BUREAU OF FORESTRY. 185 



tine by the new than by the old method, the production of uniformly 

 high grades of rosin, and, what is of the most vital importance to a 

 continued existence of the American naval stores industry, in an indefi- 

 nitely prolonged working life of turpentine orchards. The old system 

 of turpentining was rapidly exterminating the pine forests tapped, and 

 extinction of the naval stores industry was acknowledged by intelligent 

 operators to be imminent. On a conservative estimate the Bureau's 

 service in this work has added to the annual naval stores product an 

 increased value of about $7,000,000, at a total cost of less than $14,000, 

 and in addition has removed the greatest single cause of Southern 

 forest destruction. The new system is now in very general use 

 throughout the turpentine belt, and in the hands of as many operators 

 as could secure the required equipment. 



TURPENTINE DISTILLATION. 



A study of European methods of distilling crude resin was made 

 abroad during the J'ear, and it has shown the need of experiments here 

 for the purpose of improving American stills, which at best give 

 unnecessarily impure spirits. Rosin and rosin oil are, through faulty 

 construction and manipulation of our stills, commonly driven off with 

 spirits of turpentine, thus becoming impurities in the latter. The 

 presence of these was discovered when the Bureau began its preliminary 

 studies of turpentine adulterants. The most improved turpentine stills 

 in France are fitted with thermostatic regulators and operated by men 

 of trained intelligence. The result is that uniformly pure grades of 

 spirits and rosin are produced. The majority of American stills are 

 without temperature gauges, and are operated by untrained men who 

 have merely learned to apply certain rough, empirical tests. The results 

 are impure and varying grades of spirits and rosin. 



The distillation of rosin oil was found to be a paying and extensive 

 industry in European countries. American consumers at present 

 import nearly all of the considerable quantities of rosin oil used here. 

 It is believed that this demand could be profitably supplied by home 

 production. 



DENDRO-CHEMIOAL INYESTIGATIONS. 



A laboratory study of turpentine adulterants was concluded in 

 August, 1903, and the preparation of a report on methods of detect- 

 ing their presence is under way. The subject is one of much impor- 

 tance to naval-stores dealers, who are now greatly embarrassed by their 

 inability to detect spurious turpentine. The results of laboratory 

 studies' of native and exotic gums, resins, tanbarks, and pulp- wood 

 fibers have been embodied in a report by Dr. H. W. Wiley, ("hief of 

 the Bureau of Chemistry, which concludes the investigations begun in 

 cooperation by the Bureaus of Chemistry and Forestry three years ago. 



BASKET WILLOW STUDIES. 



A half -acre plantation of 5,000 willow cuttings established on the Poto- 

 mac Flats in flie spring of 1903 for the purpose of testing the fitness of 

 different native and exotic kinds for basket work, and particularly for 

 determining the relation of close and wide planting to the production 

 of high-class basket rods, yielded valuable results, which were em- 



