Aoiober,Pi8t5.n1-}     Future  of  the  Turpentine  Industry.  537 
Of  the  two  methods  given  for  the  estimation  of  the  acid,  the  first 
is  the  more  accurate  and  satisfactory.  Much  care  is  required  in 
manipulating  the  precipitate  of  silver  cyanide  in  the  second. 
The  yield  of  hydrocyanic  acid  as  above  stated  is  more  than  twice 
that  previously  reported.  J.  S.  Perot  (Am.  Jour.  Ph.,  Vol.  24,  1852, 
page  in)  found  from  00478  to  01436  per  cent.  We  believe  that 
the  result  is  due  to  the  improved  method  of  estimation,  as  numer- 
ous experiments  proved  that  only  about  half  of  the  acid  was 
obtained  during  the  first  distillation. 
The  above  results  appear  to  furnish  to  the  query  a  negative 
answer. 
Ann  Arbor,  Mich  ,  June  15,  1895. 
THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  TURPENTINE  INDUSTRY. 
In  a  communication  to  Garden  and  Forest  of  July  10,  1895,  L.  J. 
Vance  gives  his  opinions  of  the  "  Future  of  the  Long-leaf  Pine  Belt," 
and  as  this  is  intimately  connected  with  the  turpentine  industry,  we 
reproduce  it  as  follows  : 
A  few  weeks  ago,  when  I  was  in  the  pine  district  of  the  South,  every  even- 
ing the  sky  was  illumined  by  a  dull  red  glare,  and  in  the  daytime  the  horizon 
was  obscured  by  a  thin  veil  of  smoky  haze.  The  cause  of  this  was  the  turpen- 
tine industry,  which  has  now  reached  its  busiest  season. 
Few  people  who  have  not  been  in  what  is  called  "  the  long-leaf  pine  belt "  of 
the  South  can  have  any  real  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  damage  done  to  the 
country  by  the  turpentine  workers  and  by  the  lumbermen,  both  of  whom  con- 
duct their  business  on  what  has  been  bluntly  called  "the  robbing  system." 
They  have  left  immense  areas  of  land  robbed  not  only  of  its  natural  resources, 
but  in  a  worse  condition  for  clearing  and  culture  than  before  their  invasion. 
Such  is,  without  doubt,  the  case  of  many  square  miles  in  the  two  Carolinas,  in 
Georgia,  in  Alabama  and  in  Louisiana. 
The  result  is  that  the  most  bare  and  barren  places  in  all  the  South  are  those 
that  have  been  visited  by  the  army  of  turpentine  gatherers.  Every  Northern 
visitor  familiar  with  well-ordered  and  cultivated  farmlands  and  houses  is  struck 
by  the  great  tracts  of  Southern  country  on  which  there  is  no  vegetation  of  anv 
value.  These  wastes  are  deserted  and  uninhabited,  except  here  and  there  by 
the  negro's  lonely  cabin. 
The  loss  from  fires  is  enormous.  The  turpentine  workers  are  so  careless  and 
indifferent  as  to  allow  fires  to  run  through  the  tracts  in  which  they  have 
worked.  The  resin  on  the  scarified  surface  of  the  trees  burns  like  kerosene  ;  a 
spark,  a  blaze,  and  all  at  once  a  disastrous  conflagration  is  sweeping  through 
the  pine  forests  with  great  fury,  destroying  millions  of  feet  of  marketable  tim- 
ber, and  leaving  hundreds  of  acres  a  scene  of  awful  ruin. 
