280 WEST VIRGINIA EXPERIMENT STATION. 



irreparable damage and loss of property has resulted, it might 

 have been far worse, since we find that in the aggregate there 

 is left quite a large amount of healthy, vigorous pine ot all 

 kinds, ages and sizes, as previously noted. It has also been 

 the means of extensive investigation, which it is believed will, 

 in the knowledge gained in reference to the causes and charac- 

 ter of the injuries and methods of preventing the reoccurrence 

 of like invasions, be of sufficient value in the future to com- 

 pensate in part for the loss sustained. 



THE RELATION OF THE PINE IN AMOUNT AND VALUE TO OTHER KINDS 

 OF FOREST TREES. 



While the pines, except perhaps the white pine, are no 

 longer of much commercial importance in this State as com- 

 pared with the spruce, the hemlock, the oaks, and the yellow 

 poplar, on account of their disappearance from the accessible 

 regions where they were once so common, we have yet, in the 

 remaining areas pure or mixed forests of healthy pine especi- 

 ally in the eastern and southern sections where they hold first 

 rank as forest trees which if properly cared for will be quite 

 as valuable, on account of their lumber products, as are some 

 of the more fertile lands for the cultivated crops they yield. 



Revenue from Pine. The revenue derived from the pine 

 timber of the State in the past has been many millions of dol- 

 lars, and did much towards contributing to our present advance 

 ment, and the aggregate wealth of the State. The amount of 

 healthy timber yet standing, while apparently not of much im- 

 portance as compared with other kinds of timber, has an inesti- 

 mable value, both on account of its actual money value and 

 what it promises in the timber supply of the future. Just as 

 the pine was the first to be selected by the pioneer as the only 

 tree of commercial value, and the first to disappear from the 

 mixed forests, so will it be the first selected as the most prac- 

 ticable kind of timber to grow under the future system of forest 

 management and protection, which must necessarily follow the 

 present system of forest destruction. 



