Naval Stores: the Industry

286 NAVAL STORES: THE INDUSTRY JAY WARD Naval stores arc the derivatives of an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt the crude gum—oleoresin—that comes thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch from living pine trees, pine stumps, it wdthin and without with pitch." and dead lightwood. Some arc byprod- When Columbus discovered Amer- ucts from sulfate pulp mills. The term ica, the center of production in Europe is limited generally to turpentine and extended from Scandinavia through rosin, but it can be said to cover pine the Baltic countries. From them came tar, pine oil, and rosin oils. In the trade, quantities of tar and pitch for use by the product from living pine trees is the fleets of wooden sailing vessels of known as gum naval stores; the prod- all the European nations. King Phillip uct from stumps, lightwood, and pulp of Spain drew from this source for mills is called wood naval stores. In his Spanish Armada. Queen Elizabeth Colonial days, gum was cooked down drew from it for her British fleet. One to a thick tar and used to preserve the of the basic commodities sought by the ropes and calk the seams of the ships— Europeans in the New World wâs a and from that we got the name "naval source of naval stores for their ships. stores" for the products used now in a Turpentining is one of the oldest hundred ways unconnected with ships. and most picturesque of American in- The gum naval stores industry, at its dustries. The production of tar, pitch, peak in 1908-9, produced 750,000 bar- rosin, and turpentine started when rels (50 gallons each) of gum spirits of the first settlers landed on the Atlan- turpentine and 1,998,400 drums of gum tic coast. The report of Sir Walter rosin (520 pounds net weight each). Raleigh's first expedition to America in The United States in normal times sup- 1584 referred to "the great forests of plies the world with one-half its needs pine of species unknown to Europe for turpentine and rosin. Since 1938, until found in the New World." The the production of gum naval stores has report of the second expedition men- fallen oflF considerably. The industry in tioned once again "the trees that 1947-48 produced 294,028 barrels of yielded pitch, tar, rosin, and turpen- turpentine and 828,128 drums of rosin, tine in great store." bringing a total return to the South of In 1608 eight Dutchmen were sent 39 million dollars. to Virginia to make pitch, tar, soap, The naval stores industry is rooted and rosin. Two years earlier, in 1606, in antiquity. It antedates the Christian the French were drawing turpentine era in the Mediterranean countries. gum from the trees of Nova Scotia. In Early historians wTote of the process The Maine Woods, Thoreau told about then used: How the natives gathered the tar burners of New England. One the resins or gums of the trees in that of the earliest acts of the Pilgrim region and cooked them in open pots Fathers was to request in 1628 that until a thick pitch was left in the bot- "men skylful in the making of pitch" tom; how they stretched fleecy sheep- be sent to them from England. The skins over the tops of the pots to catch Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Col- the oily vapors that arose from the onies produced great quantities of tar boiling gum, and then wrung out the and pitch from their beginning as wet fleece to recover the oils; and how colonies, as did all the other North the oils were used in many products, Atlantic colonies from Maine to New one of which was for varnish for mum- Jersey. The first tar burners in New mies. Genesis records that Noah was England and later on in North Caro- commanded by the Lord: "Make thee lina used the dead and down wood, or, Naval Stores: The Industry 287 the dead down lightwood, which they cant role in merchant shipping. Naval found in large quantities in the virgin stores served as a tribute with w^hich forests all about them. we bought partial safety for our vessels Colonists began coming in large on the seas, especially in the Barbary numbers to North Carolina about States of North Africa. In 1815 the 1665 5 and tar burning, a practice which States, with force, overcame the pirates until then had been a New England of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, and monopoly, began to take hold quickly. ceased paying the tribute. The new settlers in North Carolina, moreover, soon discovered that the THE AREA OF PRODUCTION of gum abundant growth of southern yellow, naval stores has shifted through the or longleaf, pine was a more prolific years. The first change from New Eng- source of gum than the pitch pine of land southward came about when it New England. By 1700 the production was found that the longleaf pine trees of naval stores was an important part were better yielders than the pitch pine of the economy of North Carolina. As of New England. In 1850, North Caro- in New England, gum, tar, and pitch lina and South Carolina accounted for became established as accepted media more than 95 percent of the total of exchange in the payment of rent and American production. The Carolinas public dues. did not keep up this yield, and in 1947 So important did England consider they accounted for less than half of 1 her source of naval stores in the Col- percent of the total production. The onies that bounties and premiums shift wâs brought about by the clear were paid to producers to stimulate cutting of the virgin stands in those production and improve the quality of States without leaving enough seed the products. The bounties, which were trees for reproduction. Such exploita- designed to equalize the heavy freight tion of the virgin forests continued costs across the Atlantic in competi- southward and westward through all tion with the Scandinavian and other the South Atlantic and Gulf States European producers, continued to be into eastern Texas. paid until the beginning of the Revolu- As late as 1920, it was generally tionary War. In 1728 the British Navi- thought and ofíñcially predicted that gation Acts prohibited the Colonies within another 10 years gum produc- from shipping direct to any foreign tion in this countr}'^ would be practi- country pitch, tar, and the crude gum, cally at an end. That belief, probably along with other specified commodi- more than anything else, gave rise to ties. The laws required the routing of the development of the wood naval such commodities through English stores industry. Nature, however, has ports. Measures for the regulation of confounded the experts ; instead of the the industry and for the payment of failure of reforestation in the deep bounties were introduced by the Royal South, second-growth longleaf and Governor of North Carolina: In 1735, slash pines have abounded to an extent providing for inspection of the opera- that indicates that the production of tions; in 1736, prohibiting the en- gum naval stores can continue indefi-, croachment of tar burners on crown nitely. The major part of our pro- lands; and in 1764, regulating the duction the past several years has come quality and quantity of all tar, pitch, from about 150 counties in South and turpentine barreled and sold, even Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, requiring the producer's brand on all Mississippi, and Louisiana. Southern barrels. Georgia and northern Florida produce When the Colonies became a Nation more than 90 percent of the total. that wâs trying to establish itself in During the seventeenth and eight- world affairs and build up trade with eenth centuries, the crude gum was other nations, naval stores had a signifi- gathered in the woods, shipped to the 288 Yearbook, of Agriculture 1949 eastern seaports of Wilmington, Phila- packed in barrels or drums, or in thick delphia, and New York, and forwarded paper bags for marketing. to England for distillation. The tech- A naval stores experiment station nique in the woods consisted in what under the supervision of the Depart- is known as the "boxing" system. By ment of Agriculture was established at that system, a cavity or "box" was cut Olustee, Fla., in 1932. The station into the base of the tree to catch and has developed better gum-distillation hold the crude gum as it flowed down methods and has done much to foster the trunk of the tree after scarification the establishment of large central dis- or "chipping," which, then as now, was tillation plants, an idea that originated performed with a chipping tool or hack with McGarvey Cline, a former direc- on each tree or "face" weekly from tor of the Forest Products Laboratory. about March 15 until October or No- The first central plant was completed vember. The boxing type of operation by the Glidden Co., in 1934, in Jack- continued until the early part of the sonville, Fla. In 1948 about 30 such twentieth century. It was then found plants, strategically located through that, because of the smaller diameter the naval stores belt, processed more of the second-growth pines, some im- than 80 percent of all the gum. They provements would have to be made. have displaced all but about 100 of the Experiments conducted in 1901 and small old-time backwoods fire stills, 1902 by Dr. Charles H. Herty led to about 1,300 of which were scattered the adoption of the cup and gutter throughout the piney woods in 1933.

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