220 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



miles from Fayetteville, where he has lately settled, hav- 

 ing previously carried on the business in Hanover county, 

 which he was obliged to abandon in consequence of the 

 loss of 30,000 trees in one season, by what some assert to 

 be an insect, while others think the insect to be a conse- 

 quence of the disease that kills the pines (See p. 225 of 

 our seventh volume). Be this as it may, the destruction 

 is enormous, and if it were not for the almost unbounded 

 quantities of long-leaf pine in the states of North Caro- 

 lina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisi- 

 ana, and Mississippi, it might well be feared that the 

 source of supply would soon be exhausted. 



Mr. Murphy bought his land about two years ago for 

 one to two dollars an acre, and it is of but little value 

 except for a turpentine plantation. He has at present 

 about 60,000 trees boxed, and is daily increasing the 

 number. Four hands can tend 36,000 trees ; that is, three 

 hands to cut and one to dip; and, if the trees are good, 

 and the season propitious, they will gather 800 barrels of 

 turpentine a year. This is now, (May, 1849,) worth, in 

 Wilmington, the great turpentine depot, $2.25 a barrel, 

 and cost of transportation is fifty cents a barrel. He 

 thinks that at present prices, in a good place, hands will 

 average about $200 a year clear of expenses. Mr. M. 

 distils all of his pitch. Two hands will run a hundred 

 barrels through in two days. This will make 700 gallons 

 of spirits, which is put up in the best of seasoned white- 

 oak casks, coated with glue on the inside, to prevent 

 leakage. It is worth about 25 cents a gallon at Wilming- 

 ton, pay for barrel extra. The rosin, if from new trees, 

 or, as it is termed, "virgin turpentine," is usually saved 

 and put up in the barrels from whence the crude article 

 has been taken, and is worth, or was, last year, about $2 



living in Cumberland County from 1850 to 1853, and served in the 

 county courts as a juror from the Rockfish section. Cumberland 

 County Court Minutes, 1850-1853; Connor, Robert Diggs Wim- 

 berly, et al., History of North Carolina, 6:338 (Lewis Publishing 

 Co., Chicago and New York, 1919) ; letter from the North Caro- 

 lina Historical Commission to Herbert A. Kellar, May 14, 1936. 



