58 



FORESTS, FOREST LANDS AND FOREST PRODUCTS, 



rising and the outer layer of wood is growing rapidly, by a hot 

 fire which will burn the thin exfoliated layers of bark all over the 

 trunk. The loblolly pine is less injured by fire because its bark 

 is thicker and so offers more protection to the growing wood ; the 

 bark, too, lying closer to the wood in firmly appressed layers, does 

 not so easily take fire. (See, also, the discussion on page 61). 



The chief agencies, then, which prevent a regrowth of the long- 

 leaf pine on the high sandy lands are the hogs and the fires ; and 

 the attacks of the hogs are directed against parts which seem to 

 have been developed to meet requirements of a plant growing on 

 a dry, barren soil of loose sand. These peculiarly developed parts 

 are the seed, large for a pine, which contam abundant nutriment 

 for the young plant to enable the root to push itself rapidly into 

 the sand ; and the long, succulent root which grows for a consid- 

 erable distance straight down without branching. Since the first 

 settlement of these sandy lands the "ranging" of swine has been 

 allowed in the barrens, and while there were enough pines stand- 

 ing and frequent masts, they fed a large number of hogs. 



The practice of firing the barrens has been adopted in many 

 cases with a view to improving the pasturage; while in many other 

 cases, after the trees were boxed, the leaves and trash pulled away 

 from around them, the forests were burned over to prevent in a 

 dry season a chance conflagration getting from under control and 

 burning the faces of the turpentine boxes and the timber. That 

 this policy of burning the barrens is a very bad one and calcu- 

 lated to do far greater damage than that immediately apparent has 

 perhaps been made evident. The accompanying illustration 

 (Plate I) shows one of these long-leaf pine forests, near Southern 

 Pines, where a recent fire destroyed all of the young growth, the 

 turpentine boxes and most of the timber trees. 



That sooner or later the present management, or lack of man- 

 agement, which has characterized all dealings with the barrens for 

 the past 150 years must be changed if the long-leaf pine forests 

 are to be made self-propagating, no one who has ever seen their 

 condition or fully realizes what it is can possibly doubt. The 

 logical result of these burnings in the past has been the destruction 

 of millions of feet of standing pine and the prevention of the growth 

 of young trees, w^hich, had they started even fifty years ago would 



