Chapter 73 Picking Tung Berry
"Dad! Look what I found now?" Lin Zisu skipped and walked behind Lin Youcai, holding a small bunch of tung tree fruits and shaking them in front of him.
Lin Youcai turned around with amusement and stretched out his hand to show his daughter. On his broad palm lay a bunch of tung tree fruits.
"Ha, you saw it too!" Lin Zisu turned to Old Lady Wang, "Grandma, look, my dad is holding it in his hand too! Ask him if he's using it to make candles!"
Lin Youcai looked at Old Lady Wang, "Mom, what's wrong? These Chinese tallow trees are the raw material for making candles. Chinese tallow trees can be used to make more than just candles!"
"Really?" The embarrassment on Mrs. Wang's face was replaced by surprise. "If this can be made into candles, it's like picking it up for free. If you make it and sell it, you can make a lot of money."
Lin Youcai: "To make money you need a lot of production. With such a tall tree, it doesn't look like there are many fallen leaves on the ground, so it's not easy to collect them."
"Someone has to buy them. Candles are not food or drink. You won't die without lighting, but it will make life inconvenient. Without food and drink, people will die. Candles are consumables for rich people. You have to find buyers to make money." Lin Zisu calmed down as she spoke, and her excitement faded.
"But, after all, it's something I found for free, and it took some time and effort. I was just planning to ask the head of the village, so I'll go and ask what everyone thinks first!"
"Oh! It's best to sell the free things and get money. It's okay if we can't sell them! We can use them ourselves! Who would complain about having too many lighting things? Go quickly!" Old Lady Wang pushed Si'er to walk quickly. She wanted to gather the family members and go pick the black fruits quickly.
Lin Youcai walked to the ox cart of Lin Lizheng and said, "Lizheng, I picked up a bunch of fruits. Look."
"What is this? I found something good! It's white and looks like food." Lin Benshu leaned over and looked at the small bunch of fruits in his hand, which were all white.
Lin Lizheng squinted his eyes and looked closer, "What is this?"
Lin Youcai: "This white fruit has a black shell on the outside, which has already fallen off. It can't be eaten, it's poisonous!"
The other people in the headman's family also gathered around and looked at Lin Youcai, waiting for his next words.
Lin Youcai: "Village head, how about calling the heads of each household to speak?"
Village head: "Okay."
After a while, a dozen men gathered together.
Lin Youcai held up the fruit of the Chinese tallow tree for everyone to see, and then turned around and pointed at a tall tree not far away. "This is a Chinese tallow tree. The whole Chinese tallow tree is poisonous, but it is also a treasure. You can't eat it! It's poisonous! !
This tree has green leaves in spring and summer, and the fruit it bears is green in summer. The leaves turn yellow and red in autumn, and fall off in winter. The green fruit shell turns black, and inside is a snow-white round aril with a kernel underneath.
The white one you see is tung oil, also called "skin oil", which can be used to make candles, wax paper, and soap. The oil squeezed from the kernel is called tung oil, or green oil, which is used to make coatings, paints, inks, oil paper, oil umbrellas, and so on.
The material of the Chinese tallow tree is hard, does not warp or crack, and has a fine texture. It is a very good wood and can be used to make furniture, carriages, carvings, etc.
Its leaves and bark can be used as medicine, which requires processing, but the details are unclear.
Its leaves can be used to make black dye for dyeing cloth.
The root bark can also treat snake bites.
I read all this in books, and I also heard from friends in the south that they plant Chinese tallow trees because they have many uses and are profitable trees.
Lin Xianwen muttered to himself, "What a man who made friends out of nothing." The Chinese tallow tree is an economic tree, so it's not wrong to say it's a money-making tree.
"Brother Youcai, please speak slower. I can't remember it!" Zhao Zhuang patted his head, feeling as if he was listening but not hearing anything.
Lin Benshu looked at the tree not far away with shining eyes, "Scholars are different! They know a lot!"
"Wow, this must be a cash cow! It has so many uses! We are on our way, what should we do..." Tian Daniu looked like he had no idea where to start.
Lin Youcai: "It's not a cash cow, but we can't do anything else. We can use the white tung wax to make candles!"
Yang Song said with a curious look on his face: "I only know that pine oil can be used to make pine wax. Every time my family collects pine oil to make pine wax, we sell it. If this can be used to make candles, we can also make them and sell them to exchange for food!"
Lin Youxing picked up a Chinese tallow tree fruit, squeezed it, and asked, "Brother Youcai, how do we make it? Grind it into pulp?"
Lin Youcai: "It's simple to make, simpler than acorn tofu. It depends on whether everyone wants to make it. It takes time and effort, and what if it can't be sold."
Lin Benzhu: "Of course I will do this! It doesn't cost any money, it's something I found for free, why wouldn't I want it!"
Lin Benfeng: "Yes! If we can't sell them, we'll use them ourselves! Who would complain about having too much lighting? I've never used the candles in the store in my life!"
Lin Youcai: "If everyone has no objection, then let's collect the small fruits first. They can be stored for a long time, so we can collect them and take them with us. We can do something else when we have time."
Except for the two groups of people guarding the vehicle and luggage, everyone else took action.
The elderly, children and women should first push aside the leaves and pick up those that have fallen on the ground.
When the boys climb trees, they just jump up like monkeys and chop branches directly on the trees.
There is no way around it because the tree is too tall, and it is not easy to pick the small white fruits from the tree.
What is the difference between humans and animals?
That is, people use tools and use their brains to do things.
Lin Xianwen called a few cousins, found a few long wooden sticks, tied a sharp and thin knife from the RV tool box to them, and each of them hit the branches with one stick.
If you can't reach the fruit, you can climb up the tree and hit it. One person supports the other, and the other hits the branch with a stick tied to a knife. It is definitely difficult to cut with a knife, because the stick is too long and the knife can't bear the force. But the knife is sharp, and when you hit it hard, you will cut it to some extent, and knock down more small fruits.
After all, the boy was not as strong as an adult male, so the adults took over the task of beating the fruit. The boy was light and agile, so he climbed halfway up a tree trunk that was too high, wrapped his feet around the trunk, and hit with a stick in his hands.
Picking tung oil tree fruits is a meticulous and hard job, and climbing the tree to pick the fruits is dangerous and hard.
A group of people were working hard on the roadside, collecting tung tree fruits.
The Zhangjiacun team behind them also came here. Seeing how enthusiastically these people were working, they all stopped and stared. They looked like they were picking up money. . .
There are many of these trees here. The fruits are not eaten by birds except by children who pick them up for fun.
The people of Zhangjia Village walked over and talked a lot.
One of the villagers kindly warned: "You can't eat this fruit! Eating it will kill you!"
Zhao Zhuang looked up at the man and smiled, "We know! This fruit is poisonous! Of course we can't eat it!"
"Then why did you pick it up?"
Zhao Zhuang: "We were chopping firewood, and the fruit looked nice, so we just picked it up to play with!"
Do you think I would believe it? But there were indeed chopped tree trunks and branches on the ground.
The person in front walked away, and the man hurried to catch up.
Although the head of Zhangjia Village had walked away, people would glance back from time to time, paying attention to their actions.
Could it be that this tree has some uses that the locals here don't know about?