634 



FARMERS' REGISTER— WOOD FOR FUEL. 



cision; as is also much of the American. The 

 carter and waggoner, the varnisher and painter, 

 the manufacturer of gunpowder, of soap and can- 

 dles, the shoemaker, brusii maker and (inner, the 

 blacksmith, and more than all, the farmer, is in- 

 debted to the pine. Tar furnishes a very good 

 varnish for vessels, and rosin is made from it, by 

 burning down or boiling it. Turpentine is made 

 on a large scale, by incision of the living pine, 

 that is atterwards used tor tar. The pine aHbrds 

 a good material for rails, which although not as 

 durable as oak or ash, yet being more abundant, 

 more easily cut, and more yielding to the wedge, 

 it is a cheaper timber, especially if we add to their 

 durability by skinning belbre mauling, or permitting 

 to lie afterwards a while, until the bark (which 

 rots the rail) will slough oli' in handling. It is 

 certainly the quickest ot all restorers ol" an ex- 

 hausted and impoverished soil, where the land is 

 put upon its own resources for restoraiion, since 

 it is dependent upon the soil for but very little sup- 

 port, the roots drawing their nourishment far be- 

 neath the surface, fi-om the clay, or subsoil; (where- 

 as clover, or other vegetation, needs a start- first 

 from the soil, by manuring, before it can enrich 

 the earth much;) and by being again ielled on the 

 land, by their shading influence, which mellows 

 the earth, and in conveying a powerful coat of 

 vegetation, besides its fertilizing property, sooner 

 than any thing else, restores the land to its origi- 

 nal slrength. It affords also the best material for 

 retaining the soil, for stopping gulleys, and seems 

 to have risen up around these awful cavities, be- 

 queathed us bvourancestors, tor the very purpose, 

 as well as a kind of gloomy reproof, of their land 

 destroying system. It may be worih while to 

 mention, that the tops and limbs of the pine is the 

 very best stuff for repairing the breaches ol dikes, 

 dams, &c. The ])ine affords the cheapest and 

 most economical fad, and is decidedly the best 

 wood for burning bricks, making the hottest fire, 

 and free from the damp rainy vapor, arising from 

 green wood, which half the time puts the fire out, 

 acting as so many pails of cold water. According 

 to Mr. Bull's experiments on forty-six varieties of 

 wood, and twenty of coal, it ajipears that the dry 

 pine wood, (which has received more pliiloso])hi- 

 cal attention than some would suppose) affords as 

 much heat as eight of them — that is, the white 

 ash, apple tree, American chestnut, white elm, 

 shell-bark hickory, inountain hiurel, Lombardy 

 poplar — and more than all the rest. The experi- 

 ments were made by ascertaining the time 10'-^ of 

 heat were maintained, above the common temper- 

 ature, by the combustion of one pound of each 

 article, burnt in a sheet iron cylinder stove, with 

 forty-two feet of two inch pipe, in a room where a 

 thermometer was placed. The experiments were 

 extremely accura'e: the heat was maintained 6 

 hours 40 minutes. The pine used was of dif- 

 ferent kinds — red cedar, (janiperus Virgin iana,) 

 Jersey pine, (pinus inopc,) pitch pine, (pinus 

 segida,) white pine, (pinus sirobiis,) yellow pine, 

 (soft) (pinus mitis:) the last kind mentioned, the 

 neat rather less than the others, 6 hours 30 min- 

 utes. The other wood maintained it different 

 degrees, but all less than the nine above men- 

 tioned. 



Pine, as all other kinds of wood, sliould be 

 burnt in a dry state; for these reasons: First, dry 

 wood affords more heat. Several experiments 



made by Count Rumfbrd, show the efi'ect of dry 

 wood much greater than that of unseasi)ned wood. 

 Unseasoned wood contains one-third of ffs weight 

 of water: with his im])roved boilers. Count Rum- 

 fbrd made twenty pounds of ice cold water boil, 

 with one pound of dry pine wood; the same 

 weight of pine wood unseasoned, would produce 

 less efltjct by one-seventh; one in every seven 

 pounds of green wood is, therefbre, lost in com- 

 bustion, in the fire place. It was ascertained by 

 Mr. Bull, tliat 100 pounds of green white oak 

 contained 41 pounds of moisture, and that 13^^ per 

 cent of the combustable matter of this green oak 

 is consumed, in converting 41 pounds of moisture 

 into steam, or driving it up the chimney; and of 

 course, in all ordinary cases, is a dead loss. We 

 may calculate then, to lose 13f per cent, of heat 

 in every 100 j^ounds of green wood we burn. 



Secondly, the great quantity of heat that io 

 absorbed by this aqueous vapor or steam, after it 

 is driven from the wood. Green wood, it was 

 found by the last author, is nearly twice as heavy 

 as dry or seasoned wood: soft maple, it was as- 

 certained by him, lost 48 per cent, in drying. "If 

 we assume then (says he) the mean quantity of 

 moisture in the woods, when green, as 42 percent., 

 the great disadvantage in attempting to burn wood 

 in this slate must be obvious; as in every 100 

 pounds of this compound of v/ood and water, 42 

 pounds of at|ueous matter must be expelled from 

 the wood; and as the capacity of water or ab- 

 sorbing heat is nearly as four to one when com- 

 pared with air, and probably greater during its 

 conversion into vapor, which nu;sl be effected be- 

 fbre it can escape, the loss of heat must conse- 

 quently be very great." In fact, I incline to thi)d<, 

 that the weight of green over that of dry wood, 

 is much over half! if all the moisture was expelled; 

 fbr I do not consider the moisture entirely expelled, 

 until the wood is converted into charcoal; if so, 

 then as 100 pounds of dry i;ine wood contains only 

 23.75 parls of coal, according to experiments, we 

 liave but 23.75 per cent, of combusUble matter in 

 100 pounds of dry pine, to produce heat or fire; 

 for all the heat that is given out, in burning wood, 

 is owing to the charcoal it contains. What a 

 quantity of heat then is absorbed by the aqueous 

 vapor of 100 pounds even of dry pine, for if we 

 subtract 23.75 fi-om 100, it leaves about 77 pounds 

 of aqueous vapor, smoke, pyroligneous acid, &c., 

 to absorb and carry ofi' the heat. But the effect 

 is still greater with green wood. If 100 parts of 

 dry pine yield but 23.75 of charcoal, and 100 

 pounds of green wood contain 41 pounds of water, 

 then 100 parts of green pine, will yield but 12 

 parts of coal, which is all the combustible matter 

 we have, to produce heat in 100 ])ounds of green 

 wood; and if this be taken from 100, it leaves 88 

 per cent, of aqueous vapor and smoke, to absorb 

 the heat and carry it up the chimney; and 88 per 

 cent, of heat is lost m burning green wood in an 

 open fire phice; which agrees nearly with the re- 

 sults of Dr. Franklin, that the old open fire places, 

 lost 95 per cent, of heat; and with Mr. Bull, that 

 even in the [)resent improved Rumford fire places, 

 there is a loss of" 90 per cent. But besides the 

 heat lost in greenwood, in converting the sap into 

 vapor, and by absorption, it requires an additional 

 quantity of combustible matter, or dry wood, to 

 expel enougli sap fiom the wood, to set it a burn- 

 ing, or in other words, to kindle it. Unless this 



