect. 

 The species represented are, first, the Black 

 and Falcate Oaks, some of which are a 

 foot in diameter; White Oaks are next in 

 number and are the most beautifully pro- 

 portioned young trees of the species I have 

 ever seen, with slender bodies, as clean as 

 telegraph poles, six to eight inches in 

 diameter. I shall study with interest to 

 see whether they will be able to hold their 

 supremacy in height with the Black Oak 

 tribe. Hickories of the Shell-bark and 

 Pig-nut species are six inches to ten inches 

 in diameter and in the hands of a less con- 

 servative owner would have been sacrificed 

 to the spoke trade before now. On the 

 lower end of this field where a few de- 

 crepit Poplars ( K I^rriode>idro?i) have fur- 

 nished the seed to be blown a hundred 

 yards, we find a dense, shapely growth of 

 this most valuable Southern tree. 



What I shall call Field No. 6 is of a very 

 different character from the preceding. 

 This is a piece of " cove" land, being a 

 widened-out, ampitheater-like head of a 

 narrow valley and lying just above the 

 mountain limestone, but passing the mill- 



stone-grit and heading in the sandy shales 

 of the coal measures. Its sides are so 

 steep that it was " tended" when in culti- 

 vation on the contour plan, i. e., around 

 the cove on a level. A wagon would 

 hardly venture into it, produce and timber 

 being removed on the low one-horse 

 " slides," or sledges peculiar to the coun- 

 try. This field was one of the first opened 

 in the region, over fifty years ago, and the 

 last crop of corn was raised on it in 1864. 

 It is entirely covered with a thrifty timber, 

 the cover in most parts being perfect, 

 though somewhat thin in others from the 

 cutting out of the new growth for various 

 purposes. I am assured that it was a clean 

 field when the last crop was raised, the 

 present growth being wdiolly from the seed 

 since 1S64. Of the taller trees over half 

 are of " Poplar," so-called in the South, 

 the White-wood of the northern markets, 

 Liriodendron tulipifera. 



If the White Pine is the queen of the 

 northern forests, certainly the Poplar ranks 

 as queen of the southern, and at the rate 

 the old growth is disappearing, we must 

 hail with satisfaction the appearance of 

 a new growth under conditions which 

 indicate that it is readily reproduced. In 

 the better part of the field, in a hollow 

 with a northern and northwestern expo- 

 sui*e, these beautiful young trees tower up 

 from fifty to eighty feet, with clean, smooth 

 trunks as round as columns. Already a 

 good many of them a foot in diameter and 

 over have been cut out to make house logs. 

 The best remaining specimen I cut and 

 sectioned every eight feet for study. At a 

 foot high it was seventeen inches in diam- 

 eter and showed thirty-three rings, which 

 would indicate an age of thirty-four or 

 thirty-five years. The ground must have 

 seeded in at once on the turning out of the 

 field and the seed must have blown from 

 old trees two hundred yards away. 



Hickory of two species, from six to 

 nine inches in diameter and forty to fifty 

 feet high, were in the field, while better 

 ones had been cut to make spoke stock. 

 A large number of Black Locust had been 

 cut for posts, the trees being five to eight 

 inches in diameter, so that scarcelv repre- 

 sentative specimens were left standing. 



