226 
FIR TREE. 
with the juice, if any should have been collected in 
the pits. The incision is made with a sharp adze, 
and the first wound is made near the foot of the 
tree, about four inches square, and an inch deep. 
From this there immediately oozes a resinous juice, 
which proceeds from between the bark and the 
liber , in the form of very transparent tears. In- 
cisions are occasionally made from the end of May 
till September; and most juice is observed to be col- 
lected in the hottest time of the year. To facili- 
tate the discharge of the sap, they enlarge the in- 
cisions every four or five days, and each time take 
off a thin slice of the wood, by which means an 
incision which, at the beginning of the season, was 
not more than four or five inches in diameter, will, 
by September, be increased to the size of a foot and 
a half, and to the depth of two or three inches. 
In the following year the same operation is re- 
peated, another wound being made in a similar 
manner ; and thus they annually continue to col- 
lect the resin for twelve or fifteen years, each suc- 
ceeding wound being higher than the former, and 
about a foot distant from the other. 
When the pits are full the resinous juice is re- 
moved with iron or wooden ladles, and poured into 
buckets in order to be carried to a large trough, hol- 
lowed in the trunk of a pine, and capable of hold- 
ing three or four barrels. When a sufficient quan- 
tity of resinous juice has been collected, it is reduced 
to the state of rosin ; but before we explain this 
