TUNG-OLD OIL FOR NEW NEEDS 



out the historic landiriark, and dragged it away to be 

 cremated. 



To come back to old Cap'n Bill and his famous tung 

 tree in the days of its lusty youth in 1912 he gave a 

 hundred of his seedlings to another gardening friend, 

 Dr. Tennant Ronalds of Live Oaks Plantation, Talla- 

 hassee. This was the genesis of the first tung grove in 

 Florida. Next year, in an effort to reawaken official in- 

 terest in tung oil, Raines sent a bushel of unhulled nuts 

 to Washington, the first bushel collected in this country. 

 In 1914 he shipped a bushel of hulled nuts to L. P. 

 Nemzek of the Paint Manufacturers' Association at 

 Gillsboro, New Jersey. From these seeds about two 

 gallons of tung oil were pressed, the first produced in 

 America. 



During these seven years, by the cruel test of natural 

 elimination, the only Fairchild seedlings that had sur- 

 vived were growing east of Houston, in the extreme 

 southern portions of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, 

 and Georgia, and across the narrow upper arm of north- 

 ern Florida. This broadside experiment proved two im- 

 portant points. The tung tree does not tolerate alkaline 

 soil. In the United States, as in China, it flourishes best 

 along the 30th degree of North Latitude. Nobody then 

 put two and two together, and both these simple lessons 

 had to be relearned. 



At the same time, natural varnish gums were becom- 

 ing scarce and high-priced. Chemists began studying 



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