306 A FOREST TOUR AMONG THE DUNES OF GASCONY, 
runs freely for from five to eight days, when the upper portion of 
it is renewed by taking off a thin chip with the abchotte, and it is 
thus slightly heightened. This operation is repeated some forty 
times during tlie season, which extends to the 15th October, and 
by this time the cut has attained a height of 22 in. The semi- 
solid resin (galipot), of which the quantity is very small under 
this system, is scraped off by the hand of the workman from time 
to time; and, at the close of the season, the more hardened resin 
(barras) is removed with the barrasquite, and carried to the reser- 
voir. At the beginning of the second season, the bark having 
been removed as before, the zinc plate is driven in at the top of 
the old wound, and the pot, supported below by a nail driven into 
the tree, is placed immediately under it. The collection is then 
continued as before ; but when there are irregularities in the stem, 
or when it does not stand perpendicularly, chips of wood driven 
into the bark, and ingeniously arranged, guide the resin in the 
desired direction. The cut is increased in height by 30 in. during 
the second year’s work, and by a similar amount during each of 
the third and fourth years ; but during the fifth and last year the 
height is increased by 40 in. ; and the cut having attained a total 
height of 12 ft. 8 in., it is abandoned, and a new one is com- 
menced. When the tree is to be “‘tapped to death,” the cut is 
made to attain its total height in four instead of in five years. 
The pot, which is sometimes closed with a little wooden cover, so 
as to reduce evaporation, is, when full, emptied into a wooden 
bucket, in which the resin is carried to a reservoir in the forest, 
whence it is subsequently conveyed to the factory in barrels, each 
holding 520 lbs. When the cut has risen in height, so that the 
workman, standing on the ground, cannot reach it with the 
abchotte, he provides himself with a sort of ladder, consisting of a 
notched pine pole 15 ft. long, which he places against the tree, and 
on which he mounts to the required height. When the pot is too 
high to be reached from the ground, it is removed by means of a 
sliding staff, which can be extended to a length of 11 ft., and is 
furnished with a pair of metal arms to grasp the pot; but some- 
times a sharp, broad-bladed hook-like tool, something like the 
barrasquite, is fixed to the sliding staff, in addition to the metal 
arms, and with the aid of this instrument the cuts are renewed by 
the workman standing on the ground, without his being obliged 
to carry and mount a ladder. The method above described, which 
bears the name of its originator, M. Hughes, was explained to us 
