506 
THE MARITIME PINE. 
mould, and thus, when the pine has once taken root, the re¬ 
demption of the waste is considered as effectually secured. 
In France, the maritime pine is planted on the sands of the 
interior as well as on the dunes of the sea coast, and with equal 
advantage. This tree resembles the pitch pine of the Southern 
American States in its habits, and is applied to the same uses. 
The extraction of turpentine from it begins at the age of about 
twenty years, or when it has attained a diameter of from nine 
to twelve inches. Incisions are made up and down the trunk, 
to the depth of about half an inch in the wood, and it is insist¬ 
ed that if not more than two such slits are cut, the tree is not 
sensibly injured by the process. The growth, indeed, is some¬ 
what checked, but the wood becomes superior to that of trees 
from which the turpentine is not extracted. Thus treated, the 
pine continues to flourish to the age of one hundred or one 
hundred and twenty years, and up to this age the trees on a 
hectare yield annually 350 kilogrammes of essence of turpen¬ 
tine, and 280 kilogrammes of resin, worth together 110 francs. 
The expense of extraction and distillation is calculated at 44 
francs, and a clear profit of 66 francs per hectare, or more than 
five dollars per acre, is left.* This is exclusive of the value of 
the timber, when finally cut, which, of course, amounts to a 
very considerable sum. 
In Denmark, where the climate is much colder, hardier 
conifers, as well as the birch and other northern trees, are 
found to answer a better purpose than the maritime pine, and 
* These processes are substantially similar to those employed in the 
pineries of the Carolinas, but they are better systematized and more 
economically conducted in France. In the latter country, all the products 
of the pine, even to the cones, find a remunerating market, while, in 
America, the price of resin is so low, that in the fierce steamboat races 
on the great rivers, large quantities of it are thrown into the furnaces to 
increase the intensity of the fires. In a carefully prepared article on the 
Southern pineries published in an American magazine—I think Harper’s— 
a few years ago, it was stated that the resin from the turpentine distilleries 
was sometimes allowed to run to waste; and the writer, in one instance, 
observed a mass, thus rejected as rubbish, which was estimated to amount 
to two thousand barrels. 
