CONIFERjE. 



8ILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



155 



Plants of Pinus palustris four or five feet high, cut at the level of the ground, are sold every 

 winter in large numbers in the markets of northern cities for the decoration of churches and living- 

 rooms. 1 



Pinus palustris appears to have been first described by Duhamel in 1755, 2 although the value 

 of its resinous products had been recognized more than a century earlier. 3 By the advice of F. A. 

 Michaux, 4 the French government distributed, about 1830, large quantities of the seeds of this tree 



" Scrape " or " Hard Turpentine," the product of the scraping of 

 the boxes. Rosin is graded as follows : " W," window glass ; " N," 

 extra pale ; "M," pale ; " K," low pale ; "I," good No. 1 ; "H," 

 No. 1 ; « G," low No. 1 ; " F," good No. 2 ; " E," No. 2 ; " D," 

 good strain ; " C," strain ; " B," common strain ; " A," black. 

 Window-glass, which is the highest grade, is produced only from 

 the first dippings of virgin trees; the resinous exudation becomes 

 darker in color and less volatile with every succeeding year, and 

 the rosin darker and less valuable. Trees worked during several 

 years produce dark brown or black rosin. Spirits of turpentine 

 distilled from the resinous exudations of virgin trees is pale-col- 

 ored, light in weight, and free from any taste ; the resinous matter 

 yielded in succeeding years gains more and more body, and the 

 greater heat required in distilling it throws off some resin combined 

 with the spirits, producing a bitter taste and greater weight. 



Tar, produced by burning the dead wood and most resinous 

 parts of the Long-leaved Pine in covered kilns, is graded as fol- 

 ows : " Rope Yellow," or rope-makers' tar, — the highest grade, — 

 produced with a minimum of heat from the most resinous parts of 

 the wood ; " Roany," or " Ship Smearing," the next running of the 

 kiln; "Black "or "Thin," the lowest grade, made from inferior 

 wood, or the last running of the kiln, and therefore produced with 

 a maximum of heat. (See Fliickiger & Hanbury, Pkarmacograpkia, 

 546. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 517. — 

 Dunwoody, Am. Jour. Pharm. lxii. 284. — Murray, Am. Jour. 

 Pharm. lxii. 393. — Ashe, Bull. No. 5, North Carolina Geolog. Surv. 

 73 ( The Forests, Forest Lands, and Forest Products of Eastern North 

 Carolina. — Mohr, Bull. No. 13, Div. Forestry U. S. Dept. Agric. 67 

 [Timber Pines of the Southern U. S.]. — Bastin & Trimble, Am. 

 Jour. Pharm. lxviii. 242, f . 23-27.) 



1 Garden and Forest, iii. 12. 



2 Pinus Americana palustris trifolia, foliis longissimis, Traite des 

 Arbres, ii. 126. 



3 That the production of tar and turpentine was an occupation of 

 some importance on our southern coast in the seventeenth century 

 appears from the following passage on the fifteenth page of Samuel 

 Clarke's A True and Faithful Account of the Four Chief est Planta- 

 tions of England and America, to wit, Virginia, New England, Ber- 

 mudas and Barbadoes, published in London in 1670 : " Pot-ashes, 

 and Soap-ashes; Pitch and Tar for making whereof divers Po- 

 landers were sent over." 



* Francois Andre" Michaux (August 16, 1770-October 3, 1855) 

 was born at Satory, a royal seat near Versailles, and was the only 

 son of Andre" Michaux, famous for his botanical explorations in the 

 Orient, North America, and Madagascar. Francois accompanied 

 his father to North America, where he was sent to examine its 

 flora and to gather the seeds of trees and other plants for the royal 

 nurseries, and landed in New York on the 1st of October, 1785. 

 He remained with his father, sharing many of his long journeys, 

 until 1790, when he returned to France, and devoted himself to the 

 study of medicine in Paris under Corvisart with the intention of 

 returning to the United States, where he proposed to establish him- 

 self as a physician. But the government becoming dissatisfied 



with the results obtained from the nurseries of young trees which 

 the elder Michaux had left in New Jersey and South Carolina, 

 Francois Michaux was invited to return to America to ship their 

 contents to France and sell the land. He reached Charleston on 

 the 9th of October, 1801, and remained in the United States until 

 1803, devoting his time after the fulfillment of his commission to 

 exploring the forests, traveling as far westward as Nashville, Ten- 

 nessee. Returning to Paris, he published in 1804 his Voyage a 

 VOuest des Monts Alleghany s, which describes the country he had 

 traversed two years before, and in the following year a Memoire 

 sur la Naturalisation des Arbres Forestiers de VAmerique du Nord, 

 in which he insisted on the advantages to be derived from natural- 

 izing the most valuable American trees on a large scale in France. 

 In order to put this idea into operation, he was again sent to the 

 United States, embarking on the 5th of February, 1805, although 

 owing to the capture of his vessel by a British man-of-war he did 

 not reach his destination until the end of May, having in the mean 

 time passed some time at Bermuda. Michaux now remained 

 nearly tbree years in America, studying the trees of the eastern 

 states, familiarizing himself with their characters and uses, and 

 gathering seeds of the most valuable, from which more than two 

 hundred and fifty thousand plants were raised in France. On his 

 return Michaux began the preparation of the Histoire des Arbres 

 Forestiers de VAmerique Septentrionale, the work by which he is best 

 known. This classical book was published in three volumes, with 

 one hundred and forty-four colored plates engraved on copper. 

 Based on accurate knowledge gained in the forests and workshops 

 of the New World, it is a monument to the energy, patience, and 

 knowledge of its author, and must always be consulted by all stu- 

 dents of the trees of eastern North America. The first volume 

 appeared in 1810 when Michaux was forty j'ears of age, the second 

 in 1812, the third in 1813. An English edition in three volumes 

 appeared in Paris and Philadelphia in 1817-19 under the title 

 of The North American Sylva, with a few additional plates and 

 some fresh observations by the author. The plates of the illus- 

 trations were bought in Paris by Mr. William McClure of Phil- 

 adelphia and brought to this country, and in 1841, an edition was 

 printed from them at New Harmony, Indiana ; another edition 

 appeared in Philadelphia in 1852 with notes by Mr. J. Jay Smith ; 

 and in 1865 this edition was republished in Philadelphia with a re- 

 print of the two volumes of Nuttall's Sylva. After the publication 

 of his Histoire des Arbres, Michaux devoted the remainder of his 

 life to the propagation and cultivation of trees on a small estate of 

 his own and on the grounds of the Socie"te" d' Agriculture, to which he 

 was always deeply devoted. In recognition of the hospitality and 

 kindness he had received in the United States, Michaux bequeathed 

 to the American Philosophical Society the sum of fourteen thousand 

 dollars for special purposes connected with the object of his con- 

 stant ambition, " the progress of agriculture with reference to the 

 propagation of useful forest trees ; '' and to the Massachusetts 

 Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, of which he was an hon- 

 orary member, he left the sum of eight thousand dollars for similar 

 purposes. 



