AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



been responsible for several of its names, among them being shortshuck pine in Mary- 

 u*d aiyrf Virginia, shortshat pine in Delaware, shortleaved pine in North Carolina, 

 ft wi spruce pine and cedar pine in some parts of the South. In Tennessee it is known 

 as nigger pine, and in some parts of North Carolina as river pine. The range is fairly 

 well outlined by the above discussion of its names. It grows from New York to 

 South Carolina, and west of the mountains it is found in northern Alabama and middle 

 Tennessee, in Kentucky and West Virginia. It reaches its largest size in southern 

 Indiana where it is sometimes 100 feet high and three in diameter. It is there a 

 valuable tree for many purposes, but is not abundant. Its average size is small in the 

 eastern states, usually not over fifty feet high, and often little more than half of that . 

 Pew trunks east of the Allegheny mountains are more than eighteen inches fn diam- 

 eter. The name scrub pine is an index to the opinions held by most people regarding 

 this tree. It is often considered an encumbrance rather than an asset; yet statistics 

 of wood-using industries hardly justify that view. Millions of feet of it are employed 

 annually in each of the states of New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, 

 for boxes, slack cooperage, and common lumber. The wood is moderately strong, but 

 is not stiff. It is medium light, soft, brittle, with summerwood narrow and very 

 resinous. Its color is light orange or yellow, the thick sapwood ivory white. The 

 needles are from one and a half to three inches long, and fall in the third and fourth 

 years. Cones are two or three inches long, and scatter their seeds in autumn. The 

 wings are too small to carry the seeds far, yet the tree succeeds in quickly spreading 

 into surrounding vacant spaces. Cones adhere to the branches three or four years. 

 Tar makers and charcoal burners utilized scrub pine in New Jersey, northeastern 

 Maryland and southeastern Pennsylvania a century and a half ago. The tree seems 

 to be as abundant now as it ever was. Unless it occupies very poor land which it 

 generally does the growth is liable to be suppressed and crowded to death by broad- 

 leaf trees before the stands become very old. As a species, it is weak in self-defense, 

 and it owes its survival to its habit of retreating to poor soils where enemies cannot 

 follow. It may be said of it as the Roman historian Tacitus said of certain men: 

 "The cowards fly the farthest, and are the longest survivors.'! 



