This book is due on the date indicated below and is subject to an overdue fine as posted at the Circulation Desk. m- JUL B 1994 ■JUL ^ ^ 199^ AUG 7 )994 ,. The Long Leaf Pine WITH PREFATORY REMARKS On the Political and Geological History of NORTH CAROLINA AND THE SANDHILLS Including a Summary of the FLORA AND FAUNA BY THOMAS P. IVY, Forest Engineer. )D397 PRICE : 25 cents per Copy. )t For Sale at Hayes* Book Store, Southern Pines, N. C. m ®lte ^. % ^ill pbntrg ^DHILL ILL PEACHES" ENT INSPECTED IPPED BY ^orll| Carolina ^tate (^oiieo^e Irowers Association ORTH CAROLINA. Be sure they are Labeled Oral Pa^e Tr ABERDEEN. CA HAMLET. Capital and Si Deposits More "OUR Al This BOOK may be kept out TWO WEEK ONLY, and is subject to a fine of FIV CENTS a day thereafter. It is due on th day indicated below: '9AprSB QApr'58P FFB 24 .i-f Wiil/SiS 96: The Long Leaf Pine With Prefatory Remarks On the Political and Geological History of NORTH CAROLINA AND THE SANDHILLS Including a Summary of the FLORA AND FAUNA BY * THOMAS P. IVY, Forest Engineer. Tiir Sandhill Citizen Print (KOSS & MOEBIS) SOUTHERN PINES, K. 0. A Lon.2: Leaf Pine. FOREWORD The substance of what is herein printed is largely what was given as a talk on the Long Leaf Pine, April the 16th, in the City Park under the auspices of the Southern Pines Library Association. It is published for a threefold pur- pose: (1) to answer authoratatively all the questions that strangers ordinarily ask about the Sandhills ; (2) to create a wider interest in the Sandhill region and to bring greater numbers to share in its warm, dry, bracing air and pine balm, something that belongs peculiarly to this section; (3) to quicken the public sentiment for that vast economic problem of the Costal Plain, namely, its ref oj:-estation in long leaf pine. In reference to this last point, let it be remembered that history teaches that those nations who destroyed their forests committed national suicide or became so reduced in numbers and so devoid of initative as to be no longer a factor in world affairs. Again, in destroying forests we at the same time annihilate the animal and vegetable species that develop under these forests whose help man always had in his struggle for supremacy in his primeval environ- ment. Whatever may be one's religious bent, it is general- ly conceded that nature's influence on man is uplifting. Indeed, it is not improbable that the heaven which we hope and search for in the realms above may be here in our midst, if we could only bring ourselves in true relation with the plant and animal life around us and cease to regard the creations of God solely as objects of exploitation by man. In this connection it is most encouraging that, though the cooperation of the War Department and the Forest Service, Southern Pines will some day have at its very doors a great national park. The 125,000 acre tract that is a part of the proving ground at Fort Bragg is to be brought under forest management and a great pine forest reproduced with all of its accruing benefits. T. P. I. Woymouth Road, Southern Pines, N. C. April 26, 1923 — 3— brary THE CRY OF THE PINES Listen! The great trees call to each other: "Is it come your time to die, my brother?" And through the forest, wailing and moaning, The hearts of the pines, in their branches groaning : "We die, we die! "We, who have watched the centuries dying, The span of years as an arrow's flying, Ages seeming a day and a morrow — Lo, we have reached the time of our sorrow — "We die, we die ! "We, who have stood with our ranks unbroken Breasting the storms, a sign and a token That the gale must cease, and the wild winds staying, Man we shielded is come, and is slaying — "We die, we die! "Flaying the bark, and our bodies baring. Like dim, white ghosts in the moonlight staring. Naked we stand, with the life-sap welling — Tears of resin to gather for selling — "We die, we die ! All through the land are the forests dying. One piece of silver a tree-life buying ; Listen ! The great trees moan to each other : "The ax has scarred us too, my brother" — "We die, we die! Anne McQueen, Tallahassee, Fla. HISTORICAL Ladies and Gentlemen : This ground upon which we are standing, known as North Carolina, connotes more of Ameriean History than any other state in this Union. You will recall that the Pilgrims first stept upon Plymouth Rock in 1620 and that Jamestown was founded in 1607. But in 1584, on July the 4th, America's most fateful day, two ships appeared off what is now the coast of North Carolina somewhere be- tween Cape Fear and Cape Hatteras. On July the 15th these two ships anchored in Acrocoke Inlet, in Pamlico Sound, nearby an island which the Indians called Wokokon. At noon the same day Captains Amadas and Barlowe, the commanders of these two ships, accompanied by the gentle- men of the expedition, landed and took possession of the country which they beheld in the name of Queen Elizabeth, "to be delivered over to the use of Sir Walter Releigh ac- cording to her Majestie's grant." On the third day there- after Indians appeared skirting this island in their canoes and, with most friendly demonstrations, came on board under their leader, Manteo. The incidents just related, though of seeming small significance, were the first real beginnings of Anglo-Saxon supremacy on this continent, resulting finally in the estab- lishment of the government of these United States which with all of its short comings is still the wisest and best government in the v.