In North Carolina and Virginia loblolly tobacco hogsheads are common;
and box factories within easy reach of it use much. A list of its uses,
compiled from reports of factory operations in Maryland, will give an
idea of the range it covers: Basket bottoms, beer bottle boxes, boats,
cart bodies, crates, flooring, frames for doors and windows, fruit
boxes, interior finish, nail kegs, oyster boxes, seats for boats, siding
for houses, staves for slack cooperage, store fixtures, wagon beds,
balusters, brackets, chiffoniers, mantels, molding, picture frames,
stair railing, sash, scrollwork, sideboards, tables.
The amount of loblolly pine timber in this country is not known. No
other important species comes so near growing as much as is cut from
year to year. It covers 200,000 square miles with stands ranging from
little or nothing in some parts to 20,000 feet per acre in others, or
more in exceptional cases. The area of fully stocked loblolly pine is
believed to be as large now as it ever was. Before the Civil war it was
predicted that its period of greatest production was over; but large
tracts are now being logged on which the pine seeds had not been sown in
1860.
POND PINE (_Pinus serotina_). Sargent’s table of weights of woods shows
this to be the heaviest pine of the United States; but, as his
calculations were made from a single sample which grew in Duval county,
Florida, further data should be secured before his figures, 49.5 pounds
per cubic foot, are accepted as an average weight for the species. It is
rated in strength about equal to longleaf and Cuban pine. Its structure
shows a large percentage of dense summerwood in the yearly ring. The
leaves are in clusters of three, rarely four, and are six or eight
inches long, and fall in their third and fourth years. The name suggests
that the cones are tightly closed, and that they adhere tenaciously to
the twigs on which they grow. This is found true. The principal
impression made on a person who sees the pond pine for the first time is
that it is overloaded with cones, and that it must be a prolific seeder.
Better acquaintance modifies the latter part of that impression. It is
overloaded with cones, but most of them are many years old, and have
long been seedless, although most of the trees have the seed crops of
two years on the branches at one time. Enough seed is shed to perpetuate
the species, but too little to insure an aggressive spread into
surrounding vacant ground. The pond pine may reach a diameter of three
feet and a height of eighty, but that is twice the average size. The
wood is very resinous, and is brittle.
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