SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



A similar hunt for extra-good trees has been made 

 by the Florida Experiment Station and they have nine, 

 christened F-l to F-9, that are most promising. Two of 

 them "sports" as the breeder calls a freak of nature 

 which reproduces itself are outstanding, F-2 and F-9. 

 Both came from Thomasville, Georgia, and are said to 

 produce almost ten times the crop of the average tree. 

 These exceptional specimens are used for bud grafting 

 on the roots of ordinary stock. 



At a neighboring plantation, bigger yields both of 

 nuts per tree and of oil per nut is getting a lot of atten- 

 tion from Robert Essa and James Wershow, locally 

 known as "the chemical boys from Yale." This pair of 

 robust two-hundred-pounders manage the five thousand 

 acres owned by M. B. Jasspon. A native Georgian, Jass- 

 pon spent his early life in family enterprises in Southern 

 commodities, cottonseed oil and meal, raw sugar, and 

 lumber, and is now vice president in charge of new 

 projects for the Commercial Solvents Corporation. 

 Hence, no doubt, the scientific approach. 



"We take nothing for granted," says Jasspon, "and 

 we are not afraid to walk off the beaten path. For 

 example, we are all for the low-branching trees, pruned 

 like a peach tree. From selected test trees on three 

 acres, we have results that promise three tons to the 

 acre, not one ton." 



Science has also touched oil-processing methods. At 

 the oil mill, the hulls are removed mechanically; the 



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