^orld today, for under its laws and flag the individual is given full and unhampered scope to develop the whole of his individuality. Lord Raleigh's attempts at colonization were not suc- cessful and save his name that our capital bears, little remains of those initial attempts. His first colony entirely disappeared before the second addition came back with supplies. It is assumed that they merged with the Indians, —5— and there is some evidence to support that inference in the fact that many blue eyed Indians are to be seen among the Croatans who still live below us in the county of Robeson. After nearly a hundred years, or in 1663, Raleigh's grants came into the hands of the Eight Lord Proprietors. From this date until 1728 North Carolina remained under the jurisdiction of the Eight Lord Proprietors of whom the most distinguished was Earl Granville. In 1728 North Carolina became a Crown colony and was governed by a royal governor until the Revolution. In those stirring days our state was not amiss in its duties nor unresponsive to the calls from other colonies wishing to become free and independent commonwealths. In the Battle of Alamance in 1771, the first blood was shed in the conflict that was to end in the confirmation of those prin- cipals of freedom for which our Anglo-Saxon ancestors had contended from Runnymede. In 1774, August the 26th, the Legislature met in defiance of the royal governor. In 1775, May the 20th, the day after receiving the news of the Battle of Lexington, the Mecklenburg Declaration of Inde- pendence was promulgated in the city of Charlotte. And so North Carolina was in that fight from the start to the finish. All remember how Cornwallis was pursued and badgered as he passed through the state on his way to Yorktown where he was finally hemmed in and had to exchange with Washington a sovereign for a dollar which up to that time was not worth a "Continental d — n." PHYSIOGRAPHIC AND GEOLOGICAL FEATURES The State of North Carolina, east and west, from Curri- tuck to Cherokee, is 50314 miles long, a distance greater than that from Washington to Boston. It is I871/2 miles across from North to South at its widest point, with a coast line of 250 miles. Geologically the state is divided into three well defined ages, the Mountain Region in the west, the Piedmont Plateau in the center, and the Costal Plain on the southeast. These physiographic features have and will continue to exert a marked economic, industrial and social influence on the people of the state, for they offer as great —6— a diversity of pursuits as some of the world famous empires The mountains of the west are imbedded in granite and gneiss and some seams show the most ancient or archean rocks. Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Rockies is 6,887 feet as compared with Mt. Washington's 6,293 feet. Originating in this mountain district and flowing both into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic are groups of rivers with the Cape Fear, Yadkin, Catawba, and French Broad as conspicous members that make for the state a river mileage of 3300 miles, having a total waterfall of 33,000 feet, or an average of ten feet to the mile. In this day of hydro- electric development North Carolina stands in the front rank with its low cost of electric power for manufacturing and for domestic purposes. For it is the belief of such electricians as Steinmetz that electric power in the house- hold is destined to replace domestic servants and solve that question which is impressed upon every housekeeper. And for this reason alone, to say nothing of climatic at- tractions, North Carolina will become the conspicious state of homes. Furthermore in this mountain area iron ores of high quality are mined, especially at Cranberry. Gold, copper and many other minerals exist in small quantities. Rare gems such as saphire, amethyst and topaz are also found. The Piedmont Plateau represents the first step down from the mountains toward the coast line. Its geological con- tent is represented by some of the oldest granite and gneiss, by crystalline chist and, latest of all, triassic sand- stone in which are located the only two coal mines in the state, one in Moore and the other in Chatham County. Tobacco and cotton are its greatest agricultural products, while grasses, grain, and live stock occupy the coves and valleys of the mountain region. The