32 BULLETIN 769, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
concrete ships enormous quantities of this Chinese wood oil may be 
required. 
Candle nut oil, which is obtained from the Ale utiles moluccana, a 
plant closely related to the tung nut, is somewhat similar to tung 
oil, but so far has not been imported in appreciable quantities, as it 
is not a good drying oil. Another member of this same family, the 
Aleurites trisperma t now under investigation by the Department of 
Agriculture, is still of only academic interest. 
SJiea nut oil, a semisolid fat, resembling somewhat coconut oil, 
is used very largely in the soap industry. It is derived from the 
fruit kernel of an African tree, and by the natives of the tropics is 
used for food. Small quantities of the oil are made in a crude 
fashion by the Africans for export, but practically all that is con- 
sumed in the United States is extracted from the imported nuts. 
This oil was a rarity in .America previous to 1916, when one or 
two mills brought in and pressed several cargoes of shea nut. The 
total production was about 4,000,000 pounds in 1916, while in 1917 
we made only 81,000 pounds, and in 1918, due to the embargo, only 
a few bags of the nuts came in. The soap industry used almost 
2,500,000 pounds of shea nut oil in 1917, which was^ undoubtedly 
largely that reported as produced the year before, 
ANIMAL FATS AND OILS. ' 
LARD. 
PRESENT SITUATION. 
Lard occupies the most important place among America's fats, 
with the possible exception of butter. Butter, however, contains 
only about 83 per cent of fat, and when the amount of water and 
salt in it is deducted from the figures reported for the annual produc- 
tion of butter, lard stands first in the list of our output of animal 
fats and oils. Table 2 indicates that our normal production of lard 
is about 1,000,000,000 pounds, but this does not include the large 
amount made by small butchers and on the farms, which is perhaps 
1,000,000,000 pounds more. At present lard is exported in greater 
bulk than all the other fats taken together, and even before the 
beginning of the European war it formed nearly 50 per cent of our 
total fat and oil exports. 
MODERN METHOD OF PRODUCTION. 
Probably from 85 to 90 per cent of the entire output of lard from 
the big packing plants, which produce about one-half of the domes- 
tic lard, is of the grade known on the boards of trade as prime 
steam lard. The rest is the so-called kettle-rendered lard or neutral 
lard. The smaller packers, local butchers, and hog raisers, who 
make the other half, usually produce only the kettle-rendered grade. 
