1022 



GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Here are Mr. Loveland's figures: 



Tung oil — average price per pound in drums, carlots, New York 



1930- 

 1931- 

 1932- 

 1933. 

 1934- 



1935- 

 1936- 

 1937. 

 1938. 

 1939. 



Average 

 (cents) 



. 17. 



. 16, 



. 15. 



. 13. 



. 21. 



1 



7 

 5 

 



Simple arithmetic will show that the average price for the 10-year 

 period is 12.2 cents per pound. .4t the present writing tung oil in 

 drums is selling at approximately 20 cents, wliich is 63.9 percent 

 over the 1930-39 average. Suppose we compare these figures with 

 similar years in wheat and corn. Here are the prices per bushel 

 of wheat and corn from 1930-39 as certified by the United States 

 Department of Agriculture: 



According to the above figures, the average price of wheat in 1930- 

 39 was 71 cents per bushel, the average price of corn, 58.6 cents per 

 bushel. If we apply the same percentage of increase in the price of 

 tung oil, in other words multiply the average wheat and corn prices 

 by 163.9 percent, the price of wheat today would be $1.16 per bushel 

 and the price of corn 96 cents. The actual price of wheat as of March 

 15, 1949, however, according to the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, was $2.17 and the price of corn $1.57, an increase over 

 1930-39 of 220 percent and almost 200 percent, respectively. This, 

 we think, is a striking illustration of how continued dumping of 

 Chinese tung oil on our American market has seriously injured the 

 American tung industry. 



TUNG OIL AS A STRATEGIC MATERIAL 



A matter which our American tung growers do not understand is 

 why tung oil was carried on the strategic list of critical materials 

 which should be stock-piled by the Army-Navy Munitions Board for 

 the Nation's defense all during the war years, and then was summarily 

 yanked off the list in 1948. 



Officials of the Munitions Board have explained that the reason tung 

 oil was removed from the strategic list was because the domestic 

 industry produced sufficient oil to meet our country's war needs. 

 When asked what our war needs are, they replied 20,000,000 pounds. 

 Even after official figures of the Census Bureau showing that the 

 domestic industry produced less than 14,000,000 pounds in 1947-48 

 and, therefore, could not fill the country's war needs even on the basis 

 of the Board's own figures, the Board's management refused to stock- 

 pile this extremely important oil. Latest estimates from the Census 



