1 48 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 
fire cannot spread as far as formerly, and the frequency of fire at 
any one point in the pine land may be no greater now than it was 
originally. (In the West prairie fires are said to have been greatly 
decreased by civilization). At any rate, there is no evidence that 
the change in frequency of fire in the high pine land, one way or 
the other, has been enough to have any appreciable effect on the 
vegetation. 
The long-leaf pine has such thick fire-proof bark that fire does 
little or no harm to it after it is three or four years old, provided'it 
has not been turpentined,* so that in any spot which escapes burning 
for that length of time there is a chance for the pine to reproduce 
itself, provided there has been a good seed year just before.f (The 
long-leaf pine produces seed in abundance only about once in five 
years, it is said.t) And such an opportunity need come only two or 
three times in a century to insure the perpetuation of the forest. The 
oaks of the pine land seem to resist fire equally well, and nearly all 
the shrubs and herbs have underground rootstocks which send up 
new shoots very soon after a fire, making a fresh green carpet. 
The foregoing* paragraphs explain how fire starts in the pine 
lands and how the plants are protected against it. The vegetation 
not only endures fire, but is also benefited by it, as will now be 
shown. In the first place, in an area which had not been burned 
for several years most of the pine seeds would probably lodge in the 
grass and fail to germinate; but those that fall soon after a fire, 
when the ground is bare or nearly so, take root readily, especially if 
they fall where the soil has just been loosened up by salamanders 
(which seem to be most active just after a fire). It can hardly be 
doubted that fire also tends to keep in check some insects which 
would otherwise injure the trees, but this point does not seem to 
have been specially investigated. 
*It is customary to remove the grass and pine straw for a space of a few 
feet around every boxed tree about once a year to minimize the danger from fire. 
tit is probable that the salamander indirectly helps the long-leaf pine to 
perpetuate itself in spite of fire, for a seed falling ip the middle of a fresh 
salamander hill could germinate and grow for a year or two at least without 
having any inflammable material within several inches of it. 
$1913 was .evidently a good seed year in Citrus County, and in March, 1914, 
the writer noticed pine seedlings two or three inches high growing over large 
areas in that county at the rate of three or four to the square foot or about 
100,000,000 to the square mile. If only one in a thousand of these grows to 
maturity it will be enough to make a good stand of timber. 
