NAVAL STORES BECOME CHEMICALS 



ture making sizing out of rosin for paper mills, and in 

 1912, to assure his chief raw material, he launched the 

 Newport Rosin & Turpentine Company at Bay Minette, 

 Alabama. This was so successful that a second, larger 

 plant was built in 1916, at Pensacola. 



Neither of the two strong companies, Hercules and 

 Newport, that had become seriously interested in naval 

 stores from stumpwood nursed any illusions about their 

 products. They knew their rosin was off -color and that 

 their turpentine had a disagreeable odor. They be- 

 lieved, however, that these faults could be corrected. 

 They expected confidently to find industrial uses for 

 their unwanted pine oil. But they had no inkling that 

 the whole naval stores market would go back on them. 



Contrary to all pessimistic prophecies, the gum naval 

 stores industry did not disappear. Cutover lands reseed 

 so readily and the pines grow so rapidly in the favor- 

 able Southern climate that it soon became clear that 

 if chipping is not reckless, if the fire hazard is decently 

 controlled, and if some attention is paid to reforesta- 

 tion, a supply of crude gum from living trees is virtually 

 inexhaustible. As a result, the high wartime prices of 

 1915-18, which everybody had expected to go higher, 

 began to drop. Hercules and Newport faced the double 

 problem of raising the quality of their products and 

 lowering their costs. They simply had to find out why 

 their products were inferior to those of the gum in- 

 dustry. This meant a searching chemical study. 



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