48 



BULLETIN 1061, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 



INSECTS, DISEASES, AND WIND. 



Various insects are known to attack longleaf- pine. Damage by- 

 insects to fertile seeds, before being shed from the cone, has been 

 reported. The southern pine beetle is well known because of the out- 

 breaks that have occurred and in which large areas of pine timber 

 have been killed. It seems that the remedy for preventing such losses 

 in small operations consists chiefly in not cutting timber in the hot 

 season; or, if some must be cut, in removing it without delay and 

 either piling the brush and burning it in an opening or scattering it 

 to dry out as quickly as possible. The trees infested with the beetle 

 should be utilized at once. For information on this subject a copy of 

 Farmers' Bulletin 1188, The Southern Pine Beetle, should be re- 

 quested from the Division of Publications, U. S. Department of Agri- 

 culture ; or a letter may be addressed to the Bureau of Entomology 

 regarding this or other insect problems. 



mm 



Fig. 6. — A, taproots stripped from 6 to 10 inches ; B, top frequently broken off ; C, seed- 

 lings pulled up with taproots usually 8 to 15 inches long, all roots stripped. 



A cone-rust disease is known to be the cause of much injury in 

 parts of Florida and some distance northward. It attacks the first- 

 year cones and kills them after causing them to grow to an abnor- 

 mal size. In parts of the palmetto region it is probable that this 

 disease largely accounts for the scarcity of reproduction. A leaf 

 blight is not infrequently seen defoliating small groups of seedlings 

 before they get above the tall grass. The growth is checked but not 

 otherwise affected. 



Wind damage to longleaf pine is heavy, chiefly on turpentined 

 timber (PL X) ; and occasionally tropical hurricanes make almost 

 clean sweeps of timber. One of the largest sawmills in the South 

 operated for about a year (1915-16) on such wind-thrown timber. 

 The usual loss of old-growth timber from insects and wind is in- 

 dicated by the results of the measurement of three " forties " in 1917 

 and of their remeasurement in 1920. 10 The timber consisted of about 

 30 trees per acre, averaging 560 board feet each, or 16,780 feet per 



10 The timber was located in the north-central part of Louisiana, and the measurements 

 were made by members of the Yale Forest School. 



