FORESTS OF THE PINE BELT UPLANDS. 149 



entire swamp-area of tlie region aggregates nearly 4,600 sqnare 

 miles. 



THE CHANGES IN THE KIND OF FOREST GROWTH. 



The changes in the condition of the forest growth are dne 

 almost entirely to variations in the character of the soils : porosity, 

 fertility, the amount of moisture contained, in them, and to the 

 distribution of the soil-moisture during the growing season. The 

 extremes of inoisture encountered are from wet, or even inundated 

 soils throughout the growing-season, to dry soils for the greater 

 part of the year, except immediately after a rain. In fertility the 

 range is between compact and line-grained " mud " alluvium, 

 containing in abundance all the elements of plant-food, to almost 

 pure sand ; in porosity, from coarse-grained sand of great depth, 

 to compact shallow top-soils with impermeable substrata. Some 

 soils are almost destitute of humus, while others are constituted 

 largely of decaying or decayed vegetable matter. Such extremes 

 of soils are often in juxtaposition, there being no easy gradation 

 from one to the other, so that the contrast and line of demarcation 

 between the two, and the respective arborescent growth which 

 they support, is sharply and distinctly defined. 



The forests of the pine belt are separable into two groups : those 

 of the uplands, on which the long- leaf and loblolly pines are the 

 dominant trees ; and those of the lowlands on w^hich white cedar, 

 cypress, or broad-leaf trees are the most abundant. 



THE FORESTS OF THE PINE BELT UPLANDS. 



Forests of pine covered, at least in their original distribution, all 

 of the uplands, there being only a few local areas on which broad- 

 leaf trees were not subordinate to them. To the north of the Tar 

 river, except on the porous and highly silicious soils where pure 

 and uninterrupted forests of long-leaf pine occurred, the original 

 forests were composed of alternating belts of short-leaf and 

 loblolly pines; the short-leaf pine, with a subordinate growth of 

 broad-leaf trees, largely oaks, dominating along the crests and on 

 the drier and more gravelly soils, as occasional trees of this species 

 still standing now testify; while on the lower, moister, loamy 



