In the quarter-century since cotton began its march west, pine has become a main hope and reliance over much of the Piedmont. But if pine is further to replace cotton as a cash crop in that part of the Old South, there is still plenty to worry about. One is littleleaf disease, caused by a fungus that kills fine roots; deprived of nutrients, an infected tree dies of slow starvation.
On the lands of the de la Howe School in South Carolina is a 100-acre tract where trees find sanctuary from littleleaf. The old-growth pines on the de la Howe tract are of full size and healthy at 160 years or more, although the fungus is present there, too. Why?
The answer seems to lie in the condition of the soil which is vastly different from that of the abandoned worn-out fields of the area.
"The topsoil has not been lost through erosion," Louis J. Metz of the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station writes for a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Forestry. "The soil is porous, mellow, and deep—and the proper habitat is provided for organisms that act against P. cinnamomi [the offending fungus] to hold it in check … This natural area helps admirably in demonstrating the conditions under which the little-leaf disease does and does not develop."
Or, as Hugh Bennett has said, regarding the washed-out slopes in his native parts of North Carolina, "Trees know more about taking care of land than men do. They shield the soil and then lay down a mulch."
Nowhere else in the South Carolina Piedmont, and in few other places throughout the Southeast, can such long-undisturbed forest areas be found. These particular 100 acres owe their survival to the foresight of Dr. John de la Howe, who in endowing the school not long after the Revolutionary War directed in his will that 1,000 acres "shall forever remain in wood or forest." On at least part of this land his wish has been respected; there has been almost no cutting since 1797.
The Society of American Foresters, with the assistance of a grant from Resources for the Future, is working to locate a number of such representative tracts of virgin or old growth woodland in the Southeast that will be useful for basic research in silviculture, forest management, and ecology. Francis H. Eyre, who is making the field investigations, reports that the de Ia Howe lands will be among those recommended by the Society for permanent preservation as natural areas.
A version of this article appeared in print in the June 1960 issue of Resources magazine.
