176 FIRST BOOK OF FORESTRY 



a month the men " dip " the " crude/' and this is hauled 

 to a distillery, a "turpentine still," where the "crude" 

 is boiled with a little water. By this means the spirits 

 of turpentine, or " spirits," go off as a vapor and are 

 cooled in a coiled tube, the " worm," which is kept cool 

 by flowing water. As soon as the " spirits " are distilled 

 the remaining mass, the rosin, is run out like molten 

 metal through a sieve into a trough, whence it is ladled 

 into barrels. This soon hardens on cooling, so that the 

 barrels need not be very tight. 



Some distillers get all their " crude " from farmers ; 

 others have special crews in the woods to tap for them. 

 Ordinarily a tree is tapped only four years, but in many 

 of the settled districts of North Carolina trees have been 

 66 bled " for more than twenty years. 



One man tends, " chips," or " streaks," about five thou- 

 sand trees. His trees form a " crop," and are supposed 

 to have ten thousand notches or "boxes." Such a crop 

 yields during the four years of "bleeding" about fifty- 

 four hundred gallons of turpentine and six hundred arid 

 eighty barrels (two hundred and forty pounds each) of rosin. 

 The yield is greatest the first year, the four years com- 

 paring in this respect as 7 to 6 to 4 to 1. 



When the lumberman follows the turpentine man, and 

 uses up the timber as soon as the tapping is finished, this 

 industry is entirely proper; but where the trees cannot 

 be utilized afterwards it is too wasteful. The output of 



