PITCH PINE. 
8'9 
tion. The little tar that is made on the shores of Lake Champlain is used on 
the small vessels that ply upon its surface, or is sent to Quebec. A few of the 
poorer inhabitants in the maritime part of New Jersey live by this resource, 
and the product of their industry is sent to Philadelphia, where it is less 
esteemed than the tar of the Southern States^ What is required for the 
few vessels that are annually launched on the Ohio, is obtained at an 
exorbitant price from the Alleghany Mountains, and from the borders of 
Tar Creek, which empties into the Ohio 20 miles below Pittsburg. The 
essence of turpentine used in the Western country in painting is brought 
from Philadelphia and Baltimore. 
Such is the sum of my information concerning Pitch Pine ; I have 
already remarked that on dry gravelly soils its wood is knotty, and on 
moist lands, of so poor a quality as to be unfit for works that require 
strength and durability. Several other species are preferable to this, such 
as' the Yellow and Red Pines, which grow in the same soils, and are some- 
times associated with it in the forests. 
PLATE CXLIII. 
A branch with a cone of the natural size. Fig . 1, A leaf. Fig. 2, A seed. 
[This tree is of extreme value, and may be cultivated with facility, and 
transplanted without any difficulty. Emerson recommends that sandy soils 
be sown with the seeds of the Pitch Pine along with the sweet fern (• Comp - 
tonia ) or the broom ( Grenista scoparia ,) to protect the young trees, and 
cover the surface sown with branches from the nearest Pine forest; not 
being injured by salt water, there are enormous tracts near the sea-shores 
of America that may be rendered profitable by this process, furnishing 
fine fuel for steam-engines, and tar and lampblack; perhaps also ship 
timber may be grown on land now utterly valueless. 
It is free from the stiffness of other pines, and sometimes attains the 
height of 100 feet and 4 or 5 feet in diameter. The trunk in dense woods 
is erect; in more open situations, it is often tortuous or angled. When 
self-planted, on the poorest land it increases at the rate of an inch in 
diameter in 3 or 4 years, for the first 25 years, and after that at the rate 
of one in 5 or 6. It differs from other trees of this family, its stump 
throwing up sprouts the spring after the stem has been felled, but these do 
not attain any considerable height. The fallen trunk throws 'out sprouts in 
the succeeding summer ; and the bundles of leaves of both are remarkable 
Vol. Ill— 13 
