e and more
valuable part of the turpentine, by the action of the heat, rises as
vapor, then condensing flows off through a pipe in the top of the still,
and comes out spirits of turpentine, while the heavier portion finds
vent at a lower aperture, and comes out rosin.

No article of commerce is so liable to waste and leakage as turpentine.
The spirits can only be preserved in tin cans, or in thoroughly seasoned
oak barrels, made tight by a coating of glue on the inner side. Though
the material for these barrels exists at the South in luxuriant
abundance, they are all procured from the North, and the closing of the
Southern ports has now entirely cut off the supply; for while the
turpentine farmer may improvise coopers, he can by no process give the
oak timber the seasoning which is needed to render the barrel
spirit-tight. Hence it is certain that a large portion of the last crop
of turpentine must have gone to waste. When it is remembered that the
one State of North Carolina exports annually nearly twenty millions in
value of this product, and employs fully two-thirds of its negroes in
its production, it will be seen how dearly the South is paying for the
mad freak of secession. Putting out of view his actual loss of produce,
how does the turpentine farmer feed and employ his negroes? and pressed
as these blacks inevitably are by both hunger and idleness, those
prolific breeders of sedition, what will keep them quiet?

"What effect will secession have on your business?" I asked the Colonel,
after a while.

"A favorable one. I shall ship my crop direct to Liverpool and London,
instead of selling it to New York middle-men."

"But is not the larger portion of the turpentine crop consumed at the
North?"

"Oh, yes. We shall have to deal with the Yankees anyhow, but we shall do
as little with them as possible."

"Suppose the Yankees object to your setting up by yourselves, and put
your ports under lock and key?"

"They wont do that, and if they do, England will break the blockade."

"We may rap John Bull over the knuckles in that event," I replied.

"Well, suppose you do; what then?"

"Merely, England would not have a ship in six months to carry your
cotton. A war with her would ruin the shipping trade of the North. Our
marine would seek employment at privateering, and soon sweep every
British merchant ship from the ocean. We could afford to give up ten
years' trade with you, and to put secession down by force, f