MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 139 
Panama City a factory to make buttons from tagua seeds. 
This plant is capable of using 100 tons of raw material per 
month, and it is planned to increase this capacity to 6,000 
tons per month. The nuts used are shipped from Ecuador, 
Colombia, and Panama, and must be dried for three weeks 
before being cut into button slabs. Only native labor is used. 
The process of ivory-button manufacture is varied and com- 
plicated and requires many different kinds of machinery. 
According to a report compiled by the Pan-American Union 
(Bulletin, October, 1917), the West Indies, Central America, 
and South America use annually about $2,300,000 worth of 
buttons. 
The only use of the tagua nut noticed in Colombia was in 
the carving of ornaments, in which the natives are expert. 
While visiting the town of Chiquinquira, in the Departmento 
de Cundinamarca, the natives were observed carving the seeds 
or nuts by the use of a hand-made lathe, pocket-knife, and 
polishing rag. A collection was purchased for a few dollars, 
consisting of various shaped vases, pots, bowls, lunch-box, and 
miniature chess-men (see plate 35). At the left of the 
photograph is shown a carved tea container, or strainer. The 
central ornament is a replica of the native lunch box with its 
separate containers. The normal lunch box is made of 
enamelled ware, possibly of European manufacture, the bot- 
tom compartment being filled with heated charcoal to keep 
the food in the upper compartments warm. The food usually 
consists of the native yuca root, rice, and soup, the soup 
being in the uppermost section. This type of lunch box was 
seen only in Bogota where the climate is cool. 
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