270 USEFUL FIBEE PLANTS OF THE WORLD. 



of the long-leaved pine, which also produces the turpentine of commerce. The par- 

 ticular process is said to ho the invention of A. F. Scott. The exhibit includes a 

 branch of pine, the gathered needles, and samples illustrating processes of cooking, 

 rubbing, and carding. These are followed by the various products obtained, as 

 pine hair, surgical dressing lint, pine oil, burlap, matting, and finally bagging. 

 When the jute trust put up the price of bagging for baling the cotton crop, about 

 1890, as high as 1,000,000 yards of pine-fiber cotton bagging was produced, and the 

 industry gave promise of being extended. Very little, if any, of this bagging is 

 manufactured, however, at the present time. 



A physician of Wilmington has stated that the liber made of pine straw is a most 

 valuable agent in the treatment of simple and compound fracture, surgical dressing 

 after operations, and suppuration of wounds. It is superior to cotton-batting, lint, or 

 oakum. Its aromatic odor drives away flies and prevents maggots from burrowing 

 in wounds, and I think it is a disinfectant of the first order. 



Preparation. — The green pine straw or leaves, gathered in the surrounding for- 

 ests, is brought to the mills, where the company purchases it at 15 cents per hundred 

 pounds. After having been weighed, the straw is carried into a shed 100 by 25 feet, 

 and is spread upon the floor to be cleaned and to prevent it from becoming heated. 

 An elevator takes it to the second floor of the building, where it is placed in two 

 iron cylinders set up on end and surrounded by steam pipes. These extractors are 

 10 feet deep and about 4 feet in width. In these the pine leaves are thoroughly 

 steamed, the vapor going through pipes into the ordinary distillery worm in an 

 adjoining house. Here it is condensed. The result is the pine-leaf oil, the leaves 

 yielding about one-half a gallon of oil to 100 pounds of straw. The oil is a valuable 

 product, and is destined to take an important place in the advanced pharmacopeia. 

 It is very highly antiseptic, possesses the advantage of being useful for internal as 

 well as external application, and is valuable for many surgical and medicinal pur- 

 poses. The liquid which is condensed from the vapor with the oils is useful for various 

 purposes in the manufacture of other fabrics. 



After the oil has been extracted, the pine straw, which has become a very rich 

 black in color, is placed in six large iron vats, 7 feet wide, 8 feet long, and 5 feet 

 deep, and with a capacity of holding 3,000 to 4,000 pounds each. It is here mixed 

 with water and alkali and thoroughly boiled, the process being necessary to remove 

 the silica which forms the outside covering of the leaf. This is a difficult operation, 

 requiring great skill and care. The silica which is removed is used for tanning and 

 other purposes. During all this process of cooking the pine still retains its aroma. 

 The last boiling process continues for twelve hours, after which the straw is soaked 

 forty-eight hours more, and then it is ready for the machinery for rubbing up the 

 leaves. 



The straw taken from the vats, and still damp, is first put into a "rubber," as it 

 is called, and which consists of a number of cylindrical screws working together 

 with both rotary and lateral motions. The machine is quite complicated, and further 

 description need not be given in this condensed account. Suffice it to say that the 

 straw being fed into it comes out of the other side a pure fiber of a rich dark-brown 

 color and of a soft texture. During all these processes it is kept saturated with 

 water, but it is next takeu to the wringing and bleaching machine, where the water 

 is squeezed out and the curing process is begun. It is then carried to the carding 

 machine, through which it passes, and thence to the drying machine, where every 

 particle of moisture is evaporated, and thence to the press, where it is put up in 

 bales ready for market. The fiber is packed in burlap bales, 225 pounds to a bale. 



Firms sylvestris, Scotch Tine, is the European species, which is used in the same 

 manner in Silesia, Thiiringer Wald, Sweden, Holland, etc. This textile material is 

 employed in underclothing as a substitute for flannel, and accredited with valuable 

 medicinal properties. The leaf needles are first distilled with water, for the extrac- 

 tion of the oil contained in them. The waters are used in medicinal baths. The 

 remaining material is treated with boiling soda solution, for the removal of the vege- 