Costal Plain is the youngest geological formation in the state, made up of sand, clay and marble. There are five distinct layers showing as many recessions of the coast line to its present margin. Agriculturally the Costal Plain is largely planted to cotton, peanuts and trucking. THE SANDHILLS Besides the three distinct geological formations of which mention has been made, there is an intermediate stage, a sort of half step between the Piedmont Plateau and the Coastal Plain, known as the Sandhills, of which our South- ern Pines for our present purpose maybe called the center. This is an area of about 50 miles by 30 miles. When the ocean shore line ran along here, then it was that the Sand- hills were built up as the result of interaction between the tid'es and the wind. Probably there were some such storms here then as ships now encounter off Cape Hatteras. At any rate by going to Cape Henry, near Norfolk, one can see now sandhills in process of growth by the wind and tides exactly in the same way as when the ocean ebbed where we now stand. A few moments ago the history of North Carolina was outlined up to and including the Revolution. As soon as North Carolina became a state instead of a colony the Crown lands became state lands. To enlarge the citizenship and develop the state, liberal offers of land were made to pros- pective settlers. One individual was permitted to buy 640 acres at I21/2 to 25 cents an acre. The grandfather of Mrs. Robert N. Page, who was a Shaw, was Charles C. Shaw. He had twelve children and he entered 640 acres for each child. What he included in these several entries embraced what is now Southern Pines. In fact, what we now call Southern Pines was originally known as Shaw's Ridge. At that time all these Sandhills were covered with a dense stand of virgin long leaf pine. That condition continued for three quarters of a century because the soil was so poor and fertilizers had not then come into use. Underneath the pin«s there grew a tall crop of wild grasses which made splendid grazing for cattle. So by raising livestock the owners of these large areas of pine land made a living. But after the Civil War, when the South began to respond to the new industrial stiuation, railroads were surveyed towards these great pine forests. Along with the railroad to Sou- thern Pines, the Seaboard Air Line, the lumberman came in the person of Mr. Frank Page, the progenitor of all the Pages now so conspicious in the developments of the —8— Sandhills and the state. He, let it be proclaimed, was the father of the late Ambassador Walter Hines Page, who sleeps scarcely three miles from this spot, under the soft breezes of his native pines, while a tablet in Westminster Abbey is to commemorate his services to mankind. But if the Pages did lunjber destructively, let us give them credit for successful endeavor to rebuild their waste places. These cut-over pine lands that twenty-five years ago could have been bought for one dollar per acre, today, if well located, sell for three hundred dollars per acre for growing bright leaf tobacco, grapes and especially peaches. We all know how like fairyland it is at this season to motor through miles of peaches in blossom, for the area in this immediate section now given over to peaches will yield in an average year a crop of 2500 to 3000 cars. These results have been reached through modern cultural methods largely through the sagacity of the pioneers in the peach industry. The qualities of the fruit are due to climatic conditions and topography. The altitude at the railroad station is 519 feet and is probably over 600 feet on Weymouth Heights; the winter temperature is around 45, the summer, 75 and for the year 61 degrees F. The normal precipitation is 55 inches. Before leaving this part of the subject I trust I may be permitted to make a personal reference. We at this season who enjoy walking along the roads and paths in the virgin long leaf forest on Weymouth Heights intermingled with dogwoods dressed in bridal array, are indebted for that pleasure to Mrs. Dull. By chance, in 1904, Mrs. Dull, with her father, the late Mr. James Boyd, of Harrisburg, Pa., came on a visit to Southern Pines. In driving through the pine forest on Weymouth Heights they came upon ti*ees by the roadside that were boxed for turpentine. Mrs. Dull was so grieved at this seeming desecration that she urged her father to buy the land and stop the mutilation of the trees. He acted that same day, and to that tract other tracts were added from time to time until the present Weymouth Estate of some 1500 acres was acquired, all of v/hich comes within the original Shaw entries. In the years to come, therefore ,when Southern Pines celebrates the —9-. - day of its founders and preservers the name of Mrs. Dull should not be absent from its roll of honor. So, on account of the facts which have been set forth, it is not surprising that Southern Pines, beloved by all who