The Uses of Wood 



and a pail, who gathers the flow and carries it in barrels to the 

 still. Once a week from March till November the chipping is 

 repeated, and two inches are added to the height of the chipped 

 area. If this fresh wounding did not occur, the flow would cease 

 by the hardening of the resin. 



One man tends ten thousand "boxes," and should get forty 

 barrels at each round, or "dip." Eight to ten circuits are made 

 for collecting in the thirty-two weeks the resin flows. The hard 

 gum that accumulates in cold weather is also gathered. The 

 yield of "dip" to "scrape" in this first season is as four to one. 

 As the trees are drained, the surface exposed, becoming larger, 

 yields more of the hardened gum, and the grade of the products 

 deteriorates. The fourth year the orchard is abandoned by the 

 largest operators, who move to pastures new. Small owners 

 box their trees much longer, rest them a few years, then box 

 again on bark before untouched. 



In the still, the resin is melted and the volatile turpentine 

 driven off and collected in barrels. The fire goes out and the 

 residue in the retort is drawn off through strainers into barrels, 

 where it solidifies when cool into rosin. The price of turpentine 

 varies from twenty-eight cents to forty cents per gallon; that of 

 rosin is about $2 per barrel. 



The wastefulness of the old boxing methods shocks every 

 intelligent observer. Better ways are being introduced, which, 

 while more expensive, yet pay for the trouble in the generous 

 increase in yield and the improving of the quality of the turpentine 

 and rosin. The cup devised by Mr. Schuler (see Bulletin 13, 

 Division of Forestry) takes the place of the deep, injurious pocket 

 made in old-fashioned boxing and does away with dirt and chips 

 in the crude turpentine. 



While the timber is not directly injured by the boxing, the 

 pine orchards fall a prey to fungi and insects, the trunks are 

 weakened by deep boxes, and the wounds destroy the cambium, 

 semi-girdling the trees and necessarily lowering their vitality. 

 The demoralised condition of an abandoned orchard under the 

 ordinary careless management points to the trees' early death. 



Pine tar has long been extracted from the longleaf by piling 

 dry wood, limbs, roots, and stumps, cut in small sizes, closely 

 in a clay-lined pit, covering it with sods and earth, and burning 

 it with smonldering fires lit below at small apertures. A passage- 



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