SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



A couple of nights later his horticultural crony, Cap- 

 tain William H. Raines, dropped in and the superin- 

 tendent told about the five tung tree seedlings. Raines 

 jumped to his feet, all excitement, for in China he had 

 seen the stately tung tree showered with the pink glory 

 of its blossoms. He must rescue those dying seedlings. 

 His hobby was his garden of curious plants to remind 

 him of the strange lands he had visited when as ship- 

 master he sailed the tropic seas. He got a lantern and 

 hurried to the trash heap at once. 



Before going to bed, the old sailor tenderly disen- 

 tangled the dry rootlets and placed each drooping plant 

 in a tumbler of cool water. Before breakfast he visited 

 his patients. Two were unmistakably dead. The others, 

 he carefully planted. One came through to become 

 literally the daddy of the American tung industry. 



This sole survivor, now famous as the "Raines tree," 

 was no doubt a sturdy plant. As luck would have it, it 

 was a notably prolific specimen. Like many of the great 

 ones of earth, it has come to a tragic end. After Raines' 

 death, it was split by a storm, but a young horticul- 

 turist from Washington bolted it together and it lived. 

 Then the Raines house burned and the tree was badly 

 singed. It was nursed back to bearing by another tung- 

 tree lover, B. F. Williamson, whose pioneer nursery 

 supplied most of the selected stock that planted the 

 early groves. Then the bulldozer of the state highway 

 department came along to straighten the road, routed 



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