NORTH CAROLINA 143 



All these works are carried on mainly by negro 

 slaves, and the profit arising is so much the greater 

 because no establishment is necessary beyond the 

 working hands themselves. It is here and there esti- 

 mated that each working negro, what with these and 

 other uses made of the forest, should bring in to his 

 master one to two hundred pounds current a year, but 

 this calculation may be perhaps too high. 



Formerly one could buy ioo acres of this pine-forest 

 for 4-5 Pd. Current (about 24-30 fl. Rhenish). He 

 who took up 1 or 200 acres, generally had the use of 

 six to ten times as much more lying adjacent, there 

 being unalienated timber-land in plenty. At present, 

 the returns from lands sold being applied in the settle- 

 ment of the state debts, the price of 100 acres of tim- 

 ber-land is raised to 10-12 Pd. 



The Pitch-pine, here so-called, which is greatly pre- 

 ferred for turpentine because most resinous, has three 

 very long needles in each case; the tree is of a tall 

 comely growth, and has long bare boughs upward- 

 bent, which, commonly at the extreme end, bear out- 

 standing tufts of needles. It appears more like Pinus 

 palustris Mill* than Pinus Taeda L., since it grows 

 here almost entirely on barren, sandy soils, and is 

 found oftener towards the coast than farther inland. 

 The tree is not apparently weakened if turpentine is 

 drawn from it many years together, and it is even 

 thought that it merely grows the richer for these tap- 



* Pinus palustris foliis terms longissimis, Von Wangen- 

 heim's Beytrdge, 73. Marshall's Amer. Grove, 100. The 

 former says, it seems to contain little of resinous parts ; the 

 latter, that it is as resinous as any other kind. 



