Production of Turpentine : Improved Methods. 201 



three pints. The turpentine begins to flow early in the spring, and 

 continues till towards the end of summer. The incisions are en- 

 larged and extended higher up, about once in a week or ten days, and 

 sometimes two or three " boxes " are cut in the same tree. The 

 crude turpentine is dipped out of the boxes, and scraped off from 

 the trees from time to time, and now the greater part is distilled 

 near the forests, and the refined products sent from thence to the 

 markets. 



800. In North Carolina, the turpentine is collected about once a 

 month, and 10,000 trees will in a good season yield 50 barrels of 

 spirits of turpentine, and 200 barrels of rosin. In other regions, 

 the trees are cut from twenty to thirty times in a season, and yield 

 from eight to ten dippings. A man will "chip "from 10,000 to 

 12,000 boxes in a week, as a task. From 1,000 boxes they dip 

 from three to five barrels, of 280 pounds each. 



801. The yield per box in soft turpentine is from ten to twelve 

 pounds, or twenty to twenty-five to the tree of usud size. A barrel 

 of crude turpentine will yield five gallons of spirits of turpentine, 

 and from sixty-two to sixty-five per cent of its bulk in rosin. The pro- 

 duet of the first year yields a fine light resin, and it grows darker 

 from year to year. A still of forty barrels capacity, will distill the 

 crude product of about 350,000 boxes. 



802. Turpentine is produced to advantage only in a warm cli- 

 mate, and in a given place, to better advantage in hot and humid 

 seasons than in those that are cold and dry. 



803. Trees exposed to the air and the sun yield better than those 

 that are crowded and shaded, and those with a well-developed top 

 and well-set with branches much better than those with thin and 

 light foliage. 



804. By the improved methods now in use in Europe, and 

 especially in the south-western part of France, the production of 

 crude turpentine (there obtained from the Pinus pinaster, or " mari- 

 time ijine ") is continued many years without killing the trees, and 

 by the following method : 



805. In winter the rough bark is smoothed off with a drawing- 

 knife, and as spring approaches, a light incision is made, four or 

 five inches wide and about fifteen inches long, through the bark and 

 a little into the outer wood. This is done with a sharp instrument 

 haying a convex edge. At the bottom a lip of zinc is driven in, 



