DISTRIBUTION OF SHORTLEAF PINE. 



95 



are possibly 300,000,000 feet, board measure, Shortleaf Pine standing in tbe counties bordering the 

 oak uplands in the eastern part of the State. 



In South Carolina this pine is similarly distributed sparingly in the coast region and more 

 frequent in the midland country to the lower mountain ranges. 



In Georgia, in the lower part of the coast pine belt, the Shortleaf Pine is rarely met with. On 

 the sandhills in the center of the State, forming the northern border of the pine belt, it occurs 

 mixed with the Longleaf Pine among the inferior bard-wood timber. In the region of crystalline 

 rocks, which embraces the more or less mountainous upper half of the State, covering over 19,000 

 square miles, with an elevation of not over 2,500 feet, this tree is most fre(]uent, in many i)arts 

 predominating. 



In the three States last named the Shortleaf Pine was originally most abundant in the regions 

 now most densely populated, and hence their supplies of timber are more or less exhausted, most 

 of the so-called North Carolina Pine sent to market being Loblolly Pine. Young forests, however, 

 of this tree are seen everywhere on the hills and mountain slopes, where the original timber 

 growth has been lemoved, and on-the worn-out lands abandoned by the cultivator. 



In Florida the Shortleaf Pine is confined to the uplands along the northern border of the 

 State, scattered among the Longleaf Pine and hard-wood trees. In the northwestern part it 

 approaches the seashore within a distance of from 25 to 30 miles on the isolated patches of red 

 loam laTids, where, together with the Longleaf Pine, it is associated with the Southern Spruce 

 Piue {Piniis f/lahra). 



In Alabama and Mississippi the Sliortleaf Pine is rarely seen in the lower part of the coast 

 ]iine belt, but forms a more or less conspicuous part of the forest covering of the uplands in the 

 central and upper sections, and sometimes predominates to snch an extent over the haird-woods as 

 to impart to the woodlands the somber asjiect of a pure pine forest. In the region of crystalline 

 rocks, with its arid langes in Alabama, covering an area a little over 3,000 stpiare miles, between 

 the Coosa River and the southern tributaries of the Tallapoosa, tbe tree is less frequent than in 

 the region of the same formation in Georgia, the Longleaf here taking its place. In the northern 

 part of Alabama, on the table-land of the Warrior coal field over an area of fully 5,000 square 

 miles, mostly in forest, the Shortleaf I'ine forms a more prominent feature of the growth. This is 

 the case particularly in the eastern part of this area, where the tree occupies mostly the summits 

 and steep declines with a thin, dry soil, while in the deejier and moister soils the Loblolly Pine 

 takes its place. In Cullman County, altitude 800 feet, where numerous acre measurements have 

 been made, rarely over 2,000 feet, board measure, of this timber liave been found upon one acre, 

 and it can safely be said that in the localities where it is more frequently met with the average 

 stand does not exceed 1,500 feet to the acre on this table-land. The supplies of Shortleaf Pine 

 timber are rapidly diminishing before the demands of a rapidly increasing population and of the 

 adjacent centei's of the mining industry, and their total exhaustion is sure to be effected within a 

 short time. 



Wherever the original timber growth has been removed on these upiands the young growth 

 of the Shortleaf Pine is rapidly spreading and predominates over the deciduous trees. The timber 

 trees of full growth average on these tablelands about 22 inches in diameter breast high and 95 

 feet in height, furnishing clear sticks of from 35 to 45 feet in length. Such trees have been found 

 with from 90 to 135 rings of annual growth on the stump. 



Four trees felled in the vicinity of Cullman showed the following dimensions: 



Meusurimeiitii of four trues. 



On the gravelly hills of the northern extension of the central pine belt in Alabama the 

 Shortleaf Pine becomes frequently the predominating tree in the forest of oak and hickory. In 

 Lamar County, Ala., and in northeastern Mississippi it forms forests which in the latter State give 



