162 FORESTS OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



on the extensive flats of the Lumber river and its tributaries' in 

 Robeson county, and on the loose moist sands of the southeastern 

 part of Anson county. Over the rest of the area the forests are 

 more broken, consisting of small groves in old fields, or contain 

 both the long-leaf and the loblolly pines. 



CONDITION OF THE FORESTS. 



Where unlumbered, the forests of loblolly pine are compact, 

 with a continuous cover, the forest floor being good and with a 

 moderately deep humus. On the best soils the trees attain a 

 height of 90 to 100 feet, with trunks of 40 to 50 feet free from 

 limbs. On poorer soils, especially where they have appeared 

 spontaneously in abandoned fields, which are often on the lighter 

 lands from the greater ease with which tilled, the trees are much 

 smaller, not averaging over 70 or 80 feet in height. They have, 

 however, proportionally larger diameters than taller trees and 

 usually shorter boles, the growth, when young, having been so 

 open that the trunks have not cleared themselves from limbs. 



Tliis is due to a greater number of the trees being suppressed, 

 more light being necessary for growth on the poorer soils. The 

 loblolly pine generally forms an upper story of pure growth, 

 beneath which when the pine cover is dense there is a lower 

 storv of dogwood, post oak, and other small shade-enduring trees ; 

 or when the pine cover is open, as is frequently the case, there is 

 a sli2:htly subordinate growth of Spanish oak, black oak, and post 

 oak, small hickory, and sometimes black gum and other trees. 

 There is often a considerable amount of young growth of broad-leaf 

 shade-bearing species, post oak, dogwood, black gum, and some- 

 times black oak and Spanish oak, whicli survive for a longer or 

 shorter time beneath the shade of the other trees, the dogwood 

 and post oak on the best soils even reaching maturity. Young 

 pines, however, are wanting ; and on the poorer soils broad-leaf 

 tree seedlings only stand the shade, it at all, for a short time. 



"Where the forests of loblolly pine have been luml)ered the pine 

 shows for a few years no signs of succeeding itself, as there are no 

 young pine seedlings beneath the shade of the mature pines. 

 Self-sown seed, however, from neighboring trees or from under- 



