GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 1025 



Furthermore, if that price were profitable we should expect an 

 expansion in the industry in this country which, with no limitations 

 upon imports, would mean a continuing oversupply. 



Are you asking here that we try to do something for the industry 

 in its present state, or that we do something to permit you to expand 

 the industry in the future? 



Mr. Rowlands. Of course, that is a pretty broad question. I 

 might answer that by saying that we are doing everything we can to 

 diversify the uses of tung oil. We are carrying on experiments, trying 

 to get away from a limited field like paints and varnish. I might say 

 to you that in the last year, through a firm in Chicago, experiments 

 have been carried on M'ith green tung fruit. That work gives us a 

 great deal of satisfaction, because they are taking the green tung 

 nut — this is about the size of a green tung nut [indicating] ; this is a 

 Mississippi tung nut and the other one is a little smaller. I do not 

 know how it happened to grow so large. 



But they take this nut and the experiment is to put them in vats 

 and by an electrolytic process they draw out the coal oil — there is a 

 sticky substance in this nut before the nut is developed, just like a 

 latex — ^they take that out and they are giving us great encouragement 

 as to what they think they Avill be able to do. They make a very 

 sensitive material, something that they are trying to use in the 

 printing industry. 



I talked to the chairman of the board some time ago and also the 

 president of the company after they had had last year's experiment, 

 and they said that they think they have run onto something that is 

 well worth their consideration, and that woidd help the industry a 

 great deal. But I suppose they are seeking patents on it and they 

 do not want to say very much about it. 



I think we are in our infancy as far as tung oil is concerned, because 

 we have never had the money to carry on reserach work, and it takes 

 chemists who are not just ordinary chemists, but men who have vision 

 in this type of work, to develop what there may be in it. I think in 

 the next few years we will have reached a point where we can get away 

 from the paint industry. I think we will diversify our uses to a point 

 where we will not have to depend upon them so very much. 



Mr. Hope. The impression I have gotten from what has been said 

 here is that notwithstanding an expansion of outlets in this country, 

 the supply of this oil which may come in from China is more or less 

 unlimited and unless you have some protection from that, the hope 

 of making that a profitable industry in this country will never be 

 realized. 



Mr. Rowlands. That is right, it will not. I just traveled thi'ough 

 about 1,200 miles of the Belt talking to the tung growers and they 

 are all very discouraged. They say that the Government wants the 

 oil during the war periods, but we do not know when the next war is 

 coming, and we cannot run this for the benefit of the Government. 



Mr. Hope. That brings up the thought that I had in mind. It 

 seems to me that you have made out a good case here as far as some 

 Government responsibility is concerned in that apparently this is an 

 industry which was stimulated and encouraged by the Government 

 during the war for war purposes. Now the war is over and they say, 

 "We can get this from China and we are not interested in you any 

 more." 



