"Bill Oliver" wrote in message Is the forest all of a
single age? I have some land that was
pasture about 70 years ago, but then allowed to grow up in forest.
When I bought the land, I noticed that a *lot* of the pine
trees were sickly and fallen/falling. I called the local
ag extension guy out and he told me that this was natural
succession. Southern pine have a life span of 60-ish years,
and my forest was transitioning from pine to hardwood, which
were slowly taking over. Sure enough, he took me to a portion
of the place that had been in forest for greater than 90
years, and it was mostly hardwood with very few pines.

billo
In many parts of the south, fires would have been set in the numerous summer
lightning storms, and the forest would have remained pine, because the
hardwoods are more susceptible to fire. (The pines will usually get scarred
but will regenerate). This has been supressed except in certain of the
natural forests, so much of the longleaf pine forest native to the coastal
lowlands of the entire south has transitioned to hardwoods - also pretty,
but not as useful for the wildlife native there. In the Appalachicola
national forest near Tallahassee, the forest service sets controlled fires
nearly every year in some area or another to maintain a pine forest.