14 BULLETIN 1003, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



burning and the practicability of recovering these products by this 

 method, and (b) the yield and value of products obtainable from 

 yellow-pine stump wood throughout the State when subjected to re- 

 tort distillation. 



The chief aim of the cooperative work was to determine the value 

 for distillation purposes of western yellow-pine stumps and such 

 other logging or land-clearing waste in the State of Idaho as might 

 lend itself to the treatment. The abundance of yellow-pine waste 

 is readily inferred from the volume of such lumber sent to market 

 from mills throughout the State, and the relative abundance of yel- 

 low-pine stumps in any section can be ascertained from timber-cruise 

 records, supplemented by the proper volume tables. The quality of 

 the stumps with respect to their resin content, on which depends 

 their value for distillation purposes, however, can not be determined 

 from such field or timber-cruise data. The results of careful field 

 inspections have led to the conclusion that much of the western yel- 

 low pine is of the relatively nonresinous or "bull pine" variety. 

 Even the more resinous yellow-pine stumps varied so widely in their 

 resin content that it soon became apparent that field investigations 

 were indispensable to a proper knowledge of the proportion in which 

 the various grades of stumps occur in the regions from which samples 

 were collected. A knowledge of the conditions in the yellow-pine 

 belt of the Atlantic and Gulf States made this all the more impera- 

 tive, for the reason that the apparent preponderance of the lower 

 grade of stumps clearly indicated that the profitable utilization by 

 distillation of all yellow-pine stumps would be found impracticable, 

 and that success in utilizing any of them would depend on a proper 

 selection of material to be treated. 



From an agricultural standpoint the object of the work was to 

 determine the practicability of reducing cut-over land clearing costs 

 through recovery of by-products from the stumps. The extent to 

 which distillation products from the stumps can be made to defray 

 the cost of clearing such land obviously depends, among other things, 

 on the total number of stumps to the acre, the number of these stumps 

 suited to distillation purposes, the yield and value of the by-products, 

 and, finally, the cost of recovering these by-products from the stumps 

 to be treated. The first of these probably can be fairly well estab- 

 lished from timber-cruise records for regions in which such data are 

 available ; the second is a combined field and laboratory problem ; the 

 third a laboratory and trade inquiry problem ; and the fourth a field 

 and chemical engineering problem. The work accordingly resolved 

 itself into an investigation involving each of these closely related 

 problems. 



