Common Practices in Turpentining. 

 (Description of Plate IX.) 



Fig. 1. — There are 240 trees per acre, of which 184 measure from 7 to 14 inches in 

 diameter at breastheight, and 56, which are suppressed, measure from 4 to 6 inches in 

 diameter. Some 20 trees per acre of turpentine sizes are too nearly dead from fire for 

 cupping, and a good many trees are missing as the result of repeated burnings. 



Some of the trees in this working have two faces and leave insufficient width of bars 

 for the trees to function properly. The result is a marked reduction in the total pro- 

 duction. If not disastrously burned, the stand will be worked for a third year. If the 

 stand is afforded protection, the one-face and the two-face trees, which have not become 

 dry -faced, and the two-face trees, ^hich have not become dry-faced, after 5 to 10 years 

 of rest and growth can be reworked. If the timber is not to be cut! at the end of the 

 first or second working, a more conservative working than here shown would have been 

 advisable. 



At 15 cents per cup for turpentine the stand is yielding the owner $28.80 per acre, 

 and there will be a cut of some 15,000 board feet of lumber. The effect of the fires has 

 been to deplete the stand of almost one-third of the trees which it should contain at the 

 present time. In the picture some effects are clearly apparent. At the age of 45 years, 

 well-stocked longleaf stands should have about 300 trees per acre all of turpentine sizes 

 (Table 1). 



On the same scale of working as here operated, these stands should afford about 400 

 cups per acre. At 15 cents per cup, and counting in the cups which have been lost by 

 fire, the total return for timber rights would have been about $60, or an average yearly 

 return for the 45-year period of about $1.35 per acre. The value of 15,000 board feet of 

 second-growth pine, assumed to be $3 per thousand, would add $45 and bring the total 

 average gross income up to $2.35 per acre yearly. 



The operation, as it is being carried on, illustrates well the better class of second- 

 growth stands and the way they are being worked. This one is in Baker County, Fla. 



Fig. 2. — This stand of longleaf, with a little slash pine mixed, is about the same age 

 and located near the stand shown in figure 1. It, however, was boxed, worked for three 

 seasons, and since then has been allowed to burn over at random. The trees have been 

 badly burned ; some are gone " root and branch," leaving holes in the top soil as the 

 only visible mark of where they formerly stood. More than one-half of the trees origin- 

 ally boxed have been killed or destroyed. The remaining portion in 1916 was considered 

 of no value because it was badly burned, insect infested, and decayed. Eight or nine 

 years had elapsed since the timber was worked. The original tree density was very good ; 

 now about four trees are left to every ten that were standing when they were boxed and 

 worked. There are no^ 55 trees per acre measuring 7 inches or over in diameter. The 

 growth of the trees, which came up in an old field, has been rapid, and the stand of rela- 

 tively high value. The owner received 10 cents a cup, or from 192 cups per acre (an 

 estimated number) $19.20 per acre, as the return on the timber for the period of 40 

 years of growth. 



Under adequate protection during the 10 years following the first working, if the trees 

 were back-cupped in 1919, and the timber sold at $3 per thousand feet on the stump, the 

 profits would undoubtedly have been somewhere near four times the amount received. 

 The treatment of this promising stand represents widespread practice, the folly of which 

 is beginning to be widely and fully appreciated. This operation is in Baker County, Fla. 



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