544 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



in collecting and making them, and with yet 

 more surprise at the seemingly endlesa value of 

 that quality of pine, all of which is so little 

 known out of the immediate neighborhood in 

 which tliey are produced. From brief notes 

 made in passing, and farther information prom- 

 ised, I may furnish you, for an early number, 

 with a full amount of the whole process and the 

 results. 



The reflections induced, in connection with 

 the growth of this species of pine, are strange 

 and important in a view of the di-stant future : 

 aa for instance : The wings of marine commerce 

 of the whole world, it will be admitted, would 

 be clipped, if not entirely destroyed, but for the 

 use of the product of tliis beautiful evergreen ; 

 and yet, from some mysterious operations of 

 Kature, or the spread and influence of civiliza- 

 tion, of which commerce is the great promoter, 

 it would seem from present appearances, ac- 

 cording to all I heard, that a stop has been put 

 to the successions of its growth which has been 

 going on for centHries. The time is thus ap- 

 proaching, according to the opinion of judicious 

 observers on the spot, when scarcely a vestige 

 will remain of this valuable and majestic tree, 

 where now it is so flourishing and abundant. 

 Let me be understood. In the boyhood of men 

 fifty years ago, it was a part of children's play 

 to bend down the young pine growth in the 

 woods, to ride upon. They were of that size, as 

 common then, as the larger growth is now, and 

 only of two, three or four years' growth, and 

 aboat the size of a walking-cane stripped of the 

 bark, and about five, six, or seven feet high. 

 That same generation is now as large as an Al- 

 dei-man's leg : but here is the wonder ! There 

 is noiie of thai age or kind iti preparalion by 

 Nature, as sticcexxors to the present slock in 

 Carolina. It is rarely that one is to be found ; 

 and yet the seed, (or mast aa it is called,) is as 

 abundant as ever, and vegetates as thickly a.s it 

 ever did ; but it soon disappears. After it is 

 the size of wheat iu November, little more of it 

 is ever seen. The impression of those who have 

 most closely noticed these facts personally is. 

 that the present generation of pine will be the 

 last that will be seen in North Carolina, per- 

 haps forever. 



In the hope of being enabled soon to give a 

 full account of this extraordinary breach of in- 

 dustry, which opened upon me iu the midst of 

 a dense, dreary forest, suffice it now to eaj-, that 

 in the language of the countrj-, one hand is ca- 

 pable of attending to a " crop " of so many 

 " boxes ;" and many of them collect from 1.50 to 

 200 barrels of turpentine, worth, last autumn, 

 upward of S3 a barrel. It was said that one 

 man, with his three hands, allowing them a 

 small portion of the proceeds, had realized op- 

 ward of $4,000. The turpentine ia either shipped 

 (1 132; 



from Wilmington, where vessels are lying to 

 take it to northern ports, oris distilled into spirits 

 of Turpentine, on the spot; and this has been 

 found so prjfitable that there are already 40 dis- 

 tilleries in operation in Wilmington and along 

 the river. I need not tell you that these are the 

 fruits of Yankee penetration — for you remember 

 where Bonaparte said their enterprise would 

 carry them for a bag of coifee. The wonder 

 strikes the most superficial into the industrial 

 pursuits of the country under his view, how it 

 is that a branch of business so exceedingly prof- 

 itable should not be entered upon by those who 

 inhabit a line of 400 miles of continuous long- 

 leaf pine growth from Savannah, Georgia, to 

 Chehaw in Alabama! I may trouble your read- 

 ers on some early occasion with some reflections 

 on this problem, as well as with some of the 

 statistics, agricultural and commercial, of the tar 

 and turpentine industi-y of Korth Carolina. 



Well ! how shall I S7im tip the observations 

 that a tiaveler is likely to make, on the great 

 thoroughfare of miles between Washing- 

 ton and Wilmington? Every one knows, or 

 ought to know, that from the necessity of the 

 case, the main lines of travel through a new 

 country must traverse the ridges oi back bones 

 of particular sections, avoiding impassable water 

 courses and the rich alluvial lauds that border 

 them. Thus we are not surprised at sparse set- 

 tlements and slender products. But what most 

 interests the philosophical observer is, the spirit 

 and character of the people, as indicated by the 

 appearance of the settled parts of the country ? 

 How look the dwellings — not whether large or 

 small, but has any taste been displayed in tlieir 

 Architecture ? Have any native sliade-trees been 

 left standing, or have any been planted and kept 

 in order? Has provision been made for a suc- 

 cession of good vegetables in a well enclosed 

 garden ? Is there a piazza before the mansion, 

 however rude and humble, and has the house- 

 wife been encouraged and provided with means 

 to train over it the vine, and the yellow jas- 

 mine, and the multiflora, and the honeysuckle ? 

 And then the field cultivation — no matter how 

 small the scale of it, but is the tillage perfect ? 

 Does the plow run close to the road and the 

 fence sides ? Have the harrow and the roller, 

 and, yet more, the drag-log, done their office in 

 the way of pulverization ? But first, and above 

 all, have his fields^ — no matter, again, how small — 

 but have they, as far as iu cultivation, been vjell 

 and thoroughly drained of all superficial and 

 surplus moisture, every drop ? for not a drop 

 should stagnate in or npon it. In a word, does 

 the farm or plantation under view, proclaim to the 

 passing observer, that the owner's mind is itself 

 a cultivated feld 7 — one which by education 

 and reading has been imbued with a salutary 

 thirst for knowledge ; one which a laudable 



