m.  Jour.  Pharru.  \ 
January,  1896.  J 
North  American  Conifer ce. 
27 
World,  notably  small  quantities  of  organic  acids.  No  doubt,  these 
same  compounds  will  be  found  more  or  less  widely  distributed  in  the 
representatives  of  the  order  growing  in  this  country.  Resin  appears 
to  be  especially  abundant  in  the  pines,  and  as  turpentine,  and  its 
two  products,  oil  of  turpentine  and  rosin,  it  is  the  basis  of  one  of  the 
largest  industries  in  America.  Only  a  few  species,  however,  yield 
the  so-called  gum  in  paying  quantities — in  North  America  it  is 
chiefly  Pinus  palustris,  and  in  Europe  Pinus  sylvestris  and  P.  Laricio, 
which  are  the  chief  sources.  At  least  one  species,  Pinus  Lamber- 
tiana,  exudes  a  substance  which,  in  physical  properties,  resembles 
the  sugars. 
Abies  balsamea  yields  the  well-known  Canada  balsam,  or  balsam 
of  fir,  and  Venice  turpentine  is  obtained  from  the  European  larch — 
Larix  Europaea. 
Burgundy  pitch  is  another  product  of  the  cone-bearers.  The 
Pharmacopoeia  directs  the  use  of  that  from  the  European  Abies 
excelsa.  Tar  is  a  product  from  many  species  in  both  continents;  in 
this  country  it  is  usually  obtained  by  the  destructive  distillation  of 
Pinus  palustris.  Chemically  considered,  all  of  the  foregoing  resinous 
and  oleoresinous  substances  are  made  up  of  a  number  of  compounds. 
Tannin  is  found  in  the  bark  of  nearly  all  the  members  of  the 
order,  but  only  that  from  a  few  species  is  of  industrial  importance. 
In  Europe  a  tanning  extract  is  made  from  the  bark  of  a  number  of 
the  larches,  while  in  this  country  Tsuga  Canadensis  furnishes  a 
creditable  proportion  of  all  the  material  used. 
In  the  bark  of  many  of  the  species  considerable  proportions  of 
mucilage  exist,  sufficient  in  some  of  the  firs  to  cause  the  infusion  of 
their  barks  to  become  viscid. 
ECONOMICS. 
The  Coniferae  must  rank  among  the  most  useful  of  the  natural 
orders  of  plants.  In  the  production  of  food  materials,  they  are,  of 
course,  far  outranked  by  the  Graminacese  and  by  some  other  natural 
orders,  though  several  species  of  the  genus  Pinus  produce  great 
quantities  of  edible  seeds  that  have  been  much  used  for  food  by  the 
Indians  of  Western  America,  and  are  beginning  to  be  better  appre- 
ciated by  the  whites.  In  the  yield  of  valuable  timber,  however,  the 
Coniferae  easily  stand  first.  Within  the  order,  the  genus  Pinus  is, 
for  this  form  of  production,  much  the  most  important.  This  is  due 
to  the  vast  numbers  and  the  size  of  the  trees,  and  to  the  workable 
