396 PLANTS AND MAN 



producing centers. Coconut oil is solid at ordinary temperatures, 

 hence well adapted to use in butter substitutes — known as 

 nut margarines. About three-fifths of the coconut oil consumed 

 in the United States is used in soap manufacture — shaving soaps, 

 hard water soaps, shampoos, and other free lathering soaps. Other 

 uses include lard substitutes, salad dressings, and confections. 

 Coconut oil cake is a very nutritious stock food. 



The oil palm, native to West Africa, but cultivated very 

 extensively throughout the tropics, produced two oils of interest. 

 The nuts, borne in fibrous bunches of about two hundred, yield 

 an oil known as palm kernel oil which is white and solid at 

 ordinary temperatures. It is used as a butter substitute, and in 

 the manufacture of soaps and candles, while the cake is a fine 

 cattle food. Palm oil is obtained by pressing the fibrous pulp 

 which makes up the bulk of the fruit, and in which the nuts 

 referred to above are borne. This oil is yellow to brown, tinged 

 with red, and is used mostly in the manufacture of soaps and 

 candles. Although inferior to palm kernel oil, it is sometimes 

 eaten by the natives. Production centers mostly in Sumatra, 

 Java, and West Africa. 



Carnauba w^ax is the most important of the plant waxes, 

 and occurs on the leaves of the wax palm of tropical South 

 America. Young leaves are gathered, dried, and scraped of their 

 waxy coatings, after which the wax is refined in boiling water, 

 skimmed, and molded into cakes for marketing. Carnauba wax 

 is very hard, has a high melting point, and is used in the manu- 

 facture of wax varnishes, phonograph records, candles, and vari- 

 ous toilet preparations such as cold creams. 



Starches in Industry 



Starches have been previously discussed as to their impor- 

 tance as plant foods and also for their importance directly as 

 human and stock foods. The present discussion deals with their 

 importance as a raw material for further manufacture, some- 

 times into human foods but more often into other commercial 

 substances. 



Corn is by far the principal commercial source of starch in the 

 United States, furnishing about five-sixths of the starch made 



