572 TEEES SUITED TO DUNE PLANTATIONS. 



timber and for its resinous products. It is always grown from 

 seed, and the young shoots require to be protected for several 

 seasons, by the branches of other trees, planted in rows, or spread 

 over the surface and staked down, by the growth of the Arundo 

 arena/ria and other small sand-plants, or by wattled hedges. The 

 beach from which the sand is derived has been generally planted 

 with the arundo, because the pine does not thrive well so near 

 the sea ; but it is thought that a species of tamarisk is hkely to 

 succeed in that latitude even better than the arundo. The shade 

 and the protection offered by the branching top of the pine are 

 favorable to the growth of deciduous trees, and, while still young, 

 of shrubs and smaller plants which contribute more rapidly to 

 the formation of vegetable mould ; and thus, when the pine has 

 once taken root, the redemption of the waste is considered as 

 effectually secured. 



In France, the maritime pine is planted on the sands of the 

 interior as weU as on the dunes of the sea-coast, and with equal 

 advantage. This tree resembles the pitch-pine of the Southern 

 American States in its habits, and is apphed to the same uses. 

 The extraction of turpentine from it begins at the age of about 

 twenty years, or when it has attained a diameter of from nine 

 to twelve inches. Incisions are made up and down the trunk, to 

 the depth of about half an inch in the wood, and it is insisted 

 that if not more than two such slits are cut, the tree is not sensi- 

 bly injured by the process. The growth indeed is somewhat 

 checked, but the wood becomes superior to that of trees from 

 which the turpentine is not extracted. Thus treated, the pine 

 continues to flourish to the age of one hundred or one hundred 

 and twenty years, and up to this age the trees on an acre yield 

 annually 300 pounds of essence of turpentine, and 250 pounds 

 of resin, worth together not far from ten doUars. The expense 

 of extraction and distillation is calculated at about four dollars, 

 and a clear profit of more than five dollars per acre is left.* This 



* These processes are substantially similar to those employed ta the pineries 

 of the Carolinas, but they are better systematized and more economically con- 

 ducted in France. In the latter country, all the products of the pine, even to 

 the cones, find a remunerating market, while, in America, the price of resin 

 is so low, that in the fierce steamboat races on the great rivers, large quan- 

 tities of it are thrown into the furnaces to increase the intensity of the fires 



