86 



TIMBER PINES OF THK SOUTHERN UNITED STAI'ES. 



The trees of tbe extensive groves of Cuban Pine in the vicinity of Mobile upon tlie loamy 

 lands of the coast jilain, which have sprung up since 1864, when these lands were completely 

 stripped of all arboreal growth, average at present between 50 and CO feet in height by a diameter 

 of from 14 to 16 inches breast high. Trees of second growth, forming open groves on lands of 

 similar character, and also more or less deficient in drainage, forty-five to sixty-five years old, 

 measure from 65 to 85 feet in height and from 15 to 20 inches in diameter breast high. 



At the edge of a heavily wooded swamp, in a perpetually wet, sandy, and mucky soil, and 

 skirted by large Longleaf Pines occupying the steep slope rising from the bottom, a tree measur- 

 ing 114 feet in height, with a diameter of 24 inches breast hight, the trunk clear of limbs for a 

 length of fully CO feet, showed one hundred and thirty-five rings of annual growth. Another 

 tree felled deeper in the same swamp, of lank growth, with a poorly developed crown, rising to 

 a height of 88 feet, and towering above the dense growth of black gums, swamp maples, and white 

 bays, was found to measure only 15i inches in diameter, witl' almost the same number of annual 

 rings. Trees of second growth which have sprung up in clearings with a drier surface soil under- 

 laid by a clayey substratum, with free exposure to sunlight and air, reach in little over half the 

 time the full size of those produced in the forest-covered swamps. 



Tablk I. — (irowlh of Cuhan Pine during the first stuges of life, from four to twenty years. 



Rings 



stump. 



Inches. Inches. 



Kuigeiaiid, s. 

 Mobile, Ala. 



Vos. 1 to 5, near Whistler, Ala. 

 i\''et, sandy, flat soil, very poor; open tliii- 

 clearing of the forest. 



Exposure partially free; suppressed soil; slii 

 Old tield; soil fresh; from midst of dense gro 



Open edge of swarap, somewhat suppressed. 



Partially free; edge of swamp. 



Open grove of saplings; soil fresh; old field. 



soil blacli, niuck.> 



Swamp soil; slu 

 Exposure free ; 

 Undercover of ] 