have tried the virtue of its climate, is rapidly forging to the front as a golfing center and the leading mid-winter resort north of Florida. To conclude this local sketch I will state that Southern Pines came into existence in 1880. Dr. G. H. Sadelson was the first to adopt Southern Pines as a home. The oldest house standing is the residence occupied by Mr. Patch on East Broad Street. THE FAUNA The Fauna and flora of any given area are an expression of its topography, if by that we understand is meant the surface features in relation to soil, water and climatic con- ditions. Wherever there is a great variety of topography we look for and find a great variety in the distribution of animal and plant life. This is eminently true in the case of North Carolina. Of the seven faunal zones into which America has been divided, namely the Artie, Hudsonian, Canadian, Alleghanian, Carolinian, and Louisianian, the wild life of all these zones except the Artie and Hudsonian has or had representatives in North Carolina. Typical of the Canadian we still have the "boomer" or little red squirrel and had the lynx. The Alleghanian gave us the star-nose mole and the elk long since gone. Deer, wild turkeys and foxes of the Carolinian still abound while the allegator is a conspicious Louisianian representative. Morning and evening at this season the mockingbird and that fine singer, the brown thrasher, tell us how much the birds of North Carolina contribute to our enjoyment, and the pheasant and the bob-white lure the sportsman from afar. It is worthy of note, too, that in an ancient age the prehistoric elephant and the mastodon roamed over the confines of North Carolina of today. —10— FLORA The richness of the flora of North Carolina induding specimens all the way from the Artie to the Sub-tropical division is unequalled by any other state. For this reason for a number of years the dhistinguished botanist, the late Dr. Asa Gray, of Harvard, made an annual pilgrimage to the neighborhood of Blowing Rock always looking for and finding something unknown in his previous collection. The total number of identified plant species in the state is fifty-five hundred. Of these, 1410 are phaenergams and 3090 are cryptogams. The latter comprise : 10 ground pine, 40 ferns, 50 algae and seav/eed, 70 liver- worts, 200 mosses, 220 lichens, 2500 fungi, among which are over 100 specimens of edible mushrooms. In the 1410 phanerogams are to be found our forest trees or silva. There are in the state 153 kinds of woody plants that come under tree classification. Seventy of these are trees of the first size and 57 are trees of high economic value. In height some of them reach 140 feet and attain to a diameter of 7 feet or over. We have 24 kinds of oak, 8 o fthe 9 hickories in the United States, all 6 maples, all the lindens, the umbrella tree, all 6 magnolias, 3 of the birches 3 out of 5 elms, 1 ash, 5 poplars, 1 chestnut, 8 of the 11 pines, and both species of hemlock and balsam fir. The distribution of the silva is divided up in accordance with the three physiographic divisions of the state to which attention has already been called. In the mountain region and the Piedmont Plateau grow mainly the hard woods though fine belts of balsam fir, spruce and hemlock are found on the mountain sides and lower peaks. To the Costal Plain belongs the pine though some of these grow in the other two sections and white pine is native alone in the mountain district. The commercially most valuable trees are the oaks, the hickories, the maples, chestnut, yellow popular, and the pines. THE TREE We have been speaking of trees as a forest. Nov\^ our concern will be with the individual tree which is made up of three parts : The roots, the bole or stem, and the crown. —11— Everyone of these parts perform a special service and they all work together to grow the tree and maintain its life. The roots stay the tree and hold it fast in the ground against wind and storm. They also take water and mineral from the soil to be used as elements in the manufacture of food by the leaves. Through the microscopic openings known as stomata the leaves, through the influence of light on the green pigment or chlorophyl, extract carbonic dioxide gas from the atmosphere to be used in combination with the salts and water sent up through the roots to make carbohydrates, the tree's food. These carbohydrates are distributed throughout the bole of the tree as a storehouse where, after digestion and assimilation takes place, they are transformed into protoplasm, that complex working substance of the tree by which all growth is made. In all hardwoods and conifers growth is put on in outside layers around the vascular bundles arranged in the form of a hollow cylinder, and there is a layer or ring that defines the yearly growth. In trees like palms and palmettos there is no annual ring or diameter growth. The vascular bundles of the stem are scattered and growth takes