72 
YELLOW PINE. 
it is more rare, though it still surpasses the surrounding trees in bulk and 
elevation. The Yellow Pine is, also occasionally seen in the lower part of 
the Carolinas, in the Floridas, and probably in Louisiana ; but in these 
regions it grows only in spots consisting of beds of red clay mingled with 
gravel, which here and there pierce the light covering of sand which forms 
the surface of the country to the distance of 1,20 miles from the sea. 
The Yellow Pine is a beautiful tree, and this advantage it owes to the 
disposition of its limbs, which are less divergent the higher they are placed 
upon the stock, and which are bent towards the body so as to form a sum- 
mit regularly pyramidal, but not spacious in proportion to the dimensions 
of the trunk. Its regularity has perhaps given rise to the name of Spruce 
Pine. 
In New Jersey and in Maryland, this tree is 50 or 60 feet high, and is 
commonly of an uniform diameter of 15 or 18 inches for two-thircis of this 
distance ; in Virginia and the upper part of the Carolinas, there are stocks 
of nearly the same height and of twice this diameter ; I have measured 
several that were between 5 and 6 feet in circumference. 
The leaves are 4 or 5 inches long, fine, flexible, hollowed on the inner 
face, of a dark green, and united in pairs ; sometimes, from the luxuriancy 
of vegetation, three are found together on the shoots of the season, but 
never upon the older branches ; there is, therefore, an inaccuracy in the 
description of this species as a Pine with two or three leaves, and in the 
specific epithet variabilis. 
The cones are oval, armed with fine spines, and smaller than those of 
any other American Pine, since they scarcely exceed an inch and a half in 
length upon old trees. The seeds are cast the first year. 
The concentric circles of the wood are six times as numerous in a given 
space as those of the Pitch and Loblolly Pines. In trunks 15 or 18 inches 
in diameter there are only 2 inches, or 2è, of sap, and still less in such as 
exceed this size. The heart is fine-grained and moderately resinous, which 
renders it compact without great weight. Long experience has proved its 
excellence and durability. In the Northern and Middle States, and in 
Virginia, to the distance of 150 miles from the sea, nine-tenths of the houses 
are built entirely of wood, and the floors, the casings of the doors and 
wainscots, the sashes of the windows, etc., are made of this species, as more 
solid and lasting than any other indigenous wood. In the upper part of 
the Carolinas, where the Cypress and White Cedar do not grow, the houses 
are constructed wholly of Yellow Pine, and are even covered with it. But 
for whatever purpose it is employed it should be completely freed from the 
sap, which speedily decays. This precaution is sometimes neglected in 
order to procure wider boards, especially near the ports, where, from the 
constant consumption, the tree is becoming rare. Immense quantities are 
used in the dock-yards of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc., for the 
