192 FORESTS OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



Under denudation they wash badly, and all the finer and more 

 silty soils bake in drying. 



On the flatter lands the forests are formed of small-sized trees. 

 In the original growth there is usually an upper dominant story 

 of short-leaf pine from 50 to 70 feet in height, with an underwood 

 of post oak, Spanish oak, black-jack oak, white oak, and white 

 hickory. This often merges into post oak and blackjack oak 

 flats; or where the soil is stiffer and the country more rugged 

 better oaks are to be found along the slopes and in the hollows. 

 The original growth has been largely removed. (Plate XXII.) 



In the southern portion of Granville, the southwestern part of 

 Wake, and Durham, and the eastern part of Chatham counties 

 are large areas of abandoned agricultural lands under cover of the 

 short leaf and loblolly pines. The pine may l>e seen in all stages- 

 of development, though in one grove all trees are about the same 

 size. The loblolly is for the mos-t part confined to the lower or 

 flatter lands, the short-leaf to the better-drained soils and those 

 situated at a distance from large streams where there are the seed- 

 bearing trees of the loblolly pine. In many places the two pines 

 occur mixed; but the loblolly generally displaces the short-leaf, 

 growing more rapidly and enduring greater lateral compression 

 and shade than the latter. On the driest soils, however, the 

 short leaf finally outgrows the loblolly and prevails. Much of 

 this pine is of good stand and has tall and straight bodies free 

 from limbs, and this is more true of the loblolly pine groves than 

 of those of the short-leaf ; but much more of it has been thinned 

 by repeated fires, and is capable of yielding but little wood except 

 for fuel. The floor is generally covered with a thick sod of 

 broom-grass. Only a few broad-leaf trees appear spontaneously 

 beneath these pines; those which do occur are chiefly post oak, 

 white hickory and dogwood. 



In Anson county there remains but little of the original forest. 

 North of Wadesboro the soil is a gray, sandy loam, rolling and 

 moist, covered with a generally compact growth of the loblolly 

 pine, which is of fairly uniform size; high poles or small-sized 

 mill-timber, where large tracts of cotton lands were simultaneously 

 abandoned in the period between 1861 and 1868, and have not 



