This wild fruit was sold for 50 cents a jin 30 years ago, and farmers planted a lot of it. Now it's worthless and is about to be cut down.

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In the countryside 30 years ago, there was a kind of wild fruit that used to be the main source of income for farmers. The outer skin of this wild fruit is like a walnut, but it has no pulp. When it is ripe, it is peeled off and there are a few seeds inside. In the past, it was called "Tongzi" and was the raw material for pressing tung oil. At that time, the task every day after school was to pick up tung seeds, cover them with thatch, then sprinkle some water on them, and wait a few days for the tung seeds to be rotten, so that they could be easily taken out.

Paulownia is the fruit of paulownia trees. Nowadays, few people know its use, and only young people and old farmers who have experienced collecting tung trees know its function. The tung seed oil pressed by Tongzi was called "raw lacquer" in the past and can be used as paint. Mainly used to paint wood products, the yellow color is not only glossy, but also has the effect of waterproof, anticorrosive and insect-proof. Can also be coated on the cloth can be waterproof, do raincoat umbrella, smell a fragrance, without chemical harmful smell. It is said that the sleeper under the train track in the past will not rot and will not be eaten by worms after soaking in tung oil.

In the past, the wood that people used to build houses was soaked in tung oil, so they didn't have to worry that the wind and rain would corrode it. However, people who are willing to use tung seed oil to build houses are generally large families, and ordinary farmers are reluctant to use it to build houses. About 30 years ago, peeled paulownia could be sold for 50 cents a catty. Despite the fact that 50 cents is nothing now, 30 years ago, the monthly salary of workers working in the city was only 300 to 400 yuan, and 50 cents was very valuable. Peasant friends do not have a fixed salary, as long as they have free time, they go to the mountains to pick up tung seeds and sell them when the price is good to subsidize their families.

In some mountainous areas in the south, a large number of paulownia trees were once planted all over the mountains. The fruit period of paulownia trees happens to be winter, avoiding the busy agricultural season, so in winter many farmers will pick up and peel paulownia trees. The outer skin of paulownia, like walnuts, will dye its hands black. When you are young, it will take a long time to wash off your hands after being dyed black.

Now it is rare to see tung trees, mainly because tung is worthless now. If you pay a little attention to it, you will find that wood products such as wooden pots and buckets are rarely seen in daily life. More and more plastic products have replaced wood products. There are also a wide variety of paints that marginalize tung oil, which is hard to see now.

In the past, the farmers who planted tung trees also cut it down and planted other fruit trees. Readers, have you ever picked up tung trees?

Text / report, picture / network

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