C. Brandts Buys was a Dutch forestry researcher of the Dienst van het Boschwezen in Nederlandsch-Indië who, with C. Japing and D. Fernandes, was the author of the monograph on Pinus Merkusii Jungh et de Vr., more particularly in the Gajo-Landen — the principal early scientific study of the Sumatran pine and of its exploitable stands in the Gajo-Landen region. He is named in the Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet of 1930 as the authority for the quarre tapping system that was applied at the Baleq enterprise, and his monograph is cited in the pamphlet as the source of the detailed description of the quarre system and of the results obtained with it.
The Pinus Merkusii monograph
The Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet cites Brandts Buys’s monograph — Bijdrage tot de kennis van Pinus Merkusii Jungh et de Vr., meer in het bijzonder in de Gajo-landen, by C. Brandts Buys, C. Japing and D. Fernandes — for an uitvoerige beschrijving (extensive description) of the quarre tapping system and of the results obtained with it. The quarre system — borrowed from the turpentine industry of the Landes in France — involved tapping wounds 10 cm wide and at greatest depth 2½ cm deep, refreshed every three days in an upward direction with a slightly curved carpenter’s chisel. The number of tapping wounds per tree depended on the thickness of the trunk: at a circumference of 1–1½ m, one wound; at 1½–2 m, two wounds; above that, three. The Brandts Buys monograph is preserved by the Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet as the principal published source on the practical application of the quarre method in Atjehnese conditions.
The connection with the Baleq enterprise
The Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet records that the quarre system described by Brandts Buys was the system applied at the Baleq enterprise from the beginning of the exploitation in 1924. The pamphlet also records that the Mededeeling no. 19 van het Proefstation voor het Boschwezen — the publication of the Proefstation voor het Boschwezen in which Brandts Buys’s monograph appeared — was the source of the observation that the odour of the first Atjeh-turpentine samples of 1924 had been “different from that of the good American and French sorts; whether the smell, however, was more agreeable or not, is difficult to determine. We, for our part, have always found the smell of the Indian product more agreeable; but about taste there is no disputing.” The same observation notes that the factory-scale production had “definitely modified” the odour, and that the distinctive smell had “largely disappeared.”
Significance
Brandts Buys’s significance in the historiography of colonial Aceh is as the author of the principal early scientific study of the Sumatran pine in the Gajo-Landen — the study that established the silvicultural basis of the Baleq enterprise. His monograph is cited in the Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet as the authority for the quarre tapping system, and his work with Japing and Fernandes is the principal published source on the practical application of French turpentine-tapping methods in Atjehnese conditions.
See Also
- Pinus Merkusii
- Quarre
- Baleq
- Gajo-landen
- Dienst van het Boschwezen
- Proefstation voor het Boschwezen
- C. Japing
- D. Fernandes
- Atjeh-terpentijn (Spoor, 1930)
- W. Spoon
- W. M. van der Veer
Source
Bijdrage tot de kennis van Pinus Merkusii Jungh et de Vr., meer in het bijzonder in de Gajo-landen, by C. Brandts Buys, C. Japing and D. Fernandes, Mededeeling no. 19 van het Proefstation voor het Boschwezen, 1928 — as cited in Atjeh-terpentijn (W. Spoon, 1930), pp. 6–7, 9.