TUNG-OLD OIL FOR NEW NEEDS 



nuts are broken in a ball mill; the cracked meats pressed 

 cold. Of the four hundred pounds of oil in a ton of nuts, 

 some seventy-five are lost in hulling, milling, and in- 

 complete extraction by pressure. Extraction of the oil 

 by means of solvents has been tried, and though the 

 eleven millowners naturally pooh-pooh such a new- 

 fangled notion, it may well win out in the end. 



Jasspon's young chemists are experimenting with 

 acetone and methanol (wood alcohol), securing ninety 

 per cent yields of oil against eighty per cent by pressing. 

 This seems worth while. As a sort of sideline experiment 

 these same chemists have isolated the poisonous sub- 

 stance from the nut meats and more of it from the 

 leaves. One blessing of the tung grower is that his 

 trees are almost immune to attack by insects. Hopes 

 are raised from this immunity that this alkaloid may 

 prove a cheap, potent agricultural insecticide. 



There are now some four thousand American tung 

 groves, ranging in size from a few dozen to ten thou- 

 sand acres. Three-quarters of our tung oil comes from 

 planters with more than five hundred acres. So tung 

 is big business, and many of the groves are owned by 

 really big businessmen. 



Besides the lumbermen, Rowlands and Crosby, the 

 retired Bennett and the very active executive, Jasspon, 

 other important tung people are Charlie Goodyear of 

 the Southern Lumber Company; Everett Paul Larsh, 

 Dayton manufacturer of electric motors; and Roy Mof- 



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