scrub oak; by 1947, this acreage had increased to 
570,000 acres. This increase accounts for four-fifths 
of the total increase in upland hardwood types. 
Piedmont 
The shift from pine to hardwood types since 1936 
has not been as marked in the Piedmont as in the 
Coastal Plain. As indicated by the 832,000-acre increase 
in forest area during the past decade, cropland aban- 
donment is much more active here than in the Coastal 
Plain. Consequently, the large relative increases in 
hardwood area in the Piedmont have been offset to a 
large extent by corresponding increases in pine. Yet, 
in spite of the 15-percent increase in pine types, chiefly 
the loblolly pine, the proportion of forest area in pine 
types has decreased from 81 percent in 1936 to 74 
percent in 1947, indicating a porportionately greater 
increase in hardwood types. 
Even though the shortleaf pine type increased less 
than loblolly pine, land abandonment in the middle 
and upper Piedmont, where shortleaf pine predominates, 
is perhaps as active as in the lower Piedmont. While 
there undoubtedly was a substantial increase in the 
area of shortleaf and Virginia pine types as they 
invaded abandoned fields, the conversion of pine stands 
to hardwood by cutting offset to a large extent the 
increase in area of pine stands. For one thing, the red 
clay hills district, an area highly susceptible to erosion, 
was one of the first areas where a majority of farmers 
abandoned their lands during the post-Civil War 
reconstruction period. The pure pine stands that invaded 
these areas around 75 years ago are now being replaced 
by natural hardwood forests. 
Littleleaf disease * also contributes to the conversion 
of pine to hardwood types. In a group of nine Piedmont 
counties where the disease is prevalent, 6.4 percent of 
the cubic-foot volume and 10.3 percent of the board- 
foot volume was in trees in advanced stages of the 
disease or which had recently died at the time the 
1947 survey was made (fig. 21). 
In both the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain, the 
effect of these changes is to reduce the area which will 
be growing pine in the next several decades. This is 
serious because the volume of pine is declining, about 
two-thirds of the wood cut in the State is pine, and the 
* This disease, which attacks mainly shortleaf pine, is char- 
acterized by a gradual yellowing and thinning of the crown 
and eventual premature death of the tree. It is especially prev- 
alent on heavy, poorly drained soils of worn-out farm land. 


FicurE 20.—In the Sandhills scrub oak has replaced longleaf pine on large areas. 
16 Forest Resource Report No. 3, U. S. Department of A griculture 

