14 WORKING PLAN, FOREST LANDS IN ALABAMA. 
would be much more rapid, the reproduction of the pine wou!d be 
more successful, the final stand of trees and yield in board feet per 
acre would be higher, and the lumber would grade better. 
As regards the value of the land for ranging purposes, an occasional 
burning prevents the accumulating pine straw from crowding out the | 
grass; but annual burning, while it keeps the pine straw from collect- | 
ing, at the same time prevents the growth of grass from becoming 
strong and thick, and in some places kills it almost completely. 
GRAZING. e 
About two years ago Coosa County passed a stock law abolishing | 
the public range and obliging the farmers to keep their stock under | 
fence. Since then no cattle or hogs, and but few sheep, have been | 
allowed to run at large, so that no damage results from this source, 
but the effect of the grazing of past years is still apparent. 
As the population and the amount of stock in the country increased 
the range was more heavily taxed with each succeeding year, until dur- | 
ing the few years just previous to the passage of the stock law it was _ 
highly overstocked and very much run down. The canebrakes were | 
almost entirely destroyed, and the grass on the uplands had greatly © 
deteriorated, the more valuable forage plants being largely replaced by | 
worthless wire grass and broom sedge. : 
It is doubtful if cattle or sheep have had any deteriorating effect on | 
the timber-producing capacity of the forest, except as they have 
indirectly increased the frequency of fires. With the hogs, however, 
the case is different. They have done much to hinder the repro- 
duction of the oaks on the creek land, and on the longleaf pine land 
are undoubtedly largely to blame for the lack of reproduction of 
chestnut and longleaf pine. They not only eat the seeds of the latter, 
but also, in times when other feed is scarce, uproot the large seedlings 
and small saplings to get the roots. 
It is interesting to note that two years ago, about the time the 
stock law was passed and hogs were excluded from the forest, 
there was an abundant mast of longleaf pine, and that on those parts 
of the longleaf pine land which have not since been visited by fire 
the ground is thickly covered with 2-year-old seedlings. This 
reproduction was made possible by the removal of the hogs. 
. 
INSECT ENEMIES. 
Insects have done but little harm. An occasional longleaf pine is 
found to be infested with a bark beetle, and on the shale and schist 
soils of the longleaf pine land or among the old field growth a small 
dense group of shortleaf and loblolly pine is sometimes found which 
has been heavily thinned by the same cause, but otherwise damage 
from insects is unimportant, 
