2 BULLETIN 229, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
the need for improved methods, for attention to detail, is impera- 
tive if the industry is to have a future. Ways of collecting the gum 
which will give the maximum amount for the longest time with the 
least injury to the tree and methods of distillation which will insure 
turpentine and rosin of the best grade are things which every oper- 
ator might well make the subject of study. Nowhere more than in 
the naval stores industry will close attention to detail coincide with 
successful operation. 
This bulletin reviews the present status of the naval stores indus- 
try and the progress which has been made in improving the methods 
of collecting and distilling the gum. 1 Information is also presented 
on the supply of timber at present available for turpentine opera- 
tions. 
The publications listed in the latter part of this bulletin have been 
drawn upon in its preparation, and acknowledgement is made to the 
several authors. 
HISTORY OF THE INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. 
The earliest mention of turpentine and rosin seems to exist in a 
manuscript dated 1610, preserved in the Public Record Office, Lon- 
don, and entitled "Instructions for suche things as are to be sente 
from Virginia." 2 
"Hard pitche," "Tarre," "Turpentine," and "Rozen" are also 
mentioned in the "Booke of the Commodities of Virginia," issued 
presumably about the same time. 
Pitch and tar were the chief products of the industry up to the 
middle of the eighteenth century. Their extensive use in the con- 
struction and maintenance of sailing vessels caused them to be 
called "naval stores," a term now applied to the turpentine and 
rosin industry, which has supplanted the production of tar and 
pitch. 
The manufacture of turpentine and rosin in North Carolina was 
described by Schoepf in 1783-84. Pitch and tar, however, had been 
staple products since 1700. Norfolk was the great shipping point 
for Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. 
The method of boxing the trees for collecting the crude gum was 
the same as that employed to-day, but the names of some of the 
operations have changed, such as "cornering" in place of "notching," 
and "virgin dip" in place of "pure dippings." 
1 The Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture is now investigating problems connected 
with the distillation of turpentine, and has offered helpful suggestions in the case of this bulletin. 
2 Among the instructions is the following: " Pyne trees, or ffirre trees are to be wounded w' h in a yarde 
of the grounde, or boare a hoal w* an agar the thirde pte into the tree, and lett yt runne into anye thinge 
that maye receyue the same, and that w<* yssues owte wilbe Turpentyne worthe 18£ Tonne. TvTierr 
the tree beginneth to runne softelye yt is to be stopped vp agayne for preserveinge the tree." 
"Pitche and tarre hath bene made there and we doubte not but wilbe agayne, and some sente for r. sam- 
ple, your owne tournes beinge firste served." 
