4 BULLETIN 244, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



CHARACTER OF STANDS. 



PURE STANDS. 



Shortleaf is very well adapted for growth in pure stands, and it 

 occurs extensively in this form of forest. The stands are not usually 

 continuous over large areas, but are separated by mixed stands of 

 pines and hardwoods. Stands of pure shortleaf pine once covered 

 a much larger area than at present. It is doubtful whether shortleaf 

 is now found in pure type on more than from 20 to 40 per cent of 

 its former range. 



Mature shortleaf occurs over a large region centering in western 

 Arkansas and northern Louisiana. This is the last extensive region 

 of virgin shortleaf forest left in the gradual progress of the lumber 

 industry southward and westward following the coast line. At ele- 

 vations of 400 to 1,200 feet the hilly country supports heavy stands 

 of timber, which, however, are being lumbered at a rapid rate. In 

 the higher mountainous regions, including the southern Appalachians 

 from 1,000 to 2,000 feet in elevation and the Arkansas and Ozark 

 National Forests, the warm south-facing slopes are generally covered 

 with pine in pure stands, and the northerly slopes with little else 

 than hardwoods, chiefly oaks and hickories. 



A considerable proportion of the pure stands of shortleaf is found 

 in old fields formerly under cultivation. Here the factor of early 

 competition with hardwoods was eliminated and the pine took com- 

 plete possession. This form of second-growth forest occurs exten- 

 sively from Virginia southward and westward throughout its entire 

 commercial range and aggregates probably more than 68,000 square 

 miles. 1 It represents practically all the land within the shortleaf - 

 pine belt that has at any time been cleared and subsequently aban- 

 doned. During a period of 10 to 20 years, commencing in 1861, a 

 vast acreage of such lands was "turned out" all through the South; 

 but the process of "clearing up," "working out," and "turning back" 

 land has been in common practice for a century or more in the older 

 parts of the Southern States. 



MIXED STANDS. 



In its geographical relation to the other eastern pines of commercial 

 importance, shortleaf occupies a position characteristically interme- 

 diate between white and Norway pines on the north and loblolly 

 and longleaf on the south. Between these two widely separated 

 groups of important commercial pines, shortleaf occupies and domi- 

 nates a broad strip of country. 



1 Based upon general forest, studies in practically all of the States, and detailed examination of 21 counties 

 in North Carolina. 



