The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-10-17

years The colored man as a rule pre-
fers turpentining to plantation work.
On the plantation his keep Is part CT
his pay, and he handles only about SO
a month. But in the backwooos all his
provisions must be bought, as far as
the employer Is concerned. so there Is
no inducement to board him, and ne
receives from 81 to $l.25 day. ana
amounts to about the same thing I" the
end, but the man has the felicity OF
spending $50 month instead of $40.
His cabin is soon built in the new
orchard. generally close by q clear spot
where he can make a little garden.
With the vegetables that he can raise.
the fish his wife and children can
catch, and the game and birds his gun
can bring down, the cost of living Is
reduced to a triflins expenditure for
corn meal and bacon. coffee and sugar.
The workingman is as familiar as his
'chief with the Decularities Of the long
leafed pine. 1t has number of dis
tinctive features, and he knows them
all. No man of science can tell him
much about the three sections that
compose the trunk Of the tree-the bark,
the sapwoOd, and the heart. He knows
that 1t is the sapwood which supplies
the heart are as useless to him, as
If they were not present. the sapwood
being the comparatively soft folds ly-
ing between the bark and the heart.
In big tree the heart may be foot
thick, and it is full of resin. but the
resin will not flow. 1t is this heart
which supplies what in the north is
called fat pine. and here in the south
is called ligEtwood. Cut down the tree,
"a ;,, taNt I.a 1,ar nd h.a
sapwood decay and disappear but the
heart remains, almost as hard and as
indestructible as iron. The planter
hunts out these hearts for fence posts,
because they are so full of resin that
they will stand in the ground for
generation without injury. The tar
maker must have them, too: but the
heart is worthless to the turpentiner.
IMPORTANCE OF THE WEATHER.
The weather is of as much import
ance to u turpentner as it Is to
farmer. Give him steady, long-con-
tinued heat, or a series of cold rains,
and he is sure of poor crop. A cold
spring is equally bad for him. But
work in new orchard begins before
spring opens: the boxing may be done
any time through the winter. to be
ready when the sap begins to flow.
he DUNES are llOl put
triangular holes cut in the trees. Two
hundred thousand OF these boxes must
be cut in the orchard. at an expense
of about $500. No trees of less than
twelve inches diameter ought to be
boxed, but trees of not more than eight
inches are often made to do duty. The
lower part of the box Is cut about
twelve inches above the ground, and
the hole is made seven inches deep.
slantng from the outside to the inter-
ior at an angle of 35 degrees. This
makes pyramid shaped cut into the
tree. and forms q Gun that will hold
about three pints. While the boxers
are at work, other men. or sometimes
women or boys, are raking around the
trees, removing all the pine needles
and chips for space of three or four
feet. and burning the stuff in little
heaps. This is done so that in case of
fire in the woods the flames will not
reach the box; and for the same reason
as much as the underbrush as possible
is cleared away and burned.
With the earlier days of spring the sap
begins to flow, and then the turpentine
orchard becomes a busy place. The
boxes are all ready, but without further
treatment no appreciable quantity of
sap would flow into them. To start
the flow Of sap and guide 1t into the
right channels, the men go to work
with their odd-looking tools and chip
or hack the trees Immediately above the
boxes, cutting away the bark at the
proper points and making incisions in
to the wood in the shape of broad let
ter V. ten or dozen of them, one above
another, each of the points bearing
downward so as to form so many shall
, low cutters to conduct the sap into the
box. This chipping is repeated every
week from March till October or No
vember. The soft resin which accumu-
lates in the boxes is dipped out about
seven times in the first season and
poured into barrels to be taken to the
still Each crop of 10000 trees should
yield about forty barrels Of dip or soft
turpentine at each dipping, or $50 bar
rels in the first season. giving total
of $500 barrels for the whole orchard
in the first year. The flow becomes
greatest in the hottest months,July and
August, and decreases as the weather
grows cooler. AS soon as the eXuda-
ton is arrested and the crude resin be-
gins to harden, 1t Is scraped from the
chip and the boxes with long-handled
scraper. This material is called scrape,
or hard turpentine, and 1t contains only
half as much volatile oil as the dip.
| The scrape amounts to about seventy
barrels to the crop the first year and
increases to 120 barrels in the second
year. In the whole four years the en-
| tire orchard of twenty crops should
yield about 10000 gallons Of spirits of
| turpentine the average from each tree
| for four years being about gallon and
half of spirits and thirty pounds Of
high-grade resin.
| DISTILLATION.
| The distillation Is a matter that re-
Qures great care and experience to
prevent loss in spirits OF turpentine, to
obtain the largest quantities OF rosin
of the higher grades, and to guard
against overheating. After heating the
still somewhat beyond the melting
point of crude turpentine, a small
stream of tepid water from the top
of the condensing tub Is conducted
/ into the still and allowed to run until
the end of the process: and 1t Is by
a peculiar noise made by the boiling
| contents of the still that the distiller
knows when to stop-a sign that would
have no meaning to beginner After
all the spirit has been evaporated, the
fire is put out and the residuum Is
drawn off by tap in the bottom of the
still. This molten rosin Is first run
through a wire cloth. and then through
cotton cloth into a large trough; then
1t is ladled into barrels.
There is not much danger that tur-
pentine will be overdone, for the prof
its are not large enough to attract any
except men who have been brought up
in the business and know no other.
The best that can be said of the profits
| is that they are reasonably sure for
they are ridiculously small. The $4,000
capital required is for the still and 9TH
er works. barrels. advance on labor
and rent, houses. sheds, tools, wagons.
and mules. The cost of four years
operating single crop. or one-twen-
tieth of the whole orchards. is esti-
mated at s2.30S5O. of which $125 Is for
chopping 10000 boxes, SIS for inspect
ing and tallying the same. $l2 for COW
ering the boxes. $40 for raking around