liSWSlSSlii IMBIthe pinehurst outlook Si'SM 4
THE PASSING OF THE TAR HEEL
THE BALSAMS
DIXVILLE NOTCH, N. H.
Open June to October
'A
North Carolina's Introduction to Society in the Early Days of
School Geography
The new GOLF COURSE fulfilled every expectation
in 1915. Each season the playing conditions will be
improved.
The Club House, really magnificent and harmoniz
ing perfectly with its surroundings, occupies a site that
could not have been better chosen nor more excellently
arranged.
The Hotel Plant, complete in every detail, is situa
ated among forest clad mountains, upon an extensive
tract including farms, dairy, fish-hatchery, hydro-electric
plant, garage and machine shop. Pure spring water
is supplied in abundance. Indoors there are rest and
homelike comforts; out of doors every opportunity to
enjoy tennis, boating, bathing and wilderness life.
The Balsams Winter Inn, having steam heat,
electric lights and private baths is open from October
to June.
For booklet and information address
CHARLES H. GOULD, Manager,
Dixville Notch, N. H.
S. S. PIERCE GO'S
ft
dHum un
Sold at the Leading Hotels
jlfO y1! Unsurpassed Mineral Water X
' jSSf Minoral Springs '
Bank of Pinehurst
SAFE DEPOSIT BOXES TO LET
CHECKING AND SAVING ACCOUNTS
V 4 PER CENT INTEREST
J. R. flcQUEEN, President F. W. VON CNON, Cashier
By Bion Butler
THE boys and girls who
remember their! school
days of say fifty years
.ago recall North Caro
lina as a State that
made tar, turpentine and
rosin, those naval stores
for which the Tar Heel
State was famous in the
days when Wilmington was a port from
which they went out to all the world.
But the old day is gone forever, and at
the present North Carolina hardly makes
enough turpentine or rosin to deserve the
name of Tar Heel State.
I do not know how the State got its
name of tar heel,, but if we do a little
Hawkshaw, the detective business, we
may patch up a theory that will be just
as good as anybody's until it is shown
to be weak.
The long leaf pine, which until recent
ly was abundant over a large part of the
low country of North Carolina, is the
source whence comes the greater supply
of turpentine and pine tar products that
supply commerce.
Years ago this entire section of which
Pinehurst is the center was a vast suc
cession of turpentine camps. An immense
forest of pine trees extended from a few
miles north of Pinehurst clear down to the
coast, and producing turpentine and its
products, was tho chief occupation of tho
bulk of the population. To this day can be
seen on a few of the trees here and there
the long scars showing the process of
procuring the crude turpentine, and oc
casionally a still remains in the more
remote parts of the country. Once in a
while a tar kiln is encountered, that fac
tory for the product of the cruder pine
crop, but as an industry tar, turpentine
and rosin have vanished, the hands fol
lowing the falling forest farther into the
south and southwest. The Gulf States are
now the tar heel states, even though the
name sticks to North Carolina.
A PARADISE OF PINES
When this country was an unbroken
pine forest it was a paradise. The tall
pine trees were noble creations, standing
so close together that the foliage
pretty closely covered the ground, yet
so far apart that a wagon might
drive almost any place between the big
trunks. Little undergrowth interfered
with free movement back and forth
through the woods, and a more ideal for
est could hardly be imagined.
The surface of the ground was kept
clean, the turpentine hands raking away
the pine straw that fell year by year and
burning it that the forest fires might not
be spread from tree to tree and destroy
the turpentine producers. For that rea
son a turpentine forest ranked well with
the orchards in their neatness and attractiveness.
As the land was sandy it was always
dry and the walking was of the best.
That led the turpentine hands to go bare
footed most of the time except in the
severe Winter days, and Winter saw
little doing in turpentine.
Probably the man who roamed the
turpentine forests with his feet unshod
found it an easy matter to step into a
bit of turpentine occosionally, or to set
his heel into a bit of tar as it dripped
from the pipe at the feet of the kiln
where the barrels were filled. It is an easy
guess that the man who did not have tar
on his heel was as unusual as the fellow
who had the North Carolina mark.
I don 't know that you need to be sorry
that the tar, turpentine and rosin indus
try is of the past. It is a whole lot more
romantic to read about it than it is to
mix up with the thing where it is active
operation. Sure, if it did not have that
clinging habit it would be sylvan
in its motif, but I never could get around
a turpentine outfit or a tar kiln, but that
there was more or less of something
sticking fast before the show was out.
A man who works in turpentine does
not object to a few dabs of the stuff on
his hands. To be afraid of soiling his
hands would be looked on as aesthetic.
Good turpentine never hurt anybody, the
workers will tell you, and then to give
you the benefit of the doubt and prove
the claim they will help you to get a little
on the most convenient places.
BOXING TREES
When the pine tree is first cut with an
axe to permit the crude turpentine to
exude the stuff flows freely. It is col
lected in a depression cut not far above
the ground which is called a box. When
the box is about full the "dip" is taken
out with a big spoon, and friends, let me
assure you that dipping turpentine is not
a dainty job. A big bucket is carried
from, tree to tree into which the "dip"
is poured, and before the bucket has gone
more than a thousand miles it is smeared
inside and outside with turpentine, and
the man who does not bump against a
sticky pot from time to time is too neat
and careful to be in the woods.
No, Doris, you and Reginald, and Semi
ramis would not like to be around such
places. It is idyllic and fragrant, and
interesting. But it is sticky. You can
wash it off your hands, but you can't get
it off your clothes or shoes as far as I
have been able to discover.
HOSPITABLE TAR
But the job is not done when the dip
is gathered. The big buckets go to a still,
and there the accumulated stickiness is
turned into a big boiler, and it under
goes a process of distilling. From the
still comes the spirit of turpentine, and
the residum is rosin. , Rosin is run out
n