LONG-LEAVED PINE. 
81 
in this traffic, particularly from Wilmington, in North Carolina, and Savan- 
nah, in Georgia. The stuff destined for the Colonial market is cut into 
every form required in the construction of houses and of vessels ; what is 
sent to England is in planks from 15 to 30 feet long and 10 or 12 inches 
broad ; they are called ranging timbers. The vessels freighted with this 
timber repair chiefly to Liverpool, where it is said to be employed in the 
building of ships and of wet-docks : it is called Georgia Pitch Pine, and 
is sold 25 or 30 per cent.'higher than any other Pine imported from the 
United States. 
From the diversified uses of this wood an idea may be formed of the 
consumption ; to which must be added a waste of a more disastrous kind, 
which it seems impossible to arrest. Since the year 1804, extensive tracts 
of the finest Pines are seen covered only with dead trees. In 1802, I re- 
marked a similar phenomenon among the Yellow Pines, in East Tennessee. 
This catastrophe is felt among the Scotch Firs which people the forests of 
the north of Europe, and is wrought by swarms of small, insects, which 
lodge in different parts of the stock, insinuate themselves under the bark, 
penetrate into the body of the tree, and cause it to perish in the course of 
the year. 
The value of the Long-leaved Pine does not reside exclusively in its 
wood : it supplies nearly all the resinous matter used in the United States 
in ship-building, and a large residue for exportation to the West Indies 
and Great Britain. In this view, its place can be supplied by no other 
species : those which afford the same product being dispersed through the 
woods or collected in inaccessible places. In the Northern States, the 
lands which, at the commencement of their settlement, were covered with 
the Pitch Pine, were exhausted in 25 or 30 years, and for more than half 
a century have ceased to furnish tar. 
The pine barrens are of vast extent, and are covered with trees of the 
finest growth ; but they cannot all be rendered profitable from the diffi- 
culty of communication with the sea. Formerly tar was made in all the 
lower parts of the Carolinas and Georgia, and throughout the Floridas ves- 
tiges are everywhere seen of kilns that have served in the combustion of 
resinous wood. At present, this branch of industry is confined to the 
lower districts of North Carolina, which furnish almost all the tar and tur- 
pentine exported from Wilmington and other ports. 
The resinous product of the Pine is of six sorts, viz : turpentine, scrap- 
ings, spirit of turpentine, rosin, tar and pitch. The two last are delivered 
in their natural state ; the others are modified by the agency of fire in cer- 
tain modes of preparation. More particularly : turpentine is the sap of 
the tree obtained by making incisions in its trunk. It begins to distil 
about the middle of March, when the circulation commences, and flows with 
increasing abundance as the weather becomes warmer, so that July and 
Vgl. III.— 12 
