The shortleaf pine ranks second only to the longleaf among the forest
pines of the South. It is the common “yellow pine,” and “North Carolina
pine” that is commonly sold from lumber yards in the North and Middle
West. Its wood is almost as beautiful in the natural finish. Its leaves
are short in comparison with those of the longleaf, and scarcely longer
than any pines of the North. They are found in clusters of twos and
threes, and they have the dark blue-green colour of the white pine,
lightened by the silvery sheaths at the bases of the clusters. The leaves
are soft and flexible, slender, and sharp-pointed. They vary from three
to five inches in length. The cones are two to three inches long, and
half as broad; the thickened scales have small spines. It takes two years
to bring cones to maturity, and the old ones hang on several years. In
this they differ from our Northern pitch pine.
Forests of this timber pine are scattered from Connecticut to Florida,
and west to Illinois, Kansas, and Texas. They are being slaughtered by
lumbermen as fast as those of the longleaf. The young trees are tapped
for turpentine. In the South and East, these forests are practically
gone. The lumber mills are busy in the great tracts west of the
Mississippi, and below the Arkansas River, in the forests of shortleaf
pine, which until recently were untouched, and too far from the markets
to be profitably cut.
The shortleaf pine will reforest the old areas, and spread over a
widening territory, if only it is given a chance. One hundred years is
enough time to restore a forest,—to grow a crop of these trees. Young
ones spring from the roots of old trees, a habit not at all common among
pines. Let us hope that before the Southwestern forests are gone, new
ones east of the Mississippi River will take their places, so that the
shortleaf shall not disappear from the lumber markets as the white pine
of the Northeastern states has done.