38 



FORESTS, FOREST LANDS AND FOREST PRODUCTS. 



leaf and short-leaf pines. Although extensive lumbering opera- 

 tions have been carried on in these pineries for the past fifteen 

 years, so that all timber near existing lines of railroad has been 

 removed, there are probably 320,000,000 feet of long-leaf pine still 

 standing in the county. The long-leaf pine is succeeded in this 

 county, as is the case in Richmond, by sand black-jack oaks. Tn 

 the very sandy parts of the county there is only a little loblolly 

 pine, with small cypress trees and some white cedar scattered along 

 the streams. 



THE TRANSITION REGION. 



Northampton county is situated on the boundary between the 

 loblolly pine uplands and the hardwood hills which cross the west- 

 ern third of the county. The loblolly is mixed in places with scat- 

 tered short-leaf pine, and is, except along the swamps and streams, 

 ver}^ largely a second growth. It has never been lumbered. The 

 southern and western boundary of the county is the Roanoke river, 

 and along its entire course there is a strip of alluvial swamp from 

 one to three miles wide, covered where there have been no clear- 

 ings made with a heavy growth of trees similar to that along the 

 same river in Bertie county (p. 20). 



Halifax county. — The eastern half of Halifax county, like the 

 greater part of Northampton, is a fairly level region, with an aver- 

 age elevation of but little more than 100 feet above sea-level. The 

 soil is generally a sandy loam, and the forests of this region con- 

 sist mainly of loblolly pine with the short-leaf pine, post oak, Span- 

 ish and white oak interspersed. On the northern boundary of the ' 

 county along the Roanoke river lowlands, which are of less extent 

 on this side of the river than on the northern side in Northam}:)4on 

 county, are at intervals forests of black gum, sweet gum, red maple, 

 elm, red oak, ash, sycamore, hackberry, and other deciduous trees. 

 Occasionally one finds on portions of these fertile lowlands, the cul- 

 tivation of which ceased some fifty years ago, vigorous but scatter- 

 ing black walnut trees nearly 2 feet in diameter and more than 50 

 feet high. Beech creek, likewise, with its larger affluents, Marsh and 

 Beaver Dam creeks, have along their courses some ash, cypress, 

 gums and tupelo, and these streams are bordered in places with 

 extensive flats of scarlet, chestnut, overcup and willow oaks. The 



