THE FORESTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



517 



number of dippings is reduced to five, the product falling off to 150 barrels, while for the third season 100 barrels 

 are considered a fair yield from three dippings. To this must be added the yield of the "scrapes", which for the 

 first year is estimated, for one crop, at from 60 to 70 barrels of 280 pounds each, and for succeeding years at 100 

 barrels. 



Trees can be profitably worked in North Carolina by experienced operators during four or five years, or, upon a 

 small scale, in connection with fanning operations and by actual residents, several years longer; farther south the 

 I ices seem to possess less recuperative power, and in South Carolina four years is given as the outside limit during 

 which an orchard can be profitably worked, while in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama they are often abandoned at 

 the end of the second and always at the end of the third year. Twenty-five men, including overseers, wagoners, 

 distillers, coopers, and laborers can work ten crops. The average wages of such a force is $1 a day per man, so 

 that the cost of labor necessary to work a crop during the season of thirty-two weeks is 480. 



The following grades of turpentine are recognized in the trade : "Virgin dip", or " Soft white gnm turpentine"- 

 th product the first year the trees are worked; "Yellow dip" the product of the second and succeeding years, and 

 becoming darker colored and less liquid every year ; " Scrape" or " Hard turpentine " the product of the scrapings 

 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 is the lightest grade, and is only produced from the first dippings of "virgin " trees that is, 

 trees worked for the first time. The resinous exudation becomes darker colored and less volatile every year, as the 

 box grows older, and the rosin produced is darker and less valuable. Trees worked during several years produce 

 a very dark brown or black rosin. Spirits of turpentine made from virgin trees is light colored, light in weight, 

 and free from any taste; the resinous matter yielded in succeeding years gains more and more body, and the 

 additional heat required in distilling it throws off some resin combined with the spirits, producing in it a strong, 

 biting 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 follows: "Hope yellow", or Eopemakers' tar the highest grade, produced with a minimum of heat from 



the most resinous parts of the wood; "lioany," 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 



the maximum of heat. 



The following statistics of the production of naval stores during the census year were prepared by Mr. A. H. 

 Van Bokkelen, of Wilmington, North Carolina, to whom I am indebted for much information in regard to the 

 methods used in carrying on this industry : 



Eighty thousand barrels of tar were manufactured during the census year in North Carolina, and 10,000 barrels 

 in the other southern states. 



The total value of this crop of naval stores at centers of distribution, and of course including freight from the 

 forest and different brokerage charges, was not far from $8,000,000. The net profits of the industry, even in the 

 case of virgin trees, is very small, and at present prices is believed to be unprofitable except to the most skillful 

 operators. The low price of southern timber-lands and the facility with which rights to operate tracts of forest for 

 turpentine have been lately obtainable in several states have unnaturally stimulated production. The result of 

 this has been that manufacturers, unable to make a profit except from virgin trees, abandon their orchards after 

 one or two years' working and seek new fields of operation ; the ratio of virgin forest to the total area worked 

 over in the production of naval stores is therefore constantly increasing. It is estimated by Mr. Van Bokkelen 

 that during the years between 1870 and 1880 an average of one-third of the total annual product of the country 

 was obtained from virgin trees, and that in 1880 one-fourth of the crop was thus produced, necessitating the boxing 

 in that year of the best trees upon (500,000 acres of forest. The production of naval stores is carried on in a 

 wasteful, extravagant manner, and the net profits derived from the business are entirely out of proportion to the 

 damage which it inflicts upon the forests of the country; the injury is enormous. Lumber made from trees 



