SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



forth briskly, toting their dripping, sticky barrels to 

 the new gum-chemical plants and carrying home the 

 cash. 



Thanks to federal aid the turpentine farmers have 

 achieved an unaccustomed financial stability, freedom 

 of thought, and independence of action. All this is 

 good, but better, they have learned wholesome lessons 

 in up-to-date methods applied to their rule-of-thumb 

 craft. Only the incorrigible old-timers persist in the 

 destructive habit of deep-chipping the trees. Hundreds 

 of the progressives are trying out the new "plumbing 

 system," a very light cut through the bark only, fol- 

 lowed by a spray of sulfuric acid which stimulates the 

 flow of gum. The yield per tree is thus doubled. Down 

 at the Southern Forest Experiment Station at Lake 

 City, Florida, unorthodox cuts and strange chemicals 

 are being tried out by Harold L. Mitchell to make the 

 trees give up more gum. He is even carrying on plant- 

 breeding experiments to find more prolific strains of 

 trees. 



To the turpentine farmer of yesteryear this last 

 would seem to be "tops" in ridiculous nonsense. Today 

 throughout the Naval Stores Belt, the results of Mit- 

 chell's scientific work are as eagerly awaited as the 

 first box score of the World Series. And that little bow 

 to science is the most revolutionary change of all in 

 the remaking of naval stores into an ultramodern chem- 

 ical business. 



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