THE LONGLEAF PINE. P. palustris, Mill.
The longleaf pine is preeminent in importance in the lumber trade and in the production of naval stores. It stretches in a belt about one hundred and twenty-five miles wide, somewhat back from the coast, all the way from Virginia to Tampa Bay and west to the Mississippi River. Isolated forests are scattered in northern Ala bama, Louisiana, and Texas.
The trees are tall, often exceeding one hundred feet in height; with trunks slender in proportion, rarely reaching three feet in diameter. The narrow, irregular head is formed of short stout twisted limbs on the upper third of the trunk. The leaves are from twelve to eighteen inches long, forming dense tufts at the ends of the branches. Being flexible they droop and sway on the ends of erect branches like shining fountains, their emerald lightened by the silvery sheaths that invest each group of three.
Sapling longleaf pines have recently entered the market for Christmas greens in Northern cities. This threatens the renewal of longleaf forests that have fallen to the axe of the lumberman. Unless Federal restriction comes to the rescue, there is little hope of saving this young growth, for nothing can exceed in beauty a three-foot sapling of long leaf pine as a Christmas decoration.
The lumber of this species is the "Southern pine" of the builder. Heavy, strong, yellowish brown, durable, it has a tremendous vogue for flooring and the interior finish of buildings. It is used in the construction of railway cars. Its durability in contact with water accounts for its use bridge-building, and for masts and spars of vessels. A great deal of this lumber is exported for use in European shipyards. It has replaced the dwindling supply of white pine for building purposes throughout the North, and the strong demand for it has been followed by lumbering of the most destructive and wasteful type, because the forests are owned privately.
In the early days the American colonists in Virginia tapped the longleaf pine, collected the resin from the bleeding wounds, and boiled it down for pitch and tar. These crude beginnings established an industry now known as the " orcharding" of the longleaf pine. After a century
of wastefulness and wanton destruction of the trees, it has become patent to all that scientific methods must be re sorted to in the production of turpentine and other pro ducts derived from the living trees. Otherwise the dwind ling industry will soon come to an end.
Resin is the sap of the tree. The first problem is to draw it in a manner least wasteful of the product, and least dangerous to the life of the tree. The second process is the melting of the collected resin in a still and the drawing off of the volatile turpentine. "What is left solidifies and is known as rosin.
"Boxing" the trees was the cutting of a grooved incision low on the trunk, with a hollow at the base of the vertical trough to hold the discharge of the bleeding sap-wood. Resin-gatherers visited the tapped trees and emptied the pockets into buckets by means of a ladle. They also scraped away the hardened sap and widened the wounds to induce the flow from new tissues. This method cost the life of the tree in two or three years, and it became a prey to disease and a menace to the whole forest, as fuel for fires accidentally started. Nowadays, all reasonable owners of longleaf pine have discarded the old-fashioned boxing and installed methods approved by the Department of Forestry.
Tar was formerly derived from the slow burning of wood in a clay-lined pit. The branches, roots and other lumber refuse, cut in small sizes were heaped in a compact mound and covered with sods and earth. Smoldering fires soon in duced a flow of smoky tar, thick as molasses, in the bottom of the pit. In due time the flow ceased, the fires went out, and charcoal was the result of this slow burning. Remov ing the charcoal, the tar became available for various pur poses; boiled until it lost its liquid character, it became tough sticky pitch. This primitive pit method of extract ing tar and making charcoal has been abandoned wherever intelligence governs the industry, and distillation processes have been installed.