The Pines 



sterile and worthless. Distribution intermittent, New Jersey 

 (Cape May), south along coast to Tampa Bay and Texas. Inland, 

 from the Carolinas to Arkansas and Louisiana. Uses : Lumber 

 not distinguished from longleaf or yellow pine — shipped north 

 in quantities. Used in heavy construction — building of docks, 

 ships, cars and houses. Valuable tree for reforesting waste land, 

 and for fuel. 



There is probably no pine tree that has more nicknames than 

 this, nor one more variable in its habits of growth and in the 

 quality of its wood. " Old-field " and " meadow pine " refer to 

 its habit of invading land abandoned by farmers. "Sap," 

 "frankincense " and "torch pine " mean that it is rich in resin. 

 Several local names refer to its long leaves; others to the dark 

 colour of its bark. Some names are meaningless. 



The loblolly pine is one which Nature seems to have favoured 

 in the race for life. It bears seed copiously every year. It has 

 remarkable vitality of seed and seedlings. It chooses low, water- 

 soaked ground, or rolling upland terraces where soil is light and 

 sandy, though wet, and where there are comparatively few trees 

 to contend with. The young trees grow with tremendous vigour 

 for the first ten years, crowding so that animals cannot get in to 

 harm them. After that they are beyond this danger, and their 

 struggle is among themselves. Fires do little harm in the marshy 

 regions, so that these forests have a great advantage over others.- 

 The trees are deep rooted, and in spite of fungus and insect 

 attacks, thrive throughout the Southern States. 



In Michaux's travels he noted that three-fourths of the houses 

 of lower Virginia were built of loblolly pine. Giant trees grew 

 there, and down in the rich marsh lands that reached back from 

 Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds the finest specimens of these 

 loblolly pines furnished the navies of many countries with masts 

 unsurpassed in quality and size. These were of the famous 

 "rosemary pine," heavy, hard, fine-grained heart wood, with 

 a thin rind of sap wood. Now they are all gone, practically, and 

 there are left the slash pines, coarse grained, with half their 

 diameter sap wood. Virgin woods and second growth furnish 

 the mills with lumber which is not distinguished in the trade 

 from longleaf pine, though inferior to it. The third grade of 

 lumber, with sap wood three times as thick as heart wood, and 

 exceedingly coarse grained, is known to lumbermen as old-field 



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