THE PITCH-PINE TREE. 253 



motion of agricultural improvement — for our Republican Governinent, be it re- 

 membered, has no reward in reserve for that sort of merit or discovery. Let 

 their largest premiums bear the names of distinguished inventors. Let us have 

 the Whitney Premium — the Pennock Premium — the Hussey Premium — the Rup-- 

 gles and Nourse Premium — the Prouty and Mears Premium- — the Buel — the Ruf- 

 fin — the Garnett — the Walsh — the Moore, and the Lowell, &c. Premiums.— 

 Print their names in large letters on premium books and premium plate. Do 

 anything but take up old premium lists 30 years old, and alter the dates, and 

 vamp them up and proclaim them anew ! 



THE PITCH-PINE TREE: 



DANGER OF ITS EXTINCTION THE CAUSE AND THE REMEDY. INJURIOUS 



EFFECTS OF THE UNIVERSAL PURSUIT OF POPULARITY. 



In the first volume of this work we published a lucid exposition of the busi- 

 ness of gathering tar and turpentine — its process and profits — for which we felt, 

 as did the public, much indebted to Col. McLeod, of Smithville, North Carolina. 



We were struck with his remark that there are no new crops of pitch-pine 

 coming on in regular succession to those which have been destroyed ; and that 

 this source of our national strength and wealth appears to be in a fair way 

 of being extinguished. 



We are inclined to believe in the truth of the suggestion of a much respected 

 correspondent that the reason is to be found in the destruction of the young pine 

 by hogs. To them the root is as acceptable as any of the esculent vegetables. 

 The pine grows the first year or two, as does the carrot, with a large, succulent, 

 and, to the hog, very palatable tap-root, and, of course, according to the modern 

 theory of vegetation in regard to trees, without any lateral roots, at that stage 

 of its existence. Hence the animal is able at once to devour the root and extir- 

 pate the tree. Thus is it that a few miserable runts are not only protected but 

 encouraged to destroy the prospect of one of the greatest and most important of 

 our naval stores and of public income — one as necessary in a public as it is val- 

 uable in a private view ; and this merely because, in North Carolina and other 

 States congenial to the growth of this most valuable tree, the fence laws of our 

 mother country have been exactly reversed. In England the owners of stock 

 are required Xo fence them up, so that the fruits of special agricultural labor may 

 receive no detriment ; but our wise men, sacrificing everything to a truckling 

 policy, have required the farmer to fence his cultivated fields against the va- 

 grant stock of his neighbor, who being either poorer or more lazy, or both, than 

 the farmer, must have the privilege, forsooth, of allowing his hogs to range the 

 whole county in quest of food — thus at once subjecting the farmer to a heavy 

 poor tax, and injuring the whole stock of the country. But this is not the only 

 instance in which the great interests and the morals of society are endangered 

 and sacrificed to a mean and pernicious hunting after popularity. It converts 

 aristocrats at heart into miserable demagogues, and fills the land with syco- 

 phants and hypocrites, with venders of alcoholic poison and licensed receivers 

 of stolen goods. 



This single perversion of public policv, which requires every man to guard his 



(541) 



