160 FORESTS OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



immunity from the first evil and will materially tend to mitigate 

 the second, as the majority of the fires which sweep across the bar- 

 rens with nich destruction are purposely set to remove dried grass 

 and herbage in the spring, and afford cattle the tender, fresh shoots 

 of the year for pasturage. 



Especially might much benefit accrue to these districts by the 

 reenactment of special fire-laws for the pine barren districts, 

 affixing more severe penalties for their violation; establishing for 

 their execution an administrative corps of wardens and subordinate 

 officers, with power to summon citizens in case of fires to assist 

 in suppressing them, to inquire into their origin, and to bring 

 suits in the courts against offenders and violators of the laws. 

 The present fire-law is. unsatisfactory in offering no adequate 

 means for investigation into the origin of fires, so that it is seldom 

 or never that offenders come within its bounds. 



The long-leaf pine can be reproduced only from seed, and is 

 adapted only for pnre growth in a high forest with a rotation of 

 from 80 to 120 or more years. As the tree reaches a smaller size 

 and attains a less age on the highly silicious soils of the pine bar- 

 rens it would be more profitable to use the longer periods of rota- 

 tion, for the production of larger-sized timber, only on the better 

 class of soils. it is more impatient of the shade than any other 

 of the forest trees, the young seedling, even, requiring direct sun- 

 light and enduring only a moderate shade, and the trees when 

 once stunted by over-shading, or too much compression, never 

 recover their normal vigor. 



The group system of natural regeneration certainly seems to 

 assure the successful starting of a new crop with a greater prob- 

 ability of success than any other. By this system groups of trees 

 of considerable extent are removed at intervals through the for- 

 est, the areas from which they are removed being cut clean, and 

 regeneration taking place by seeding from the adjoining trees. 

 The young seedlings cannot be overshaded by the enlargement of 

 the crowns of still-standing trees as is apt to be the case in selec- 

 tion cutting, and a thick stand, if the group is not of too great 

 extent, more than two hundred to three hundred yards wide, 

 insures sufficient lateral shade during the height-growth stace to 



