FIRE. 25 
Standing pine is seldom destroyed by fire after the sapling stage, 
_ except when the trees have been boxed for turpentine, or after lum- 
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bering. Boxing immensely increases the danger and damage from 
fire. The total destruction of an abandoned turpentine orchard 
requires only a few years. But the most destructive fires have fol- 
lowed lumbering, owing to the great amount of inflammable material 
left on the ground. 
Although ordinary fires do not kill good-sized trees outright, they 
often scorch severely enough to check growth or result in unsound- 
ness at maturity. But the greatest damage from fires is the annual 
destruction of large numbers of seedlings. Successful reproduction of 
pine results only where there is protection from fire. With the present 
lack of precaution against fires, protection is very limited and purely 
accidental. It is the result of obstacles to the spread of ground fires. 
A slight elevation will often escape for a number of years. A swamp 
hole or road will check the progress of a fire; a sheltered area is left 
to leeward, where the fire, eating back from the sides against the wind, 
dies out. Logs and stumps often have the same effect on a smaller 
scale. (PI. X.) 
Small areas frequently escape burning because of a difference in the 
character of the ground cover. They occur where the soil is dry sand. 
The wire grass found here is a thinner growth than the surrounding 
broom sedge, and does not become thoroughly dry until later in the 
season. A ground fire which burns hotly in the broom sedge often 
burns around an area of wire grass. It is on these areas that much 
of the recent reproduction of Longleaf Pine has taken place. 
Without doubt fire has had much to do with the fact that Longleat 
Pine seedlings greatly predominate on the tract, in spite of the greater 
number of seed trees of the other pines and the greater frequency of 
their seed years. The Longleaf seedling, with its thick mantle of long 
needles enfolding the bud and shading the ground, is much better 
protected against fire than the shorter-leaved, thinner-crowned seed- 
lings of the other pines. The ability of the Longleaf Pine to repro- 
duce itself in spite of the greatest disadvantages is well illustrated on 
this tract, which, however, gives no idea of what the tree can do with 
adequate protection. The Longleaf Pine may rightly be called a fire- 
proof species in so far as the survival of scattered groups and patches 
of second growth and individuals is concerned. But extended areas 
under forest are impossible under present conditions. 
It is on account of just this fireproof quality of the Longleaf Pine 
that the injury which results from fire in the deterioration of the 
forest soil is the more easily overlooked. There is at present scarcely 
a trace of a soil cover of humus anywhere on the pine lands. A 
humus layer stores moisture and holds food material for the trees, and 
is vital to the well-being of the forest; the absence of it tends toward 