place as in a cornstalk. All trees are put into two classes called angiosperms and gymnosperms, or to use every day language, into hardwoods and conifers, of which pines are the outstanding group. The conifers are the most ancient species of which only 400 still exist while of the angiosperms there are 100,000 species. THE LONG LEAF PINE As has already been stated, there are 8 pines in North Carolina, namely, white, short leaf, loblolly, pitch, spruce pine, pond pine, table mountain pine, and long leaf. Of these short leaf, loblolly, pitch, and long leaf are common to this locality. Now I shall endeavor to present to you the life history, range and utilization of the subject of our talk, the long leaf pine. A few days ago, while cruising through the virgin long —12— leaf pine on Weymouth Heights, I measured a tree that appeared to be one of the largest. Its diameter, taken at breast high, was 2 feet and 4 inches. Without pretending to be absolutely accurate we can estimate that diameter to represent a tree 350 years old. Now let us suppose that that tree instead of these around us, which are from 75 to 100 years old, to be standing here before us. If that pine could talk, relating both its internal and external ex- periences, its story would be as follows. "When I first flew out from my mother cone I alighted on a. thick cover of needles. There I lay apparently lifeless for nearly a year, until in late winter a large buck, who was feeding around under my ancestors, stepped upon me by chance and pressed me down against the bosom of the earth. With the coming of spring I began to feel the first sensation of life. There was a swelling of the embryo into a force that sent it through the seed-leaves and behold, I was born. In those days there was no prohibition and my first desire was for drink. So I despatched my small rootlets out in every direction for mineral and drove my tap root downward for drink. All my baby days and childhood were thus occupied, all my activities being underground rather than above. But at the end of four years I changed my program, seeking with light and heat to carry myself upward on the founda- tions already laid. And here is the tabulation of my growth from my fifth year onward. Age Height Diameter 5 2 ft 1 inch 10 15 2 15 24 3 6 20 34 5 25 42 , 6 30 48 6.9 35 54 7.6 40 58 8.3 45 61 8.8 50 64 9.3 Thus I continued to grow ,increasing my diameter faster than my height until as you see me standing before you 110 feet high, with a diameter of 2 feet and 4 inches, thus —13— showing my age to be 350 years. Three times during this period I almost despaired of my hfe. One year was so dry I nearly died from thirst and twice forest fires raged that charred my lower body unmercifully. All this you could read in the smaller ring of annual growth for those years from a cross section of my body." But there is another story this tree could tell, the record of its outward life, all that has taken place in the 350 years since its birth, for it had to stand there and receive whatever came whether good or bad without the power to move in any direction for protection. In France it stood, if I may be permitted to speak for it, at the dying bedside of Louis XIV, in the palace of Versailles. It heard the fall of the Bastile. The coming and going of both Na- poleons passed before its eyes as well as the downfall of the Bourbons ending finally in the French Republic. It saw Italy crushed for centuries beneath the heel of tyrants, finally emerge as a modarn state under her great states- man, Cavour. It watched all the efforts and stratagems of Frederick the Great to gain for Prussia the hegemony of central Europe, later to be moulded into a German Empire by Bismark only to be thrown away by William Hohen- zollern. Within its time Peter the Great of Russia en- grafted on an Asiatic foundation the civilization of Western Europe, all of which work with the tragedy of the late Czar, Nicholas the Second, totters for a fall and complete destruction in Sovietism. In England it witnessed the execution of Charles I, noted Cromwell's career, the return and expulsion of the Stuarts, the coming of William of Orange that led to the establishment of protestantism and the reiging House of Hanover. It heard, too, Shakespeare's first play and listened to Newton expounding the Law of Gravitation. Party government and the freedom of the press were born in its day. In Darwin's Theory of Evolu- tion it beheld religious beliefs placed upon a more rational foundation throughout Christendom. In our own country, from what has already been stated, it was scarcely ten years old when the first Anglo-Saxon looked upon these shores. It followed the Revolution and the establishment of our republican government of the United States with a keen sense of expectancy. It heard Washington read his —14— Farewell Address and listened to Lincoln delivering his Gettysburg Funeral Oration. In our Civil War