FORESTS AND FOREST REGIONS. 



23 



leaf pine, is ])repai'ed from information furnished by county officials, 

 lumbermen and residents familiar with the lands of their respective 

 sections. The amount of standing long-leaf pine is an estimate 

 based on the number of barrels of rosin produced in each county, 

 the unboxed round pine and the abandoned orchard also being 

 taken into consideration. These figures were corrected in some 

 instances by the estimates obtained direct from the acreage of stand- 

 ing pine, the figures for such acreage coming from county records 

 wdiich show the character of the timbered lands of the townships. 

 Besides this a thorough personal examination w^as made of the 

 condition of the timbered lands in different sections of each county. 



The counties, beginning with those that lie nearest to the coast 

 and proceeding inland, have been grouped according to the char- 

 acter of their dominant economic timbers as they stand at the 

 present time. 



The seaboard region lies along the coast or but a short dis- 

 tance inland. It has an elevation of from 10 to 100 feet above 

 the sea-level. Its average altitude, how^ever, is not over 30 feet, 

 and the only points wdiich attain an elevation above 70 feet are 

 a line of drifting sand dunes along the north-east coast, which 

 in places are over 100 feet high.* The counties included in this 

 region are Columbus, Brunswick, Pender, Onslow, Duplin, Carteret, 

 Jones, Craven, Pamlico, Beaufort, Hyde, Dare, Tyrrell, Washington, 

 Chowan, Perquimans, Pasquotank, Camden and Currituck. These 

 counties have loblolly pine as the dominant forest tree, though in 

 the most southern ones there is considerable long-leaf pine, and 

 there are numerous swamps with a growth of sweet and black gums, 

 cypress and white cedar. 



The inland loblolly pine region, which lies along the Neuse 

 river and north of it, farther inland than the seaboard, embraces 

 the counties of Gates, Hertford, Bertie, Martin, Pitt, Greene, Edge- 

 combe, Wilson, Lenoir, Wayne and Johnston. Their elevation is 

 slightly higher than that of the seaboard counties, and will aver- 

 age between 100 'and 150 feet, being higher toward their western 

 borders. Their upland growth is nearly all loblolly pine, except 



*GeologA- of North Carolina^ W. C. Kerr, Vol. I, 1875, pp. 13-19. 



