8 SHORTLEAF PINE IN VIRGINIA 



Loblolly pine has large cones, from 3 to 4 inches long. Its 

 needles are borne in threes and are about twice as long as the cones. 

 The cones of this species usually fall during the second summer, 

 but sometimes they persist for several years. 



USES OF WOOD 



The timber of second-growth shortleaf pine is largely sap- 

 wood. The formation of heartwood does not begin until the trees 

 are about twenty-five years old. For many years thereafter the 

 heartwc&Kl is limited to a small core, and more than two-thirds of 

 the volume of trees fifty years old is still sapwood. The most im- 

 portant uses for the wood of the shortleaf pine are for building 

 lumber, fuel, slack cooperage, box lumber, headings, and crates. 

 The wood contains too much resin to be a desirable material for 

 paper pulp stock without special treatment, although it is used to 

 some extent for this purpose. On account of its softness it is not 

 suited for railroad ties if the traffic is heavy, and, when used for 

 this purpose should be made more durable by preservative treat- 

 ment. 



The large proportion of sapwood in the second- growth tim- 

 ber renders it undesirable for shingles, for which the durable heart- 

 wood of the old growth was extensively employed ; and unfits it for 

 other uses requiring exposure to the weather, unless it is thoroughly 

 kiln-dried and painted. Logs more than fourteen inches in dia- 

 meter from trees with clear boles yield lumber suitable for ceiling 

 styles and panels of doors, sashes, window frames, interior wood- 

 work, and also for flooring if rift sawed. Timber suitable for such 

 uses must come not only from comparatively large trees, but from 

 trees which early cleaned their stems and formed wood in the lower 

 two-thirds of the trunk free of knots. That part of the tree which 

 can be converted into lumber of this kind should command, on the 

 basis of $25 for the finished lumber, a stum page price of not less 

 than $10 a thousand board feet. 



Unless the price of cordwood stumpage is proportionately 

 much higher than that of saw timber stumpage, the greatest profit 

 from a crowded stand will be secured by reserving the larger trees 

 for saw timber, and in the meantime thinning or culling the small- 

 est trees for cordwood, stave stock, box boards, bolts, and similar 

 purposes, for which small material is suited. If only selected trees 

 are retained for saw timber they should be allowed to attain a large 

 size in order to produce timber of high quality. 



