Gemmage

The gemmage is an operation which consists in wounding the pine to collect the gem of it or Résine.

Presentation

The resin circulates in the channels resinogenes, which are on the circumference of the tree. It is used for the cicatrization when the pine is notched, a little like the plate S in the human body. It is made up to 70% of Colophane (or arcanson in Gascon, which is at the origin of the name of the town of Arcachon), 20% of Spirits of turpentine, and water 10%.

The invention of the gemmage goes back to the time Gallo-Roman, but the process spread in the Landes of Gascogne starting from the medium of with the end of the agro-pastoral system and the massive timbering of the sandy plain of the Moors.

One usually distinguishes the gemmage with life , moderated and which allows the growth of the tree, of the gemmage to dead which exhausts it in a few years before its demolition.

The gemmage is an activity very characteristic of the traditional exploitation of the forest of pine of the Moors. One also finds the practice of the gemmage, to a lesser extent, in Provence during.

An ancestral technique: the gemmage with the “crot”

For more than 2000 years, small islands of spontaneous Forêt had occupied most of the area. One found these thousand-year-old forests on the coast, as with Lacanau, Porge, Tests It of Buch, Biscarrosse, and in Marensin. The Romans exploited there already the resin, in particular for the Calfatage of the boats. The known practice oldest is that of the gemmage to the “crot” (hole in Gascon).

To collect the resin, old the Gemmeur S dug a hole with the foot of the pine, in general between the roots, which they papered of foam. They carried out then an incision in the tree called care with the Hapchot , (axe in Gascon, having the bent end). Of this wound the resin runs which will be collected three to four times per annum, it is piles up it . The incision had regularly to be taken again, because the tree heals quickly. The Care could thus rise up to 4 Mr. With this height, the résiniers used the pitey , kind of scale with only one amount which required a good sense of balance! Towards the end of the season (in November), one scraped the care to recover the crystallized resin. This method was not really optimal because the resin obtained contained many impurities (Sable and brushwood) and the gasoline of Térébenthine evaporated when the resin ran along the care .

Invention of the resin pot, the traditional gemmage

Pierre Hugues, lawyer and farmer of Bordeaux patented towards 1840 a new system to collect the resin. A part only of its process, somewhat complicated, will be taken again: the use of a pot out of ground cooked wedged between a plate of Zinc and a nail with the bottom of the care to collect the resin. This pot was known as upward because it followed each year the rise of the care . The main advantage was that the collected resin contained less impurities, and thus during second half of the 19th century this process spread. The hapchot also evolved/moved, the blade became narrower and its edge was orthogonal with the axis of the handle, in opposition to the traditional axe, where the edge is parallel. Another technique was introduced in France into the years 1950, that of the gemmage with activated, which consisted in pulverizing sulphuric Acid on the care increasing the output, but attacking in-depth pine.

Unfolding of a campaign of gemmage

A campaign of gemmage starts at the beginning of February. It is said that a pine is ready to be resined as soon as one can surround it by his arm without seeing his hand.

For that one uses the weeds to peel , tool out of steel, bent which will make it possible to scrape the bark. Peeling is a delicate operation because it is necessary to leave a fine thickness of bark while avoiding wounding the pine prematurely.

Then the cramponnage comes, which consists in placing a zinc blade curved in the pine (the cramp ), thanks to the push-cramp , part out of metal presenting a convex and sharp end, that one knocks with a mallet. The cramp will retain the pot and especially will guide the gem inside. To prepare the bassot (the first care that one opens with the foot of the pine) one places zinc a little above it ground to be able to place the pot right in lower part. For the trees whose care at already at least a year, one places the cramp at approximately 10 cm top of the care of the previous year, as well as a point a little low, to retain the pot which one wedges between zinc and the nail.

Towards mid-March, one carries out the first spade using the hapchot . For the cares of first year, one just notches the tree above the cramp, for those of second, third, fourth year and more, one continues the notch of the previous year.

The depth of the care should not exceed 1 cm.

So that the resin runs regularly, the cares should be refreshed every week while increasing by a few centimetres to the top with each spade . The chips which fall are called Galip S and are kept to light fire.

The spade occupies the Gemmeur S during the majority of the countryside of gemmage, until October. One increases in general by 1 m per annum, the cares which have several years can reach up to 5 Mr. résinier went up then on his pitey to practice the spade. The Béret Landais constituted to him also work tools, since it protected the eyes of the résinier from the small shavings.

At this stage, the temperature and the sunning are decisive, more it makes hot, more the resin runs.

When the pots were full, the woman of the résinier emptied them thanks to a small spatula ( the palinette ) in escouartes (containers of 16 liters out of wood or zinc), it is piles up it . The escouartes in their turn will be emptied in metal barrels to be finally forwarded to resin distillings.

The countryside finishes in November with the arrival of the winter. The last stage is the barrasquage . The résinier surrounds the foot of the pine with a cloth and scrapes the resin dried on the care during all the year with the barrasquit . The barred (dry resin fallen on cloth) is then added to the soft resin in the barrel.

