DISTRIBUTION OV THE TJIEES. 



21 



Virginia southward, the best developed trees recently observed 

 being found on the Cape Fear river and its tributaries. South of 

 the Cape Fear river they are not common. Some of these trees 

 show on being cut that they are over 400 years old. 



(2) . The sivamp or slash pine, which is the most frequent form of 

 the loblolly, has a coarse grain, with the sap wood occupying half 

 or even more of the diameter. The tree is smaller and the wood 

 not so highly valued as that of the preceding, and is also said to 

 decay more rapidly. It is most common on the moist or wet lands 

 north of the Neuse river, where it forms a compact forest; and 

 through this region and in the adjacent parts of Virginia it is 

 the chief lumber tree. 



(3) . The old-field pine is a growth of the loblolly pine which is 

 often looked upon in. the south-eastern counties as a tree distinct 

 from each of the preceding. It is, however, only a vigorous, 

 exceedingly coarse-grained loblolly pine, which, having grown very 

 fast, has only a small proportion of heart, logs 2 to 2J feet in diam- 

 eter rarely having one-fourth of their diameter heart. Of this 

 open-grained wood both heart and sap decay rapidly on exposure 

 to the weather unless painted or otherwise protected. But it is 

 now being used very largely for indoor work, for which it is well 

 adapted. 



Short-leaf pine {Finns echinata Mill.) is found mixed with hard- 

 woods on all the dark, gravelly loam of the uplands and is there 

 the chief lumber pine. In the eastern counties it was originally 

 only scatteringly distributed, even in those adjacent to Albemarle 

 and Pamlico sounds, where it was most abundant. From here it 

 has been largely removed. South of Neuse river it was a rare 

 tree, being found in small clumps interspersed among the long-leaf 

 pines where the soil was inclined to be a dry or gravelly loam. 

 Some trees on fertile soils become very large and have been 

 removed for '-tun timber." The wood of these larger trees is only 

 a little coarser than that of the long-leaf pine; it is much lighter, 

 though, and more brittle. On the sandy soil of the coastal plain 

 region it does not^abundautly reproduce itself, and young trees are 

 uncommon, but on the uplands it is rapidly increasing and its 

 young growth promises to play an extensive part in the future 



