NAVAL STORES BECOME CHEMICALS 



automatic valves and 'delicate instruments to control 

 temperature, pressure, and the flow of liquids through a 

 labyrinth of stainless-steel pipes. And today the mod- 

 ern wood-rosin plant turns out not three, but more than 

 three-score products. 



This young scientific rival, which they so scornfully 

 derided, has forced the operators of the cheap little 

 fire-stills to revolutionize their simple, individualistic 

 enterprise or else get out of business. Ironically, the 

 benevolent regulation of the Agricultural Adjustment 

 Agency, which stepped in to save the turpentine 

 farmer, is shoving the little operators out by compel- 

 ling this ancient agricultural industry to become a com- 

 plex ultramodern chemical enterprise. 



In naval stores circles, Homer Yaryan has become a 

 mythological character. He was that sort of man; a 

 memorable personality, thinking originally, speaking in 

 vivid phrases, acting independently. He made several 

 fortunes among his inventions was the sectional book- 

 case which was standard equipment in the den of the 

 Gay Nineties and he went bankrupt several times 

 playing with ideas far ahead of their time. His propel- 

 lent energy and real ability impressed everything that 

 he touched. Alternately he smoked black cigars and 

 chewed plug tobacco, which he discharged at any 

 range up to twenty feet with the accuracy of a Marine 

 sharpshooter. He swore like a truck driver, and when 

 his first solvent extraction plant at Gulfport, Mississippi, 



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