Wood as found in trees and bushes was of primary importance to ancient humans in their struggle to control their environment. Subsequent evolution through the Bronze and Iron Ages up to our present technologically advanced society has hardly diminished the importance of wood. Today, its role as a source of paper products, furniture, building materials, and fuel is still of major significance. Wood consists of a mixture of polymers, often referred to as lignocellulose. The cellulose micro fibrils consist of an immensely strong, linear polymer of glucose. They are associated with smaller, more complex polymers composed of various sugars called hemicelluloses. These polysaccharides are embedded in an amorphous phenylpropane polymer, lignin, creating a remarkably strong com posite structure, the lignocellulosic cell wall. Wood also contains materials that are largely extraneous to this lignocellulosic cell wall. These extracellular substances can range from less than 1070 to about 35% of the dry weight of the wood, but the usual range is 2% -10%. Among these components are the mineral constituents, salts of calcium, potassium, sodium, and other metals, particularly those present in the soil where the tree is growing. Some of the extraneous components of wood are too insoluble to be ex tracted by inert solvents and remain to give extractive-free wood its color; very often these are high-molecular-weight polyphenolics.

The extraction of raw turpentine and tar from the southern longleaf pine—along with the manufacture of derivative products such as spirits of turpentine and rosin—constitutes what was once the largest industry in North Carolina and one of the most important in the South: naval stores production. In a pathbreaking study that seamlessly weaves together business, environmental, labor, and social history, Robert B. Outland III offers the first complete account of this sizable though little-understood sector of the southern economy. Outland traces the South’s naval stores industry from its colonial origins to the mid-twentieth century, when it was supplanted by the rising chemicals industry. A horror for workers and a scourge to the Southeast’s pine forests, the methods and consequences of this expansive enterprise remained virtually unchanged for more than two centuries. With its exacting attention to detail and exhaustive research, Tapping the Pines is an essential volume for anyone interested in the piney woods South.