8i • 



use as food rather than industrial manufacture. Important as 

 starch is as a food product, the greatest market for it has been 

 and probably will continue to be the cotton cloth, paper and 

 other similar manufacturing industries. If potato starch and 

 corn starch are to find increasing consumption as human food, 

 thus forcing up the price, the textile industries must seek other 

 starches which can continue to be produced at a low cost. 



Cassava starch, or, as it is commercially called, "Tapioca flour," 

 has hitherto been produced only on a small scale and by com- 

 paratively crude methods, it has not competed with corn or po- 

 tato starch because of high cost due to crude methods of manu- 

 facture. The quantity annually offered for sale has also been 

 small and too variable to create a standard of comparison with 

 the other starches offered in enormous amounts. 



Considerable impetus has been given to the manufacture of 

 starch from manioc within the last few years. The industry has 

 become established on a sound business basis in Florida and in 

 Jamaica. 



There is one starch factory in operation on Kauai, but the 

 plant is not modern, and the business is conducted rather as an 

 adjunct to cattle feeding, the intention being to utilize some of 

 the surplus not required for stock food to supply laundry starch 

 for sale in the local market. 



An average of something more than too analyses of the fresh 

 cassava roots shows from 25% to 27% of starch and from 4% 

 to 17% cane sugar, the latter, however, more often low than high. 

 For every 100 pounds of root there are approximately 27 pounds 

 of starch and four pounds of sugar. By the process of crude 

 manufacture in vogue among the Chinese, who were the first to 

 produce starch in Hawaii, the amount recovered is seldom more 

 than one-half of the total starch in the root. A maximum ap- 

 proximating twenty pounds is obtained in the Florida factories. 

 An improved method of manufacture is now being adopted in 

 the West Indies by whicli almost all of the starch in the root may 

 be recovered, the average amounting to 25 pounds out of a pos- 

 sible total of 26 to 27 pounds present. 



The earliest method used for accomplishing fine division of the 

 pulp and the rupturing of the root cells to permit the escape of 

 their contained starch grains was to grind or crush the roots, run 

 the crushed mass into tanks with water and allow it to ferment. 

 During the fermentation process the lactic and acetic acids formet! 

 disintegrated the cellulose and broke up the cells, allowing the starch 

 grains to escape. After several days' fermentation, the mass was 

 repeatedly washed to recover the starch. This method was ex- 

 tremely wasteful as well as unhygienic, and has long been dis- 

 continued. 



The method of starch extraction universally used up to 1903 

 has been, in brief, as follows : The roots are washed, peeled and 

 grated. The pulp llows over long sieves placed on an inclined 



