WILL A REGROWTH OF PINES ON WASTE LANDS PAY? ()7 



portionally greater increase in the annual output of lumber, and 

 'decrease in the available supply of standing timber. 



WILL A REGROWTH OF PINES ON THESE W^ASTE LANDS PAY? 



This question has been asked ; and it is the first point to be con- 

 sidered in connection with any attempt to restock these waste 

 lands with long-leaf pine. And in answering this question we 

 may ask another: Will it pay to let these lands lie idle and 

 unproductive? The cost of securing a growth of pines on these 

 lands will be the cost of keeping off the hogs and fires, and this will 

 be but little if any more than what proprietors have to pay at 

 present for the privilege of holding these unproductive tracts. If 

 it pays to own these lands unoccupied and unproductive, it will 

 pay much better to own them if they are restocked, at a slight 

 cost, with long-leaf pines. 



One of the chief considerations upon which the final value of a 

 regrowth of long-leaf pine depends is the securing, in as short a time 

 as possible, a thick, homogeneous growth of young trees, and the 

 entire prevention of all fires among the pines. Nowhere else is the 

 truth of the strength of unity more exemplified than in a forest 

 growth, especially in a young and growing forest, on an arid and im- 

 poverished soil, where one of the necessities is retaining the moist- 

 ure in the earth and preserving the humus formed by the decay of 

 leaves. This moisture will serve to supply the trees with water essen- 

 tial for their development and tend to .check or even prevent fires. 

 The damage fires do to a forest growth, even after the growth is well 

 started, is considerable and has much influence on the character 

 of the timber. By killing a part of the timber they make the 

 growth open and the stocks short-bodied and filled with limbs 

 and resulting knots. The thicker the growth the taller and 

 straighter will the stocks be, and so much greater and more valu- 

 able will be the final yield of timber. 



RATE OF GROWTH OF I^ONG-LEAF PINES. 



After a large number of measurements of young growth trees, 

 which have sprung up in enclosures, or where protected, it has 



