48 FORESTS, FOREST LANDS AND FOREST PRODUCTS. 



more timber standing. This part of the county is a succession of 

 sand ridges and sand hills, which are covered with a fair growth 

 of long-leaf pine. Nearly or quite all of this pine has been boxed, 

 and although a considerable amount of lumbering has been done 

 there remain large areas of valuable pine forests. 



Harnett county has in its southern parts a large area of waste 

 land, which is in a worse condition than any other such tracts 

 observed in the State. This is what is called the "Thomas Strange 

 tract," which extends from the Lower Little river on the south to 

 Little river on the north, and eastward 15 miles from Swann Station, 

 on the C. F. & Y. V. R. R. This tract contains over 40,000 acres 

 of waste land, two-thirds of which has but few merchantable pines 

 on it and scarcely any sand black-jack. All of this except the 

 part immediately adjacent to the railroad was reduced to its present 

 condition by repeated forest fires, the thick wire-grass forming the 

 fuel which carried the flames. The territory along the C. F. & Y. 

 V. R. R. has been lumbered and there is still some lumbering 

 operations going on along it where there are bodies of timber which 

 have been protected from the fires. 



The topography of the southern part of Harnett is similar to that 

 of Cumberland. It is a typical "sand-hill" region, and its soil is 

 sand with the loam hdng very deep below the surface. The streams 

 usually have narrow channels and very little hardwood or loblolly 

 pine along them ; but along Upper Little river and the Cape Fear 

 there are in places wide and well-timbered " bottoms." The north- 

 ern part of the county has a salmon-colored gravelly loam soil on 

 which loblolly pine and white oaks are replacing the long-leaf pine. 

 In the western part of the county and extending east from Jones- 

 boro there is another tract which was burnt over several years ago 

 and much of the timber on it destroyed. This latter area is not 

 " waste land " now, but it soon will be. Harnett county, being inter- 

 sected by the Cape Fear river and two of its largest tributaries 

 which afford transportation facilities, furnishes yearly a considerable 

 amount of timber (long-leaf pine) for the Wilmington mills. 



MooRE COUNTY lias 60,000 acres of waste land, all of which has 

 been recently lumbered, though much of it has been burnt off sub- 

 sequently. This land has a heavy growth of young sand black- 



