THE FRENCH SYSTEM APPLIED IN NORTH CAROLINA. 



101 



station it was intended to begin a trial with first-year or virgin 

 boxes and continue the work here for several consecutive years to 

 ascertain the comparative annual yield. 



Unfortunately in one set of the experiments with second-year 

 boxes the value of the results was vitiated by reason of a considerable 

 loss of turpentine from the receptacles' overflowing. The results 

 in this case will not be considered. Careful and conscientious 

 attention seems to have been given the third set by the person in 

 charge, and the results seem to be of sufficient importance to be 

 given in full. The superintendence of this work during the season 

 was in charge of Mr. Singletery, of Bladenboro, N. C, and it was 

 near this village that the experiment was conducted. 



The pines selected for tapping were in a grove with a medium 

 density (about seven), and had an average circumference, breast 

 high, of six feet nine inches. These were by no means the largest 

 trees in this grove, but were selected on account of their vigor aud 

 apparent healthiness. The soil was fair, being a moist sandy loam. 

 The forest floor was poor, being covered with a heavy growth of 

 wire-grass, broom grass and low huckleberries. This strip had not 

 been burnt in several years, and since the locality was isolated, . 

 being located in the neck of a small swamp, there was little likeli- 

 hood that a fire would interfere in any way with the carrying out 

 of the experiment. Boxes, usually two to a tree, had been cut in 

 these trees in the previous spring and the trees "worked" for one 

 season (1893), so that there were faces twenty inches in height on 

 each tree. Those faces were from thirteen to fifteen inches broad. 

 Six of these old boxes, with nearly southerl}^ aspects and with faces 

 unshaded by surrounding shrubs, were chosen as suitable for our 

 purpose. Above each of these old faces two narrower faces (each 

 six inches broad) were begun side by side. This method of placing 

 the narrow faces gave each pair of them nearly the same aspect, 

 and since, so far as could be seen, they were under similar con- 

 ditions and of the same breadth, the amount of resin which flowed 

 from each should have been the same. Six pairs of these narrow 

 contiguous faces were begun above the broad ones on as many 

 different trees, care being always taken that both narrow faces of 

 any one pair were of the same breadth. 



