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. 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.
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. 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. 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. De-Young -at Amsterdam, Holland exports more wooden shoes to the United States than to any other country. The remarkable statement is made that there is more wooden footgear worn in Chicago, Grand Rapids, or Holland, Mich. Other sections importing this practical article of dress extensively are Paterson, N.
The shoes exported from the Netherlands are mostly made in large factories by modern machinery. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. At the beginning of April, laborers began using a steel spatula to scoop the liquid a drier, less viscous form of sap known as gum from the box in a process called "dipping" and then deposited it in buckets.
The gum was next transferred to gallon barrels for transport to a distillery or to portable stills near the site. In addition to being labor intensive, this method of gathering the sap eventually killed the tree, with large stands of pines being depleted within a decade and forcing producers to move to new forests.
Turpentine Still in Calhoun County Through the distillation process, operators transformed the gum into turpentine, pitch, and resin. Once the barrels reached the distillery, laborers transferred the gum to stills. Fires underneath the stills heated the gum and brought the mixture to boil. Vapor then flowed through a tube at the top of the still, where it condensed and dripped into another barrel. This mixture of turpentine and water then separated, and laborers skimmed the turpentine from the surface.
This procedure, known as gum turpentining, took between three and a half to five and a half hours and produced both turpentine and resin. Many of the owners of turpentine operations in Alabama relocated from North Carolina, where forests had already been severely depleted.
For example, James R. Grist purchased forestland in Mobile to expand his operation based in Beaufort County, North Carolina. The Grist venture in Alabama operated with enslaved labor and between and produced 26, barrels of sap that, after the distillation process, yielded 3, barrels of turpentine and 15, barrels of resin.
Turpentine laborers endured some of the harshest conditions among southern industries. Although the enslaved laborers set the pace for boxing, chipping, and dipping, producers set enormous quotas that required high speed and skill. Moses Shipyard, Mobile During the Civil War , poor market conditions and interrupted transportation temporarily halted naval stores production. But swift industrialization and the construction of numerous railroads after the war aided the industry's recovery because new rail lines restored access to distilleries and opened up new areas for establishing additional distilleries.
The industry faced several important changes after the war. The demise of enslaved labor resulted in a shortage of labor, as many freedpeople were unwilling to endure the harsh conditions of the industry. To remedy this situation, operators turned to leasing convicts from Alabama's prison system and to a system known as debt peonage, in which indebted individuals were forced to work until a debt or loan was paid off.
Distilleries in Tuscaloosa and Escambia counties leased state inmates to harvest gum in their pine tracts. Famed Alabama outlaw Railroad Bill likely escaped from a turpentining camp. Other distilleries hired northern labor agencies to procure white immigrant labor. These companies lured workers to Alabama with false promises of high wages and favorable working conditions, then essentially held laborers captive while they worked off their transportation costs.
In , for example, W. Harlan, the manager of Jackson Lumber Company's mill in Lockhart , Covington County , was charged with perpetuating debt peonage and was convicted in Despite successful prosecution, debt peonage remained a staple of the South's turpentine industry well into the s.
Another post-war change was the increased prominence of factors, persons whom today might be called agents or brokers. Although factorage houses or, brokerages had been a part of the turpentine industry since the early nineteenth century, factors played an increasingly important role after the war.
In addition to buying and selling the products, they financed new operations through leasing forest tracts and furnishing supplies and equipment on credit. Yaryan developed a successful method for extracting turpentine and tar from charred longleaf pine stumps that brought additional changes to the industry. The new method of distillation consisted of heating small pieces of wood collected from pine stumps over a gas fire in a glass container known as a retort.
After approximately 15 to 20 hours, the rosin separated and was collected from the bottom of the retort.
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