70 FORESTRY INVESTIGATIONS U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The upper division of the pine belt or region of mixed growth in Alabama on a broken sur- 

 face covers about 23,000 square miles, while the belt of drift deposit which crosses the State 

 contains about 1,000 square miles, covered with longleaf pine of excellent quality and large yield 

 per acre. The drift deposits along the Coosa Eiver, covering about 300,000 acres, and a detached 

 portion of drift in Walker County of 00,000 acres, are covered with pine of fine quality hardly 

 yet touched. 



Toward the west, in Louisiana, the coast-pine belt gradually passes into a mixed growth of 

 shortleaf pine, oaks, and hickories on the uplands bordering the Mississippi. The slightly undu- 

 lating flat woods of Louisiana support a better timber growth than is generally found in the 

 upland pine barrens; but this forest has been largely invaded, while the piue-hill region of 

 Louisiana has remained almost untouched. The pine region west of the Mississippi Eiver, limited 

 to the sands and gravels of the region, follows on their eastern boundary the valley of the 

 Ouachita Eiver for 150 miles. 



In the center of the region above the Eed Eiver pine ridges alternate with tracts of oak and 

 hickory. Toward the Eed Eiver the forests covering the undulating pine lands remain practically 

 unbroken to the Sabine Eiver. On the eastern side of the Eed Eiver the area is estimated at 

 1,625,000 acres, extending northward an average distance of 55 miles, cutting from 4,000 to 6,000 

 feet per acre, with no change in character to the Trinity Eiver in Texas. In that State the forests 

 of longleaf pine cover about 5,000 square miles, merging toward the north into the region of 

 shortleaf, toward the south into vast forests of loblolly pine. 



The fact that but little tapping for turpentine has been practiced in this region may be of 

 importance from a market point of view. 



CUBAN PINE. 



This tree, which occurs mainly in the West Indies and South America, is confined within 

 narrow limits iu the United States, occupying the low coast plain of the Gulf States west of the 

 Mississippi to a short distance beyond Pearl Eiver, and of the Atlantic coast as far north as lower 

 South Carolina, near Charleston. It is rarely found more than 40 or 50 miles inland, on the 

 so-called pine fiats or pine meadows. Only in southern Florida does it cross from Gulf to Ocean 

 on the low ridges through the everglades. It occurs either scattered through other forest growth 

 of the swamps or in groves along the borders of sandy swamps above perpetual overflow, mixed 

 with longleaf or, more raiely, loblolly pine, excepting south of Cape Canaveral and Biscayne Bay, 

 where it forms open forests by itself. Being able to thrive on pure sand as well as on the clay 

 soils with poorer drainage, it is apt to crowd out the young growth of longleaf pine when the old 

 trees of the latter have been cut. It is indiscriminately cut and made into lumber together with 

 the longleaf pine without distinction. Its field of distribution is indicated on the map of the 

 longleaf pine by patched area. 



SHORTLEAF PINE. 



This tree is more widely distributed than any of the other pines, namely, from the southern 

 shores of Connecticut, where it occurs only scattered, to the treeless plains of Kansas and south- 

 ward in the main to the northern line of the main body of the longleaf forests. It is mostly 

 associated with deciduous-leaved trees, becoming the predominant forest growth in parts of 

 northern Alabama, Mississippi, and western Louisiana. In northeastern Texas and southern 

 Arkansas it covers large areas, to the exclusion of almost every other tree. While in the early 

 history of this country this pine seems to have beeen a staple along the Atlantic coast up to New 

 York, it occurs now only scattered and in commercially unimportant quantities north of Virginia. 

 From here southward it covers large areas, occupying the higher inland parts of the maritime 

 pine belt, mixed with other coniferous and deciduous growth, and throughout the interior of the 

 Southern States into the mountainous region. 



In North Carolina it is found from the coast to the mountains, and once formed about 2 > per 

 cent of the forest growth, now largely reduced. In South Carolina and Georgia it is similarly 

 mixed in the upland forests of oak and hickory. 



In Florida it is confined along the northern border of the State to a narrow strip of uplands, 

 with a mixed growth of longleaf and hard-wood timber; in western Florida, where it is more rare, 

 approaching the Gulf within 25 miles. 



