RESINOUS PRODUCTS OF FRANCE. 141 



The maritime pine produces turpentine best near the sea, and on warm, 

 gravelly soil or rock formations than upon clay, and still better than 

 upon a peaty soil. In a young plantation, the extraction of resin is be- 

 gun on the trees that are to be felled before the end of the rotation, and 

 before it begins the lower branches are trimmed off, so as to obtain a 

 clean stem at least five meters high. 



Two methods of resin-tapping are practiced, known by the French as 

 gemmage a mort and gemmage a vie, the former killing the tree after a 

 time, as its name implies, and the other not. In either case, a rectangu- 

 lar piece of bark is peeled ofi' near the root, about 5 inches wide, and 

 extending up at first about 4 inches. A little wood is taken oft' with 

 the bark. Formerly the resin was allowed to flow down to the ground, 

 where it was received in a little hole hollowed out in the sand, or boxed 

 into the tree ; but now a curved strip of metal-zinc or tinned iron is 

 driven in under the incision, turns the drip from the tree, and it is 

 caught in small earthen pots, glazed on the inside, and supported by 

 stout wires driven into the tree. These metal lips and earthen pots are 

 carried higher up the tree as the operation is continued, and the latter 

 are sometimes covered to reduce the evaporation of volatile parts. The 

 operation of scarifying is done with a light axe with a curved blade, and 

 the wound is opened and extended a little once or twice a week by taking 

 off a little fresh wood, and extending it up ; and so the process continues 

 until the opening becomes some 10 or 11 feet long. The printed stipu- 

 lation which contractors are bound to follow when working in the State 

 forests is to not allow the opening to exceed 5 inches in width and 1 

 centimeter in depth. Such a square may be worked for five years, being 

 lengthened the first year 55 centimeters, and in the next three years 

 each G4, and in the last year C7. It is then left, and the wound heals 

 up by the formation of new layers of bark and wood, a swelling being- 

 formed over the place. Old trees will often show several of these swell- 

 ings, indicating the service to which they have been put. Unless the 

 tree is to be saved, no care is taken for healing, and new squares are 

 opened until the tree is finally dead. In private forests the openings 

 are sometimes extended up IC feet, and two or three are worked at once* 

 In trees that are to be cut in thinning a forest, the tapping begins when 

 about two feet in girth, and they generally die in three or four years. 

 A part of the resin drying on along the opening, is scraped off once or 

 twice in a year. 



The use of lips and pots is known as the method of Mr. Hughes, and 

 although it requires a heavy outlay at first, is found to possess the 

 advantage of yielding more resin, in a purer condition ; the result, 

 according to M. Samanos, as compared with former methods, being as 

 4 to 3. 



Eesin-tapping is carried on only between March 1 and October 15, 

 but the gradual thinning off of the bark is begun as early as the 10th 

 of February. The yield is greatest in trees about forty centimeters 

 (nearly sixteen inches) in diameter, and about three liters (183.1 cubic 

 inches) by the conservative process ; but taking into consideration the 

 continual diminution in number of trees, an hectare yields about three 

 hundred and forty liters (about thirty gallons) a year. It is not easy to 

 calculate the yield by the destructive process, but it is generally admitted 

 that from two hundred to two hundred and fifty pines, 20 centimeters 

 (8 inches) in diameter, will yield the above amount for three years. 



M. Bagneris mentions a pine, 4 meters around and 11 meters to the 

 first limbs, which had 10 "squares" working simultaneously, yielding 

 seven to eight liters of resin annually. The price of crude resin is quite 



