13 



not uncommonly as thick as the wood (the whole diameter being 

 thus two-thirds bark and one-third wood), but they add to this 

 unusual armor a device specially adapted for their safety when 

 growing amid long grass, usually a most fatal neighbor to young 

 trees in case of fire. It is to be noted that the vast majority of 

 long-leaf pines are associated with grass from the beginning to 

 the end of their lives. During the first four or five years the long- 

 leaf seedling reaches a height of but four or five inches above the 

 ground. It has generally been erroneously assumed that this 

 slow growth makes it specially susceptible to injury from fire; but 

 while the stem during these early years makes little progress, 

 the long needles shoot up and bend over in a green cascade 

 which falls to the ground in a circle about the seedling. Not only 

 does the barrier of green needles itself burn only* with difficulty, 

 but it shades out the grass around the young stem, and so pre- 

 pares a durable fire-resisting shield about the vitals of the young 

 tree." 



In his little book on "The Long-Leaf Pine in Virgin Forest," 

 published in 1907, G. Frederick Schwarz discusses this point and 

 calls attention to the exceptional fire-resistance of the long-leaf 

 pine after the first two or three years of growth. On page 71 he 

 says : "Without attempting to minimize the immediate and serious 

 harm done to young growth, it may be asserted that the destruc- 

 tion of long-leaf pine seedlings by surface fires has been somewhat 

 exaggerated and misunderstood; at any rate, so far as concerns 

 seedlings over two or three years of age." And while admitting 

 that one or two year old seedlings are destroyed as a rule by fires 

 he says (page 72) : that "After the seedlings have attained several 

 years' growth they begin to offer wonderful resistance to sur- 

 face fires." In the Bulletin of the Torrey Bot. Club, Vol. 38, p. 

 523, 1911, E. M. Harper says : "It is pretty well known that long- 

 leaf pine, after it is four or five years old, is less affected by fire 

 than almost any other tree we have, and in Southern forests 

 periodically swept by fire little else can grow but this pine and a 

 great variety of more or less xerophytic, mostly perennial, herbs, 

 among which various grasses are usually most abundant." 



In the original condition of our forests the old-field pine was 

 largely confined to the boundaries of swamps, bays, and v> r 

 courses. Over the remainder of the country the long-leaf pine 

 was supreme. I think it probable that this condition was due 

 principally to the fact that the long-leaf pine was able to endure 



