the late 1800's, the production of naval stores from 
longleaf pine became important. The then prevalent 
practice of hewing boxes to receive the gum, when 
accompanied by fire and wind breakage, resulted in 
heavy losses in the virgin pine stands. Later, with the 
arrival of railroad logging and large band mills, liquida- 
tion of the longleaf pine progressed rapidly. 
The longleaf lands are well-drained, fine, sandy soil 
in the Coastal Plain and dry sands in the Sandhills. 
They constitute the natural domain of pine and are 
less subject to invasion by hardwoods, aside from scrub 
oak (fig. 17). On the Sandhills, especially, various 
species of scrub oak often formed an understory in the 
longleaf stands, and they have become the typical cover 
where the longleaf pine has been eliminated by naval 
stores operations and lumbering. In the Coastal Plain, 
loblolly, and in some cases slash pine, has restocked 
much of the land, although longleaf still occurs in 
scattered patches. 
The most significant effect that this long and varied 
land-use history had on the forests was to extend the 
pine species beyond their natural habitat. In 1947, 62 
percent of all the commercial forest in the State was in 
the pine types.? In the Piedmont, where the original 
forest cover was chiefly oak and hickory, 74 percent 
of the forest is pine. 
HARDWOOD-TYPE AREA ON THE INCREASE 
In recent years, some of the circumstances which once 
served to pereptuate and extend pine are disappearing. 
Better protection from fire and heavy cutting of pine 
in mixed pine-hardwood stands (fig. 18) have speeded 
up the natural succession of hardwoods on the wetter 
sites. As a result, hardwoods are gaining ground (table 
3). Between 1936 and 1947, the area of pine types 
decreased about one-half million acres, while hardwood 
types increased by 1.6 million acres (fig. 19). The 
conversion of loblolly and shortleaf pine types to hard- 
wood types was, to a large extent, offset by the restock- 
ing of abandoned farm land by these species. 
Coastal Plain 
Lowland hardwood types in the Coastal Plain increased 
by 38 percent (749,000 acres) between 1936 and 1947. 
With a wartime market for a diversity of timber prod- 
ucts, including veneer bolts, pine and hardwood pulp- 
* See Appendix for definition of forest types. 

FIGURE 17.— The dry upland sites of the Sandhills are the natural domain of longleaf pine. 
14 Forest Resource Report No, 3, U. S. Department of Agriculture 

