The Turpentine Orchard 199 



them two cornering axes, and together cut the 

 bark on the tree. A few inches above the ground 

 two flat surfaces are cut. The right-handed man 

 cuts one, his partner the other, and the two men 

 cut several hundred such surfaces in a day. Both 

 these surfaces combined are a little more than a 

 foot wide. 



The next workman has a broadax for his tool. 

 With it he makes two slanting cuts, one in each 

 surface on the tree. One cut is a little lower than 

 the other, and he places a gutter in each of them. 

 The gutter is of sheet iron, two inches wide and 

 nearly a foot in length. It is bent into the proper 

 shape, two of them forming a spout, below which 

 an earthenware cup is hung. 



Beginning in March, the surfaces over each 

 cup are chipped once a week with a sharp tool 

 called a "hack" to keep up a good flow of resin. 

 The hack is drawn across the two surfaces in a 

 slanting direction, cutting one V-shaped groove 

 above another in the wood of the tree. From time 

 to time the cups are emptied of their "dip." In 

 the early autumn the resin which has hardened 

 on the tree is also scraped off and collected. 



The next season the cup and gutters are moved 



