Pine tar is produced by a process called destructive distillation of the wood from a pine tree. The wood is rapidly decomposed by applying heat and pressure in a closed container; the primary resulting products are charcoal and pine tar. Pine tar is a complex combination distillate containing thousands of substances, produced by the high temperature carbonization of pine wood in anoxic conditions (dry distillation). It consists primarily of aromatic hydrocarbons, tar acids and tar bases.. The choice of wood, design of kiln, burning and collection of the tar can vary from burning to burning. Only stumps and roots of pine are used in the traditional production of pine tar. I suppose that your question might be related to baseball, since the World Series is going on now. An additional, minor use of pine tar is as the sticky substance baseball players use on their bats to improve grip. Pine tar is applied liberally to Major League Baseball bats every season in Major League Baseball. Because of its sticky texture, pine tar is used by batters to improve grip on the bat and prevent the bat from slipping out of their hands during hard swings. Rule 1.10(c) of the 2002 Official Rules of Major League Baseball states that batters may apply pine tar only from the handle of the bat extending up for 18 inches. Source: Wikipedia Now for the history of pine tar, and for it's many uses, see these links. http://www.maritime.org/conf/conf-kaye-tar.htm http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Pinus_elliottii.html