22 BULLETIN 769, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
any other oil, and is therefore easily converted into cream by the 
cows. If this is true, although it seems a questionable theory, 
then, of course, the 6 or 8 per cent of oil in the cake is more valuable 
as a dairy feed than when it is extracted and used for soap making. 
As already intimated, the world's copra trade was entirely upset 
by the war, and it is impossible to predict what will happen when 
shipping conditions are again normal. It would seem probable, 
however, that our coconut oil mills will experience more difficulty 
in getting copra when England, Holland, and especially Germany, 
are again in the market. Fortunately, the seeds of several varieties 
of palms in Mexico, and in Central and South America contain oils 
so similar to coconut that they are for all practical purposes identical. 
Among these are the babussa, the cohune, and coquito. While 
none of these have as yet become of any great commercial importance, 
some are being imported in small quantities, and if the problem of 
cracking their hard, thick shells is satisfactorily solved they will 
undoubtedly come into competition with the coconut. 
PALM KERNEL OIL. 
Palm kernel oil, both chemically and physically very similar to 
coconut oil, is obtained from the palm nut or kernel, the hard, interior 
seed of the fruit of a species of palm which grows in western Africa 
and other tropical countries. These nuts, being much harder than 
the copra, bear transportation better, so that the loss in refining 
palm kernel oil is usually much less than that from refining coconut 
oil. Palm kernel oil is used interchangeably with coconut oil in 
making vegetable margarines and other food products, but as yet 
comparatively small quantities of this oil are produced in the United 
States. 
Partly because England controls practically the entire world 
supply of palm kernels and needs the oil herself, but largely due to 
lack of transportation facilities between the United States and Africa, 
our importation of palm kernels has almost ceased. In 1917 we 
made about 6,450,000 pounds of this oil, but it was largely from 
kernels imported the year before. During the summer of 1918 there 
was an embargo on palm kernels, and consequently no oil was made 
in this country at that time. During 1912 we imported 27,681,000 
pounds, but in 1917 we received less than 1,000 pounds of palm 
kernel oil. This deficiency was only partially compensated for by 
our importation of coconut oil, although the oil in the copra brought 
in leaves a large balance in favor of our domestic consumption. 
PALM OIL. 
The fruit from which the palm kernels are obtained is one of a 
comparatively few that yield a commercial oil from both the rind, or 
