USEFUL PROJECTS. 



657 



posed to a moderate heat, the tar 

 will be seen to exude from them. 



I remain, sir, 

 Your obedient and very humble 

 servant, 



H. B. Way. 

 Bridport Harbour) 

 Nov. 27, 1809. 

 To C. Taylor, M. D. Sec. 



Extracts of Notes taken by Mr. 

 Way. 



Thursday, April \2, 1792. 



Arrived at Wilmington, North 

 Carolina, about one P. M. Ob- 

 served on the roads the pitch- 

 pines prepared for extracting tur- 

 pentine, which is done by cutting 

 a hollow in the tree about six 

 inches from the ground, and then 

 taking the bark off from a space 

 of about eighteen inches above it, 

 from the sappy wood. The tur- 

 pentine runs from April to Octo- 

 ber, and is caught by the hollow 

 below. Some of the trees were 

 cut on two sides, and only a strip 

 of the bark left of about four 

 inches in breadth on each of the 

 other two sides, for conveyance 

 of the sap necessary for the sup- 

 port of the tree. A captain Cook, 

 with whom I had been travelling, 

 informed me that some trees 

 would run six or seven years, and 

 that every year the bark was cut 

 away higher and higlier, till the 

 tree would run no longer ; and I 

 observed many that had dontS run- 

 ning, and they were in general 

 stripped of the bark on two sides, 

 as high as a man could reach, and 

 some were dead from the opera- 

 tion ; others did not look much 

 the worse for it. I find the usual 

 task is for one man to attend 3000 

 trees, which taken together would 



Vol. Lir. 



produce one hundred to one hun- 

 dred and ten barrels of turpentine. 



April 15, 1792. 



On my return from Wilmington 

 to Cowen's tavern, distant about 

 sixteen miles from thence, 1 was 

 informed that the master of the 

 house had been a superintendant 

 of negroes who collected turpen- 

 tine. 1 found the information I 

 had before received was not per- 

 fectly correct : he told me he at- 

 tended to six slaves for a year for 

 a planter, and between the 1st of 

 April and the 1st of September 

 they made six hundred barrels of 

 turpentine. The cutting the trees 

 for the purpose of collecting is 

 called boxing them; and it is 

 reckoned a good day's work to 

 box sixty in a day. The trees will 

 not run longer than four years; 

 and it is necessary to take off 

 a thin piece of the wood about 

 once a week, and also as often as 

 it rains, as that stops the trees 

 running. 



While in North Carolina, I was 

 particular in my inquiries respect- 

 ing the making tar and pitch, and 

 I saw several tar-kilns; they have 

 two sorts of wood that they make 

 it from, both of which are the 

 pitch pine. The sort from which 

 most of it is made are old trees, 

 which have fallen down in the 

 woods, and the sap rotted oft", and 

 is what they call light wood, not 

 from the weight of it, as it is very 

 heavy, but from its combustible 

 nature, as it will light vvitii a 

 candle, and a piece of it thrown 

 into the fire will give light enough 

 to read and write b3^ All the 

 pitch-pine will not become light- 

 wood ; the people concerned in 

 making tar know it from the ap- 



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