The Longloaf Drama

摘要

EDITOR'S NOTE: It's appropriate that SLT follow up its extended series on Nameless Texas Towns, which concluded in January 2011, by reprinting the U.S. Forest Service booklet LONGLEAF PINE: A History Of Man And A Forest. Prepared by Thomas C. Croker,Jr., and released in 1987, the booklet captures the drama of the stately long-leaf, its brush with near extinction and renewed interest in growing the species. After the American Revolution, a new method of producing naval stores gradually replaced the pioneering process of boiling tar and pitch from heart-wood collected on the forest floor. Gum was secured by tapping living trees. First a cavity was cut in the base of the tree about 10 inches above the ground with a special tool. This receptacle tackedinto the trunk was designed to collect gum.