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THE old system of boring long-leaf pine trees for the purpose of collecting turpentine is the most wasteful and destructive method that has ever been used. It is not only the most expensive from the standpoint of labor, but it invariably weakens the trees and always subjects them to destruction from wind and fire. Less wasteful methods have been devised for extracting the resin, yet a good many turpentine men persist in cutting large receptacles or openings on either side of the trees near their bases in which the resin collects. (See Fig. 1.) These holes or boxes, as they are comm o n I y called, are from 8 to 14 inches wide, running up 7 to 8 inches along the length of the tree, and from 4 to 6 inches deep. The trunks are repeatedly hacked immediately above these boxes, thus -exposing new scarified surfaces from which the resin oozes and collects in the boxes below. This process of hacking is continued upward on the trunks as high as the men can conveniently reach, and is repeated for five to seven years until the trees are considered fully worked. With this method there is an enormous amount of waste. Not only is there a 50 per cent waste through evaporation of the pure turpentine oil, which sells for $4.60 per gallon, but in gathering the crude resin from the boxes large quantities are lost through careless handling. A good deal of foreign material, such as scales of bark, chips and needles of the trees, becomes mixed with the crude resin which is collected from the boxes and scraped off the scarified surfaces. About ten years ago another method was devised which is known as the cup and gutter system. This system has its advantages over the old one in that it does away with the injurious methods of cutting the boxes into the trees. Only the sap wood of the tree is penetrated by this method, and one cup with two gutters which drain the resin into the cup is attached to the foot of each scarified surface. (See Fig. 2.) These cups have a disadvantage in so far that hogs and other animals which feed in the pine forests frequently throw them off the hooks which hold them in place. Evaporation is not wholly eliminated by the use of this method. The earthenware cups also have another disadvantage, since a good many are constantly broken even under reasonably careful handling and must be replaced at a considerable expense. Nor does the use of this system greatly lessen the fire danger, for the resinous substance on the scarified surfaces often catches fire when the woods are burned over, which is done regularly every year in the southern pineries. These periodic conflagrations which consume annually not only millions of acres of young growth but also many millions of feet of merchantable timber, can thus be directly or indirectly attributed to the cause of improper methods of turpentining. The present rate of this destruction is so great that within the next fifteen or twenty years the resin yielding pine forests of the South will be wholly depleted. It is very important, therefore, that a less destructive method of turpentining should be used. A new system of collecting turpentine in air tight jars which was put into practice a little less than a year ago, promises to be the most economical method ever devised, and it is this system which may possibly revolutionize the turpentine industry in this country. To A NEW SYSTEM OF GATHERING TURPENTINE cut the timber without having' it turpentined is equivalent to throwing away the whole of the profits that could be derived therefrom. But the turpentining should be done only provided the oil can be extracted, with absolutely no damage to the timber or to the lumber product. Frequently turpentine men lease their long-leaf timber for $2.50 per acre for the privilege of working it for the turpentine, though the timber on it may be worth $4.00 per acre to the sawmill men. After the turpentine operator is through with the job fully one-half of the trees are invariably dead, all are fire scarred, and those which remain after nine years (the usual length of a lease) are worth to the millmen only about $2.00 per acre. The new turpentine cup system consists of an airtight glass jar of about one pint capacity which screws into a metallic cover similar to a tin can top. (See Fig. 3.) To this is attached a somewhat similar cap at right angles which is placed into a shallow 2%-inch hole bored into the sapwood of the treee. A metal brace of the same material as the cover serves to hold the caps at right angles to each other. The brace is hollow and provides a passage for the resin from the tree into the glass jar which is attached to the horizontal cap. The cud is firmly attached to the tree by first smoothing off the rough outer bark over a few square inches and then placing an ordinary extension bit of the vertical cap into the hole to a depth of about one-fourth inch. Before forcing the vertical cap into the hole two three-quarter inch diverging . holes several inches deep '-'._"' “^T^ gj with a slightly upward inclination are bored from the center of the iH^^Bra^'-, N; larger hole. The vertical X •* / cap is then forced into i r W&A'fjSSSk the large hole and a glass JjgtjSsSSSSSm' » Hi *' jar screwed into the hori- zontal cap. The gum ' ^Ec'ft flows from the three- quarter inch holes into the vertical cap and from sSIl?' •'- - '•V* there through the hollow i?''^':.jjjfSlii-'- -i-'isig* brace into the glass jar. jT^Sif'<-, *3 When the jars become full they can be unscrewed, emptied and re-»-£?v. V.^&V&'/jS gsjsi placed. This method has proved very successful, Kl^'-J^C'-l^''-''. •' and it will not only be a great thing for the tur-utter method. pentine industry, but it will be a great step in ------- advance toward conserv- -——^.^= growth. es, showing the scari- aces- Wooden Shoes ACCORDING to a report from Vice-Consul D, P. De-Young -at Amsterdam, Holland exports more wooden shoes to the United States than to any other country. Many hundred pairs are now worn in Michigan, Iowa, Missouri, New Jersey, and other States. The remarkable statement is made that there is more wooden footgear worn in Chicago, Grand Rapids, or Holland, Mich., than in the city of Amsterdam. Other sections importing this practical article of dress extensively are Paterson, N. J., St. Louis. Mo., Lancaster Ccunty, Neb., and Marion County, Iowa. The shoes exported from the Netherlands are mostly made in large factories by modern machinery. On the contrary, the wooden shoes worn in that country are generally hewn to the measure of the customers' feet in the village shoe shops, and the local price varies according to the amount of lumber used and the market price of the raw material,