In the course of the years, the résinier will start news cares around the tree, thus a pine can be gemmated during nearly 80 years. A résinier was on average to deal with 4000 pines, which produced each one approximately 2,5 liters of resin per annum by knowing that a care produces 1 to 1,5 liter per annum.

With time, pads are formed on with dimensions care , the tree heals. But this cicatrization is seldom complete, and certain pines gemmated with dead (on all the lathe of the tree) were requested so much, that while healing they widen in their lower part. They are called pine-bottles.

Treatment of the gem

In order to satisfy chemical industries which rested on the distillation of the resin of pine, it was necessary to collect considerable quantities of this product.

The barrels filled with resin, are forwarded to the Distillerie S. From time immemorial, the resin resulting from the forests of the littoral was of better quality, the pines being more vigorous and the more lenient climate. For example, the resins of Tests It of Buch were sold expensive and were of excellent quality: one could extract some up to 22,1% from Térébenthine against 19,9% with Dax and 19,5% with Mount-with-Marsan.

For the reception of the barrels, it was necessary to purify the resin, which often contained vegetable water and some remains. Distillation itself comes then. Pure water is added to the gem, the whole is heated at a temperature lower than 185°C. With 100°C, steams involve terpentine which passes in the serpentine where they are liquefied, and is then recovered. When the temperature reached 180°C, one filters the residue obtained at the bottom of the tank. One then obtains a product called Brai or rosin according to his color: darkest were the pitches redivized in three categories, clearest: the rosins, they so redivized in three categories. Best rosins were exposed to the sun and took a pale yellow color, they were very required. One produced them mainly with Teste, and were called “rosins of the sun”.

the applications of these two products were very numerous. The terpentine was used in four great fields:

the maintenance products

paintings and the varnishes

products of synthesis (rubber, perfumes, etc)

the drug company

The pitches and rosins as for them were used in manufacture of black ink as Imprimerie, of Savon S, Linoléum S, plasticizers, adhesives, oils and industrial greases, etc One also made use of it to rub the hairs of bow Violon S. most beautiful rosins were even kept for the glazing of papers. By subjecting various resin waste impregnated to a strong heat, one could moreover extract some Goudron S which were kept for the caulking of the boats.

The exploitation of the resin provided work to a great number of craftsmen, Potier with the Forgeron for the tools, while passing through the employees of the factory of distillation, and the gemmeurs of course, without forgetting either Chimiste S and Tonnelier S.

The calendar of the gemmor

February: for this period, the gemmor opens the building site. He prepares the pines, initially with the axe to remove the bark on 50 cm in height then poses the cramps (round zinc blades), the pots, and works the first care.

March: according to the sunning, the countryside can start at the beginning of the month.

from April at September:

gemmage traditional: periodically, approximately every eight days, the gemmor refreshes the care and makes a " pique" (light incision at the top of the care, allowing the flow of the resin)
gemmage with the active one: as from 1950, to prevent the obstruction of the resiniferous channels and to activate the secretion of the resin, the gemmor projects a sulphuric acid solution on the spade, using the tree frog, every twelve days.

In end of the month, since the beginning of the spade until the beginning of barred (resin hardened on the care), is done piles up it, i.e. the collection of the gem. The pots are emptied in barrels which will be forwarded to distilling.

October-November: at the end of the season, the gemmor makes the collecting of barred.

Glossary

Some terms related to the gemmage:

Piles up : collect resin contained in the pots
Barras : gem hardened on the care
Barresquit : tool used to remove barred it on the cares
Brindon : hapchot used after 1900
Care : wound made with the tree by the hapchot or the brindon and which will allow the flow of the resin
Espourguit or weeds to peel : tool being used to remove the bark with the future site of the care
Hapchot : first tool being used for incising, cutting or " piquer" the pines
Spade : incision made periodically in top of the care
Place-bire : tools used to pose the right cramps
Push-cramp : tool used to pose zincs rounded
Tree frog : tool being used to make the spades, carrying the bottle of sulphuric acid diluted (gemmage with active)

Today

The gemmage declined gradually after the years 1960. Currently, it is still practiced, but in an artisanal way. Chemical industry (Spirits of derived turpentine and others terpenic, for example) found other sources more economic for its basic commodities into important of the foreign gem with low costs of labor.

Today still, the tourist and advertizing exploitation of the forest gives place to the sale of small ground pots very similar to those which were used at the time. This activity which was a long time the only industrial activity of the area landaise became a characteristic, an icon of the Moors (almost as well as the waders landais). This icon is found on many postcards intended for tourism and one also finds it within the framework of écomusée of Marquèze and some paths of presentation of the gemmage.

Poem

Théophile Gautier evokes the practice of the gemmage in its poem the Pine of the Moors . In a letter of June 5th, 1845, he writes:

“not knowing with what to occupy me the spirit during this interminable road, I had fun to compose the small following piece of poetry, inspired by these pines melancholic persons” .

An extract:

Because, to conceal its resin tears to him,

the man, miserly torturer of creation,

Which lives only at the expense of those that it assassinates,

In its painful trunk opens a broad furrow!

Sources

Claude Courau, the gemmage in forest of Gascogne , Negro Princi Editions 1995
Jacques Sargos, History of the forest Landaise , the chimerical Horizon, Bordeaux, 1997

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