AMERICAN FOREST TREES 57 



In North Carolina and Virginia loblolly tobacco hogsheads are 

 common; and box factories within easy reach of it use much. A list of 

 its uses, compiled from reports of factory operations in Maryland, will 

 give an idea of the range it covers: Basket bottoms, beer bottle boxes, 

 boats, cart bodies, crates, flooring, frames for doors and windows, fruit 

 boxes, interior finish, nail kegs, oyster boxes, seats for boats, siding for 

 houses, staves for slack cooperage, store fixtures, wagon beds, balusters, 

 brackets, chiffoniers, mantels, molding, picture frames, stair railing, 

 sash, scrollwork, sideboards, tables. 



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

 No other important species comes so near growing as much as is cut 

 from year to year. It covers 200,000 square miles with stands ranging 

 from little or nothing in some parts to 20,000 feet per acre in others, or 

 more in exceptional cases. The area of fully stocked loblolly pine is 

 believed to be as large now as it ever was. Before the Civil war it was 

 predicted that its period of greatest production was over; but large 

 tracts are now being logged on which the pine seeds had not been sown 

 in 1860. 



POND PINE (Pinus serotina). Sargent's table of weights of woods 

 shows this to be the heaviest pine of the United States; but, as his 

 calculations were made from a single sample which grew in Duval 

 county, Florida, further data should be secured before his figures, 

 49.5 pounds per cubic foot, are accepted as an average weight for the 

 species. It is rated in strength about equal to longleaf and Cuban pine. 

 Its structure shows a large percentage of dense summerwood in the yearly 

 ring. The leaves are in clusters of three, rarely four, and are six or eight 

 inches long, and fall in their third and fourth years. The name suggests 

 that the cones are tightly closed, and that they adhere tenaciously to 

 the twigs on which they grow. This is found true. The principal im- 

 pression made on a person who sees the pond pine for the first time is 

 that it is overloaded with cones, and that it must be a prolific seeder. 

 Better acquaintance modifies the latter part of that impression. It is 

 overloaded with cones, but most of them are many years old, and have 

 long been seedless, although most of the trees have the seed crops of two 

 years on the branches at one time. Enough seed is shed to perpetuate 

 the species, but too little to insure an aggressive spread into surrounding 

 vacant ground. The pond pine may reach a diameter of three feet and a 

 height of eighty, but that is twice the average size. The wood is very 

 resinous, and is brittle. 



SCRUB PINE (Pinus -virginiana). This tree is often called Jersey pine because 

 it is a prominent feature of the landscapes in the southern part of that state where it 

 has spread extensively since the settlement of the country. Its short needles have 



