TUNG-OLD OIL FOR NEW NEEDS 



tree the hard way. Because the Chinese harvested the 

 nuts from semiwild trees and what planting they did 

 was haphazard, it was concluded that tung might be 

 grown on marginal land with little or no cultivation. 

 The idea was to reclaim big acreages by setting tung 

 trees out among the pine stumps on uncleared, unculti- 

 vated land. Rowlands sent an observer to China and he 

 had confirmed this misconception. Accordingly, Row- 

 lands started this wholesale reclaiming. In 1934 when 

 I first visited his plantation Rowlands then had some 

 eight thousand acres he was planting cleared land in 

 contours, that is, in rows following the natural curves 

 of the land. However, he still believed that fertilization 

 was positively harmful. 



Through many such trials and errors the pioneers 

 worked out successful methods of cultivation. If the 

 tung tree is to flourish, it must be planted in neutral, 

 or better, slightly acid soil. If it is to bear commercial 

 yields, it needs to be cultivated and fertilized. If its 

 roots reach the subsoil water, it sickens and dies of 

 "wet feet," so it must be planted twenty feet above the 

 "water table." It likes a home on the hillside, which 

 assures good drainage and air circulation, which help 

 to prevent frost damage. That hazard of frost always 

 haunts the tung grower. The optimists hope to get four 

 full crops to one frost-nipped failure. The realists plan 

 to give Mark Twain the he and "do something about 

 the weather." 



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