33 



(10) Does bleeding lessen the v;iluc of the timber? The common answer was, "yes'"; fre- 

 quently, however, in all parts, " no" ; in Georgia it was contended that bleeding improves tiie timber. 



(11) It was generally stated that the yield per acre for the saw-miller was reduced by the 

 practice of turpentine orcliardiug, even though he followed the turpentine man at once. 



(lii) Abandoned orchards are always visited by fires and these tires always reduce the yield 

 of saw timber per acre to a very large, although variable, extent. 



According to one of Geiirgia's foremost lumbermen, an orchard l)led four years, and then left 

 two more years because the miller was not ready for it, lost 60 percent of its mill-sized timber. 



(1-3) It is common for turpentine mcu to box timber far under mill size. The miller can use 

 only from 20 to 50 per cent of the boxed timber and the bled trees not used by the miller mostly 

 die ofl". 



(li) If tire is kept (jut the bled trees rcuuiin alive, but are said, in North Carolina at least, 

 not to be tit for lumber. 



From the foregoing statements it appears that all lumbermeu are agreed upon thefollowing 

 imjiortant points: 



(1) That a large proportion of the yellow or long-leaf pine lumber is from bled trees. 



(2) That it is never keiit apart or distinguished from the unbled by either millers or dealers. 



(3) That no available criteria exist by which to distinguish the two kinds of lumber after 

 manufacture. 



It is also plain that the oi)inions regarding ditfcrence in (juality or the intiuence of bleeding on 

 the timber or luml>er are too contradictory to be convincing, and also that the harm which follows 

 the practice of bleeding lies not in the injury to lumber, but consists in — 



(1) Bleeding of trees too small for the sawmill. 



(2) lileeding of tracts of timber not ready for the miller at the time (tf abandonme>nt. 

 Careful examination in the laboratory and iu the field did not confirm any of the opinions 



with regard to the eti'ects of bleeding. Some of the most resinous logs were from orchards in 

 South Carolina; some of the '-driest" from unbled forests in Alabama. The ordinary "fat streak" 

 is a snuill wound nuide and healed over at a time when the place is still at the periphery or out- 

 side of the tree, therefore, it is sometimes made more than a hundred years before the bleeding 

 occurred. The long reaches of "light wood" are met in unbled tindter. Weight and color are 

 more dependent on the proportion of spring and summer wood than on the amount of resin (except 

 in lightwood) and can, therefore, not serve as distinctions. 



The eftect of bleeding on the forests appears at first as loss of foliage or thinning of the crown 

 and some trees are evidently killed iu two seasons of bleeding; old abandoned orchards every- 

 where are the very picture of desolation and ruin. The old long bled trees of North Carolina are 

 runts, and show that with the methods at present pursued by the turpentine orchardists, the 

 extraction of resin may sometimes be carried on for long periods, but not without injury to the 

 health and thrifty growth of the trees. 

 11500— No. « 5 



