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Although with the enormous wealth of forests of the United States 

 of America, the question of a rapid exhaustion of the American tur- 

 pentine production need not yet be considered, — in spite of the 

 ruthless devastation of the forests by the largest and quickest possible 

 extraction of turpentine as hitherto carried on — the American Ad- 

 ministration of Forests has in recent years taken steps to arrest, by 

 a careful and rational exploitation of the stock of conifers, the con- 

 stantly spreading destruction of the forests. The attempts made to bring 

 about some change in the hitherto universally applied method of col- 

 lecting turpentine by the "box"- system for the purpose of obtaining 

 large yields, with the view of preserving the resiniferous trees, have not 

 remained without result. A new method, the "cup- and- gutted -system, 

 has now been proposed, which follows the lines of the system of tur- 

 pentine production adopted in the South of France. A work by Charles 

 Herty 1 ), published some time ago, deals in detail with the experiments 

 made with the above-mentioned method. But before entering more 

 fully into this matter, we wish to return with a few words to the 

 "^r"-system, and briefly describe this method and its disadvantages. 

 According to this system, the first work, when spring approaches, 

 is to cut a groove diagonally across the trunk of the tree, inclined 

 towards the interior and ending in a hollow about 12" or 18" above 

 the level of the ground. Now when with the warmer weather the 

 sap of the tree begins to flow, the bark at both sides of the "box" or 

 reservoir for the resin is peeled off up to a height of 8", in strips about 

 2" wide. The space between the box and the peeled -off strips is 

 now deprived of its bark down to the splint, and shortly afterwards 

 the sap commences to flow down into the "box". This work is con- 

 tinued every 2 or 3 weeks up to the end of October, and has the 

 effect of constantly opening up fresh passages for the resin, which 

 secrete their contents slowly into the "box". With the advent of the 

 colder weather the secretion of resin becomes less and finally ceases 

 completely. After 4 or 5 years the same tree is no longer tapped. 

 As already indicated, this "#<9~r"- system has many drawbacks, due both 

 to the manner of obtaining the resin, and to the destruction of the 

 tree by other influences. The cutting of the hollow causes the de- 

 struction of numerous resin-passages, and much resin is consequently 

 lost. Moreover, the quality of the resin suffers from the fact that 

 the readily-volatile portions of the sap of the tree evaporate, as they 

 have to travel along a constantly increasing distance, owing to the 

 cutting away being continued in an upward direction. 



The new method which may be considered a combination of the 

 "box"- system and the method generally employed in France, does 



3 ) Dr. Charles Herty, A new method of turpentine orcharding; 

 Washington, 1903. 



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