212" TURPENTINE AND ROSIN. 



favourable season for the running of the trees. The trees should be boxed 

 at| least eighteen inches from the ground, so as not to he overrun by heavy 

 rains, and for greater convenience in dipping also. The hoxes, moreover, 

 should be cut, when the form of the tree will permit, on the north side ol 

 the tree. They are not so much exposed then to the action of the sun. 

 The turpentine, when running to the box protected in this way, will retain 

 more of the spirits. Besides the advantage of saving more spirits from 

 evaporation by having the boxes on the north side of the tree, you have the 

 boxes protected from the dust and leaves that fly about with the south 

 winds, which prevail most constantly during the summer. 



" When the boxes are cut, they should be well cleansed of the chips ; 

 and in chipping the tree afterward, care should always be taken to keep the 

 chips of wood and bark from falling into the boxes. It is important, in 

 boxing the trees, to see that the hands perform their task properly. The 

 experiment, I learn, has been made successfully, in chipping over the same 

 spot twice. The object of doing this is to have the running exposed on less 

 of the face of the tree, and to make the trees produce for a greater number 

 of years, before the chipping gets so high as to be very inconveniently 

 managed. As the chipping goes on from year to year,"you have a longer face 

 of the tree for the turpentine to pass over before it reaches the box. The value 

 of the turpentine then is very much diminished, and you have to gather it 

 from the face of the tree for scrape, which is worth only half as much as 

 what is dipped from the boxes. 



" To guard the trees from the worm and from fire, rake away the leaves 

 and chips every season. The turpentine shoidd be gathered clean as 

 possible from the boxes, and put up in neat barrels of uniform size and 

 about the standard weight, which at present is 320 pounds gross weight. 

 In dipping turpentine, the virgin or yield of the first year should not be 

 mixed with the dippings from trees of older riurning. It should be care- 

 fully barreled by itself, and sent to market. This quality of turpentine, 

 most valuable just after it is gathered, diminishes in value when kept, by 

 the rapid loss of the spirits. It is not unusual in North Carolina to con- 

 tinue to chip trees until you run up from 12 to 15 feet high. Any good 

 axeman that can cut twice in one place, may be taught in a week to 

 cut 50 boxes per day, and then up to 75, and will soon learn to chip well. The 

 most important part of the labour is to have the trees properly boxed and 

 chipped, so as to insure you constant gain. Green hands to commence 

 cutting boxes, say the 1st of November, would cut by the middle of 

 February from five to six thousand boxes, which are about as many as 

 they could tend well the first year. From the number of trees that would 

 run well and work steadily, the hand will make the number of barrels of 

 turpentine herein stated. There are many hands in North Carolina who 

 tend 7,500 to 9,000 boxes for their tasks, making 300 barrels and upwards 

 of turpentine ; but they are the crack hands of the country. 



" Ordinary hands will chip from 8 to 10 hundred boxes per day, and 

 - when getting out the turpentine dip 3 barrels per day; while tip-top hands 



