Cause of Decay ofTimher in South Carolina* 41 



Supplement to the foregoing. 



The cause of the rapid and alarming decay of the pine 

 timber in South Carolina, is an insect or bug which was 

 first observed in the northern and eastern parts of the 

 State about six years since. It is a small black winged 

 bug resembling the weavil, but somewhat larger. A 

 great number of these bugs have been observed in the 

 spring of the year, and early in the summer, flying near 

 the roots of the trees : they pierce the bark a little dis- 

 tance above the ground, and lay their eggs between the 

 bark and wood ; in a few wrecks after, these eggs hatch, 

 and a worm appears, w^hich at its full growth, is about 

 an inch long : they immediately begin to feed on the 

 sappy part of the tree, and do not cease eating until the 

 Vvdiole of it is destroyed. 



Very considerable injury has been done by these in- 

 sects to the pines of South Carolina. In one place, viz. 

 on the Sampit creek, near Georgetown, in a tract of two 

 thousand acres of pine land, it has been calculated that 

 ninety trees in every hundred have been destroyed by 

 this pernicious insect; the adjoiniag lands, and many 

 tracts on the Santee and Black rivers have equally suf- 

 fered. The fact of an oak springing up in the place of 

 a fallen pine tree, and of the latter appearing when the 

 former is cut, in the southern States, is known to every 

 one there. 



The indelicacy of the Edinburgh reviewers in ex- 

 pressing theu' disbelief of the fact related by M' Kenzie, 

 is the more inexcusable, inasmuch as their own country 

 exhibits a glaring fact analogous to that of the intrepid 

 voyager. I allude to the production of white closer, 



