NOTES ON THE TAPPING OF THE CLUSTER PINE. 257 



districts during times of drought. This danger is 

 dreaded to such an extent that lines from thirty to 

 sixty feet wide are cleared through the forests at 

 certain distances from each other, and are kept up 

 by cutting away every five years all the vegetation 

 which may have come up during that interval. In 

 the plantations of recent date, and notably in the 

 dunes, these lines are 1,000 yards apart, and are re- 

 spectively parallel and perpendicular, so as to form 

 squares of about 250 acres each. 



There are two methods of resin-tapping, which 

 in French are termed respectively gemmage a mort 

 and gemmage d vie. The first exhausts and kills 

 the tree [whence the name], and is adopted only 

 when the tree is to be felled soon after ; the second, 

 as may be guessed, has for its object to obtain the 

 resin without causing the death of the tree. In 

 either case, the first thing to be done is to strip off 

 gradually a rectangular strip of bark, beginning at 

 the foot of the tree and going up about four inches ; 

 a little wood must also be removed with the bark. 

 The wound thus made is technically called a quarre 

 or blaze. The instrument used is a light axe with a 

 curved head and a handle bent at an angle in the 

 direction of the concave face of the head. Once or 

 twice a week the wound is reopened, and it is at the 

 same time lengthened by taking off a fresh strip of 

 bark and wood above it about two-fifths of an inch 

 long. In this manner the wound attains a certain 

 length, which in the forests under tke control of the 

 Forest Department ought never to exceed eleven 

 feet. Moreover, in the printed stipulations which 



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