I came across this old longleaf pine tree the other day at Goethe. It had the clear markings of a turpentine tree. Anywhere from 60 to 80 years ago, this tree was gouged and scraped to release the resin from inside. That resin would then be boiled and ultimately distilled to make turpentine. Longleaf pines were an huge part of the naval stores and turpentine industry for many years after Europeans settled the southeast.
This clay pot is what they would nail into the tree to collect the resin below the iron brackets, which you can see best in the picture below. It's uncommon to find these "Herty cups" in tact like this, so I was excited to find this one in a nearby stand. It's called a "Herty cup" because Charles Herty designed it and the associated collection system as a less deadly - to the tree - way of harvesting resin. Before this, they would simply scrape all the bark off the base of the tree and funnel the resin into buckets below, killing the tree within a year or two. Looks like his design really worked. This particular tree is still in decent shape many decades later.
Trees tell interesting stories, don't they?
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