Brookings County sentinel. (Brookings, Dakota [S.D.]) 1882-1890, 1882-10-05
TURPENTINE AND ROsIN.
Whore These Commodities ere Manufactured.
Life IN the Piasy Southland.


Life In the Piasy Southland.
tFrom the Boston Commercial Bulletin.l
But in those vast pine forests in the
valley of the Cape Fear and its tribu-
taries there is o strange music and a
strange kind of life. No other region OF
the globe is 80 lonesome, unless it is the
Desert Of Sahara. The prattling of
brooks, the rustling of trees, the cries of
birds and the usual hustle that one hears
in most forests, at least in spring and
summer aud fall, would be as much out
of place rs "Dixie" played IN st. Pauls.
Yet it is not silent there. A strong
monotone that seems to come out of a
great distance and TO sweep ON infinitely
deep calling unto deep-dulls all ones
senses of time and place. This con-
tinual moan of the wind in the pine
branches is natures solemnest chant,
ceasing never whether the air he in per-
ceptible motion or not. The pine leaf
always hangs ready to moan at the
slightest breath Of wind, and in winter
and summer alike their song is all one
hears for miles Of unbroken solitude
unless one happens Oh company Of
turpentine-workers, and then the Big
eyed rabbit hind de pine wakes one
from the deepest reverie. There not a
rabbit at all, but negro, big-eyed and
smiling.
"Say, boss, got a chaw terbacker,.?"
Now is your chance. IL you are wise,
you can make one of the oldest acquain-
tances of your life. Kind-hearted, in
dependent, beggar and a spendthrift,
he is no more like cornfiep nigger /"
or "cotton chopin nigger than he
is like Mexican. His occupation, in
fact, has given him almost another dia-
lect. HIS tools have strange names, and
nothing like them are used in any other
industry. He considers himself no mere
labOrer, an artisan, nor even an artist,
he And a skilful artisan, for this re-
gion, he is. With his long pointed axe
he cuts "box in a tree as smoothly
as if it were chiseled and planed and
sandpapered. First a notch is cut four
or five inches deep into the tree near the
ground and then cut inward and down.
ward SO AS to hold, some of them, half a
gallon or more. He is "boxer." As
unerringly as "A bird III its flight he cuts
a strip of trees 50 many hundred feet
wide and cuts another strip back pre-
cisely the same width.
Following him are the "hackers, 4"
who, with a chisel-like instrument cut
the bark off several inches above the
box Just at this season or little
later. The turpentine oozes out and
drlps down intothe "box" to be scraped
out every week by another class OF tur-
pentine Gratis" the most uncouth of
them all. Their clothes, from old hat
to thick books, if they have boots at all,
are covered with the accumulated tur-
peLtlne OF centuries, you would swear.
aid made waterproof and almost bullet
proof. Once every wee iii summer the
hackers hack an inch higher and the
clcaL crs clean out the boxes. The dis
tillcIy at sUlue settlement of hGts is set
going in spring, and the soap-makers
and tiddlers need fear no scarcity Of ma
teriai, saporlierous or musical. The
soiled things of earth and the cat gut
may rejoice.
Perhaps, says a writer on the subject,
there are those who would like to know
where turpentine comes from. The bus
mess was chiefly mouopolized by North
Carolina but is now carried on very ex-
tensively in Alabama, many Of the own
ers of turpentine orchards in that state
having spent their early lives among the
pine trees of the Carolinas, where they
thoroughly learned the business they
now prosecute so successfully. The
"piney woods section of Alabama EN-
braces that portion bordering on Florida
and the Gulf of Mexico, extending north
ward from the Florida line, about twen-
ty-five miles, and from the Gulf, from
seventy-fve to one hundred and twenty
five miles. Before the completion Of the
Louisville and Nashville road, the for
ests accessible to water transportation
were about the only ones boxed"
these, however, were used to the limit Of
profit and abandoned, as the railroad
made available the extensive forests along
its line. There are no holidays for the
turpentine works save those which the
severe rainy days bring; the business
has no special season like sugar, cotton,
rice and corn.
The "crops" are distinctly separated
from each other by blazed trees, and
one man detailed to work each one.
Above the "box" the bark is cleaned
away, and with it little Of the woody
fibre, leaving the blazing much in the
form of broad letter V with its bottom
lost out, thus making an incline, down
which the turpentine finds its way to
the "box" below. After the boxing is
completed the chipping" begins. This
is done with sharp iron implement
something like that used by mechanics
for growing. 1t cuts away a strip of
the wood and bark about three-fourths
of HI inch in width. Both sides of the
angle are "chipped, and every tree is
subjected to tins process once a week
from the time it is "boxed" until it is
abandoned, ranging from two to four
years. Ii this was not done the flow of
turpentine would cease, as it gums up its
own pathway SO completely not a drop
can escape-furnishes its own plaster for
its wounds, as it were. There can be no
shirking done, for foremen who super
tend the "croppers are constantly
riding through the orchard, keeping an
eye on every mans work and knowing
the condition of every "crop."
In appearance crude turpentine re-
sembles white wax, which, after melting,
has only partly solidifed; it looks very
tempting, but one taste is as satisfactory
as whole meal would be. There is NO
special need of sign warning intruders
TO "taste not, touch not and handle
not" Only part of the turpentine
finds its way into the box, the rest ad-
herring to the surface of the tree. That
in the box is known as the "dip," that
removed from the tree as the "scrape, II
the first being taken out with a
clipper" the latter scraped off the
blazed tree. The turpentine "dipper
might lie around in a conspicuous place
for a long time without any persons
mistrustipg either its name or its use.
1t is Of iron, and looks quite like an en-.
larged and flattened Indian arrow head.
with its point rounded by long use.
An average tree, in fair year, will
yield about twenty -four gallons Of crude
"dip" and scrape;" wagons go sbou,
through the forests gathering from each
tree four or five times year, delivering
it at the distillery in barrels. New crops
are added each year, old ones being
abandoned as they cease to yield good
grade of rosin. The first years produc,