DISTILLATION OF STUMPWOOD. 49 



When stumps of the different grades (p. 15) were dynamited 

 but little difference was found between the poor and medium-quality 

 stumps. Furthermore, unless the exudation of rosin is exception- 

 ally abundant, it can not be taken as an indication that the stumps 

 are rich or pitchy. So disappointing was this superficial indication 

 of quality, used before its true value was established from dyna- 

 miting a number of stumps, that, to avoid shipping a lot of what 

 was plainly worthless material, the poor stumps were taken from 

 those that had been classified as medium, leaving only a few spe- 

 cially selected stumps from which the rich wood proper was ob- 

 tained. 



In view of these facts, poor and medium-quality stumps, as the 

 terms are used in this bulletin, are those in which the sound heart- 

 wood approximately equals in resinous appearance that found in 

 the heartwood of an average yellow-pine log, except that it is richer 

 toward the spreading of the roots. The resinous material in such 

 wood comes largely from this portion of the stump. Medium 

 stumps differ from poor stumps only in that there is a somewhat 

 larger proportion of the very resinous wood at the spreading of the 

 roots, the main volume of heartwood in these two classes of stumps 

 appearing to be essentially alike. Rich or pitchy stumps differ from 

 the medium in that the heartwood is more uniformly resinous 

 throughout the whole of the stump and constitutes perhaps from 

 60 to 80 per cent, or more, of the whole stump, while in the poor 

 and medium stumps the resinous portion constitutes less than half 

 of the entire stump. 



To verify the conclusion that the rich or pitchy stumps average 

 not more than a cord an acre of wood suitable for distillation, all 

 the stumps on a typical area were removed, representative samples 

 selected, and an estimate made of the total quantity of such wood 

 on the area from which stumps were taken. This selected represen- 

 tative acre contained 12 stumps, 9 of which were classed as medium 

 to poor, and 3 as resinous or rich. The 9 nonresinous stumps con- 

 tained between 3 and 4 cords of wood, of which but 1,500 pounds, or 

 one-half cord, was sound heartwood, the remainder being doaty, 

 nonresinous sapwood, which was separated frcm the heartwood in 

 the field, only the heartwood being taken to the laboratory. At 

 least 80 per cent of worthless nonresinous material was split out 

 of these stumps in obtaining the half cord of heartwood. In the 

 large resinous stumps there were 1^ cords of resinous wood, all of 

 the quality represented by the sample. The nonresinous stumps, 

 though quite large (36 to 40 inches), were smaller than the resinous 

 stumps. 



60953°— 21 4 



