ALTAMAHA GRIT REGION OF GEORGIA 119 



out of the pine-barrens for a hundred years it is not likely that the 

 composition of the flora would change perceptibly, as may be in- 

 ferred by comparing a pine-barren area burned over within- a few 

 months with one which has not been burned for several years. 

 The Lafayette and Columbia formations have hardly had time yet 

 to produce the type of forests with abundant shade and humus 

 which are familiar in most parts of the civilized world. If such 

 forests were capable of developing where dry pine-barrens are 

 now they would doubtless have done so centuries ago, and fire 

 would hardly have gotten a foothold in them. Opinions are 

 divided even among the natives of the wire-grass country as to 

 the desirability of burning off the grass every year, but those 

 who believe in this ancient practice usually act accordingly, and 

 the others are powerless to stop it. 



Man has also exerted a profound influence on the flora by de- 

 stroying many of the native birds and quadrupeds which formerly 

 carried seeds from place to place, and introducing domesticated 

 and foreign species in their stead. The partial extermination 

 of the native birds (which mostly take place in other parts of the 

 country but is felt everywhere because they migrate) disturbs 

 the equilibrium in another way by allowing injurious insects to 

 increase. Again, the introduction of the honey-bee must have 

 some tendency, however slight, to modify the shape of the native 

 flowers on which it works. 



Another adjunct of civilization, in Georgia confined to the 

 coastal plain, and having a slight but perceptible influence on 

 the vegetation, is the artesian well. These wells are becoming 

 quite numerous, and they evidently create new streams and in- 

 crease the flow of others. The removal of a large part of the 

 forests in the Piedmont region has greatly increased the amount 

 of sediment carried by the larger rivers, and probably modified 

 the flora of their swamps to some extent. 



The remarkable stability of the pine-barren flora, as compared 

 with that which is familiar to most inhabitants of the United 

 States, is shown by the fact that after lumbering, after fire, 

 and even after cultivation, the same vegetation tends to re- 

 appear in a comparatively short time, almost without pre 

 liminary stages such as have been described in recent years by 