shells from the contending armies of Sherman and Johnson, fired not two miles av\^ay, swished over its crown. But of all the even-ts of which it has been a silent witness nothing is more important than the legislation in our day in the interests of mankind. It heard those bills debated, passed and written into our statutes that lifted labor out of the cate- gory of a commodity upon a plane of common humanity, legislation that, when the passions and prejudices of the hour have softened to sanity, will be hailed as a second Bill of Rights. Now let us go back to the tree itself, to its range and utilization. The long leaf pine reaches its limit arownd 120 feet in height and 3 feet in diameter. It has a small, open, irregular and shallow crown, with a clean straight bole four- fifths of its height. The cones, gracefully curved, are 6 to 10 inches long. The leaves or needles, from which it takes its name, are 10 to 15 inches long, 3 to the fascicle. The flowers open early in spring and are a deep rose purple, the male in prominent, short dense clusters and the female in groups of two to four not so conspicuous. It seeds once every seven years and the cone aifd seed re- quire two years for maturing. The range of long leaf pane is from Norfolk, Virginia to Galveston, Texas, occupying the whole Costal Plain more or less in association with loblolly, short leaf, pitch and slash pine. The original stand was 400,000,000,000 board feet, now reduced to one-fifth of that. Its average out turn per acre of lumber is 15,000 feet. It has been cut over at the rate of 6,000,000 acres yearly. In company with its associates the total area that has been lumbered is 30,000, 000 acres, an area equal to the whole of France and as large as Georgia, Alabama and Florida combined. Now why should the long leaf pine appeal to every indi- vidual of us, to the state and to the Federal Government for preservation and reforestation? Besides having been our greatest factor in building and construction, it is with slash pine our only source of supply of naval stores. Even now in its depleted condition, it yields annually 25,000,000 gallons of turpentine and 800,000,000 pounds of rosin. —15— But as individual human beings we are indebted to long leaf pine for the comfort and shelter it has extended to two-thirds of the nation. Long leaf pine is a paying guest in every house east of the Rocky Mountains. It is to be found in the desk of every schoolhouse. Non-sectarian, it speaks from every pulpit and kneels around every altar. It is the main suporting timber of every mill and factory in New England. Not a train east of the Rocky Mountainr could move if long leaf pine forbade, and not a steamer could sail from an Atlantic or Gulf port. Long leaf pine created the wealth and built the cities of Norfolk, of Wilmington, of Charleston, of Jacksonville, of Mobile, of New Orleans and Galveston. To these cities and states and citizens everywhere in the Union long leaf pine appeals to be permitted to live and continue to give wealth, happiness and prosperity to its millions of beneficiaries. And as a last word let me say that the reforestation of the Costal Plain in long leaf pine will bring back the orange belt of Florida 100 miles further north to its original locality and make truck farming a business instead of a gamble with the frost. The reforestation of the Costal Plain will restore, the disturbed balance in the insect world and thus check and put an end to the pest activities of the cotton boll weevil —16— HIGHLAND PINES INN CREAMER & TURNER Props. Open for Winter and Spring Season Until May ist, (ON WEYMOUTH HEIGHTS) SOUTHERN PINES NORTH CAROLINA UEYMOUTH HEIGHTS, SOUTHERN PINES. The Home Section of the Sandhill Country of North Carolina. [ature and man together have conspired to make of Weymouth Heijjhts the one spot in this territory which has no rival in anything else in the community. A high ridge, giving a commanding view of all the country round. Groves of the original pine trees. A wisely planned system of roads, parks and building lots. The most pretentious homes and build- ings in the com' /, and all the conveniences of town life, but with ihe charms of tfce p'inieval forest on all sides. i": building lots, at acreage prices, which are absurdly low as com- pared with town lots in the village. S. fi. RICHARDSON, rcade Building, Southern Pines, N. C. CEDAR F^INES VIL.L.A SOUTHERN PINES, N. C. This modern house of 25 rooms with 8 baths and a 30-acre park of pines is for sale. It is situated on a high ridge on Weymouth Heights, half ti mile from the noise and dust of trains and village traffic. Beautiful grounds! trees and birds. Fine barn with box stalls and two cottages on the place Wonderful climate and extensive views. If looking for an ideal home don'1 fail to see it. Shown during summer by care taker — later Miss Thompsoi may be seen personally. EAT A!T JTACK'S SOUTHERN PINES, N. C. EXCELLENT CUISINE.