Agriculture: how to make pine tar

Self-tutoring about traditional farm methods: the tutor mentions a way to extract useful tar from pine wood.

The following is according to my understanding.

I heard when I was a kid that tar can be obtained from pine trees. I never saw it done, even though where I lived, it was a farming area that had a lot of pine trees that grew naturally.

Today, I stumbled upon this neat video on YouTube, “Making Pine Tar – FHC Farm Bulletin #11” by Farm Hand’s Companion.

It seems that the source of the tar is the heartwood of the pine tree. Pine wood that has high oil content can be identified by colour (deeper colour) and aroma.

The idea is to collect oily pine wood, break it down to about the size of kindling, then pack it tightly in a metal can, drum, etc and bake it. So long as the heat is not too hot, the tar can be captured as drippings.

It’s an elegant, practical method.