The naval stores industry collects, processes, and markets
forest product
A forest product is any material derived from forestry for direct consumption or commercial use, such as lumber, paper, or fodder for livestock. Wood, by far the dominant product of forests, is used for many purposes, such as wood fuel (e.g. in fo ...
s refined from the
oleoresin Oleoresins are semi-solid extracts composed of resin and essential or fatty oil, obtained by evaporation of the solvents used for their production. The oleoresin of conifers is known as crude turpentine or gum turpentine, which consists of oil of ...
of the
slash pine
''Pinus elliottii'', commonly known as slash pine,Family, P. P. (1990). Pinus elliottii Engelm. slash pine. ''Silvics of North America: Conifers'', (654), 338. is a conifer tree native to the Southeastern United States. Slash pine is named after ...
and
longleaf pine
The longleaf pine (''Pinus palustris'') is a pine species native to the Southeastern United States, found along the coastal plain from East Texas to southern Virginia, extending into northern and central Florida. In this area it is also known as ...
trees (genus ''Pinus''). The industry was associated with the maintenance of the
wooden ships and sailing tackle of pre-20th century navies, which were
caulk
Caulk or, less frequently, caulking is a material used to seal joints or seams against leakage in various structures and piping.
The oldest form of caulk consisted of fibrous materials driven into the wedge-shaped seams between boards on ...
ed and
waterproof
Waterproofing is the process of making an object or structure waterproof or water-resistant so that it remains relatively unaffected by water or resisting the ingress of water under specified conditions. Such items may be used in wet environme ...
ed using the pitch (a product made with
tar
Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. "a dark brown or black bi ...
) of the pine tree.
History
![Pine tree with turpentine cup](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Pine_tree_with_turpentine_cup.jpg)
With the demise of wooden ships, those uses of pine resin ended, but the industry remained vigorous as new products created new markets. First extensively described by
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co ...
in his book ''A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States'' (1856), the naval stores industry was one of the economic mainstays of the southeastern
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
until the late 20th century. Despite a rapid decline of the gum naval stores industry in the last quarter of the 20th century, a few places in the southeastern United States still rely on it as a major part of their livelihood.
Gum naval stores cultivation refers to the labor-intensive method of extracting pine resin from the trees (the raw gum). The method of collection—tapping the trees—vaguely resembles that used on a rubber plantation or in a maple sugar grove. However, instead of preparing the tree to receive a pipe or tap, the tree is gashed with an inch-wide curved blade, called a "hack," to remove all of the bark down through the cambium layer. An angled piece of galvanized tin is then placed below the eight-inch-long, one-inch-wide gash (also known as "the streak") to direct the oozing
sap
Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant.
Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a separ ...
into a quart-sized rectangular cup fixed to the tree. Each new "streak" is put onto the tree above the preceding one, and gradually a vertical "cat face" more than thirty inches in height is formed. Through the mid-twentieth century, a "puller," a type of hack that had a long handle, was used to extend the streak up the tree to a height of more than seven feet.
Once, large operators, known as "factors," controlled huge tracts of forests, some in the hundreds of thousands of acres, which they leased to "operators," and also advanced them capital, usually in the form of tools and other equipment and goods with which to operate. The operators satisfied their debt to the factors by returning the produce, barrels of resin. The name "Factors Walk" on the riverfront in
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later t ...
, commemorates an area on the Savannah River harbor where thousands of barrels of produce were collected for
transshipment
Transshipment, trans-shipment or transhipment is the shipment of goods or containers to an intermediate destination, then to another destination.
One possible reason for transshipment is to change the means of transport during the journey (e.g ...
. Between 1880 and 1920, Savannah was the largest port for naval stores products and continued to set the world price of naval stores until 1950.
Basic processes
The basic raw material,
pine resin
In polymer chemistry and materials science, resin is a solid or highly viscous substance of plant or synthetic origin that is typically convertible into polymers. Resins are usually mixtures of organic compounds. This article focuses on natu ...
, once collected, is converted into two major products —
rosin
Rosin (), also called colophony or Greek pitch ( la, links=no, pix graeca), is a solid form of resin obtained from pines and some other plants, mostly conifers, produced by heating fresh liquid resin to vaporize the volatile liquid terpene comp ...
and
turpentine
Turpentine (which is also called spirit of turpentine, oil of turpentine, terebenthene, terebinthine and (colloquially) turps) is a fluid obtained by the distillation of resin harvested from living trees, mainly pines. Mainly used as a spec ...
. For many years rosin and turpentine were used unprocessed in common household products such as soap, paper, paint, and
varnish. Today most rosin is altered to be used in a wide range of products that includes paper sizing, surface coatings, adhesives, printing inks, and rubber compounds. Turpentine, like rosin, has become a versatile material exploited to develop uses in fragrances, flavors, vitamins, household cleaning products, medicines, and
polyterpene resin.
Industry today
Because of a shortage of workers willing to perform the heavy manual labor involved in the streaking of many acres of trees and in collecting the resin tree by tree as well, the gum naval stores industry entered a period of steep decline beginning in the 1960s. As of 2001, only one large-scale facility (begun as
Filtered Rosin Products) in
Baxley, Georgia, continued in operation, serving the remaining naval stores producers in the surrounding area. Gradually, the method of tapping trees to obtain naval stores products has become overshadowed by industries which yield these products as
byproducts of other operations.
[Outland, pp. 300-307]
See also
*
McCranie's Turpentine Still
*
Non-timber forest product
Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are useful foods, substances, materials and/or commodities obtained from forests other than timber. Harvest ranges from wild collection to farming. They typically include game animals, fur-bearers, nuts, see ...
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
* Earley, Lawrence S. (2004) ''Looking for Longleaf, The Fall and Rise of an American Forest''. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
* Olmsted, Frederick Law (1862) ''The Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller's Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave States : Based upon Three Former Volumes of Journeys and Investigations'', edited with an introduction by Arthur Meier Schlesinger, 1953, reissued 1996. New York: Da Capo Press
* Outland, Robert B. III. (2004) ''Tapping the Pines: The Naval Stores Industry in the American South''. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press
{{Industries
Shipbuilding
Maritime history
Forestry
Forest history
Industries (economics)
Forest products