Botany. 463 



III. Botany. 



1. The Timber Pines of the Southern United States; by Charles 

 MoHR, Ph.D. Prepared under the direction of B. E. Fernow, 

 Chief of the Division of Forestry, U. S. Dep. of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C. 1896. 



Four species of pines in our Southern States possess a high 

 degree of interest from an economic point of view. It is to these 

 pines that we look for a large part of our supply of lumber, 

 especially as the threatened diminution of our northern resources 

 is already upon us. In these pineries prompt application of 

 sound principles of forestry may check unnecessary waste and 

 bring permanent thrift where one can now see little but prodigal 

 and irrational treatment. 



It is difficult to see how the importance of this question can be 

 brought fairly before those who are primarily concerned in 

 lumbering operations. The lumberman is so apt to regard his 

 forests as a source of immediate profit, that he finds it almost 

 impossible to treat them as a source of permanent income. In 

 some instances he would indeed be willing to exchange the larger 

 immediate profit for the smaller permanent income, but he knows 

 that under existing conditions there are risks, like that of fire, for 

 instance, which lessen the stability of his investment. And 

 therefore even the cautious and far-seeing lumberman takes the 

 bird in the hand instead of the possible two in the bush. Condi- 

 tions of scientific lumbering at the south are more favorable than 

 at the north, but scientific lumbering is not forestry. The 

 forester is the husbandman of wood crops: the lumberman is 

 merely a harvester. The question is, therefore, how can ihe 

 harvester be made to see that it is for his interest to take part in 

 the care as well as the cutting. Professor Fernow, the chief of 

 the Forestry Division of the Department of Agriculture, has 

 deemed it wise to bring to the attention of the owner of the 

 southern pineries Dr. Mohr's monograph on the life-history of the 

 five principal species, supplementing this by an account of the 

 structure of the wood by Mr, Roth. Of course we cannot say 

 that the experiment will be any more successful than a hundred 

 others which have been undertaken in Forestry instruction, but 

 we can say that the experiment ought to succeed, and we give it 

 our best wishes. 



The monographs are valuable contributions to our knowledge 

 of the subject and should serve a good purpose. Dr. Mohr has 

 displayed great energy in his accumulation of material and excel- 

 lent judgment in its treatment. We wish it might be possible 

 for him to continue his exhaustive and scholarly studies in similar 

 directions until all our timber trees of economic importance are 

 as well understood as these five which he and Mr. Roth have 

 examined so thoroughly. 



The sumptuous work on our native trees by Professor Sargent, 



Am. Jour. Scl— Fourth Series, Vol. II, No. 12.— December, 1896. 

 33 



