Abstract This paper constitutes a progress report on an experiment begun in 1939 in southeastern Mississippi to determine the effect of various treatments of the ground cover and soil on the early height growth of longleaf pine seedlings. The outstanding finding to date is that height growth has been significantly greater on plots which were denuded of ground cover than on those which were spaded, burned, or left rough. Supplementary treatment comprising watering, fertilizing, and mulching, either singly or in combination, appear to have had little or no effect. The study indicates the desirability of developing practical ways of removing competing vegetation from around longleaf pine seedlings in order to shorten or avoid the period of extremely slow early growth that is characteristic of the species under usual field conditions.
L. J. Pessin (Tue,) studied this question.