The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-06-16
NEW USE FOR STUMPS
Prof. Frankforter Finds Valuable
Products Going to Waste on
Pacific Coast.
Big Fir stumps Yield Turpentine,
Tar, Charcoal and Gas
Worth 5000.

A stump OF the great Douglas fir. This
stump is eight or nine feet in diameter,
ten feet in height. To remove It costs
sulting ashes will deprive the soil Of agri-
cultural value for a period Of years. The
stump is worse than worthless.
Hereafter this stump may be removed
without injuring the soil. The stump
may then be cheaply transformed into
products that can be sold for 5000 at least
perhaps $500.
And such stumps now cover thousands
Of acres in Washington and Oregon
The same transformation, from refuse
into money, can be wrought with the vast
amount of waste logs and lumber now
destroyed in saw mills along the Pacific
! coast
The great value Of these abandoned
stumps will be pointed out in a. paper to
be read June 20 at Cleveland before the
American Chemical society by DR.. George
p. Frankforter, dean of the school of
chemistry at the state university. The
paper will treat of "Turpentine Pitch and
Other By-Products In Northern Pine and
the Douglas Fir" The same paper will
announce the discovery Of new and
superior turpentine.
DR.. Frankforter has been investigating
the Douglas fir products on behalf Of J.
| W. Clark of New Whatcom, WASH, and
his brother in law. Charles F. Gordon,
president of the Minneapolis Dry Goods
company.
49, stumps Rich in Pitch.
It is the pitch in Douglas fir that has
proved to be so valuable. It was the same
pitch heretofore that made much Of the
| fir so valueless. Any part of the tree
that contained an excess of pitch could
not be used for lumber. Hence the tree
has usually been cut off ten feet above
the ground, fifteen feet, even twenty feet,
according to the amount Of pitch in the
lower part of the trunk Even after the
logs have been hauled to a mill, part Of
them have often been found to be so
| pitchy that they were thrown away.
| That the pitch contained comm ercial
products has been sufficiently we'll known,
but the Importance of those products has
been revealed by Professor Frankforter.
| He was surprised to find that no less than
40 per cent of the abandoned stump is
PITCH and that this pitch produces tur-
pentine with which the turpentine now
manufactured cannot be compared.
New Product Smells Good.
The new turpentine has all the chemical
and medicinal qualities of the ordinary
product, but IS free from the disagreeable
odor and the equally disagreeable taste
that have prevented the more general use
of turpentine in medicine and in the arts
) The odor of the fir turpentine is mild and
balsamic-almost perfume. The taste
is beguiling. It might flavor new chew.
ing gum or draw forth Olympian refresh
} ment from a soda water fountain.
Each of the fir stumps, DR.. Frankfortel
estimates, contains. on an average, five
or six cords Of wood, and the value of the
!. by products from each cord would range
from $40 to $50. Forty per cent OF the
! wood would be pitch of which 20 per cen
could be resolved into turpentine, 80 pei
cent in tar oil, and so per cent into com
mon tar. This tar is of excellent qualit.
, and finds ready sale on the. Pacific coast
A minor product is pyroligneour acid, con
,, tanning acetic acid. 81
The proportion Of pitch is much smalle
: in the white pine of Minnesota and TIN
stumps of the white pine, less than hal
| the diameter Of the fir, are cut Off JUS
above the ground.
All the foregoing products Of the fir cal
q be removed by burning the wood in re
torts according to the process known a
destructive distillation,"
Not the least marvellous fact is that il
the very process Of disti1lation the fl
gives out gas which affords sufficien
fuel to maintain the process.
After the -products-turpentine ia
Il oil, tar, acids, gas, etc, have been re
moved a charcoal is left which can b
sold at a good profit. The whole of tn
q fir, in other words may be converted int
Y something saleable. There is no loss.
It Illuminating Gas, Too.
: And to cap the economic climax, Pro
l., lessor Frankforter announces that sui
. ficient Illuminating gas can be extracte
:. from the fir pitch to compete with tn
- product of gas coal. Already, in fact, ha
- a dozen towns in the Douglas fir distric
=, have taken steps to establish gas plant
= that will sell the brilliant light concea1e
- | in old fir stumps.
u Thus it appears that the abandoned an
% abused stumps Of Washington and Ore
r gon, the very refuse of the saw mills, ca
:. easily be converted into Illuminating 60
n of the best quality; that none of the f
ID will be wholly lost; but that even tt
y residum Of the gas retorts will provit
W charcoal, acetic acid, tar oil, tar, and
,e turpentine more valuable than any "
produced.
A new source Of turpentine is Of partii
ular Importance at the present time whe
the output of the 'turpentine orchards
in the southern states Is decreasing yes
IF by year. For the United States suppl,
three -fourths Of all the turpentine tn,