PRODUCTION AND CONSERVATION OF FATS AND OILS. 37 
with the fluctuations in the market price of the fats and oils used. 
In the highest grade of oleomargarine sometimes as much as 20 per 
cent of butter is used, and the vegetable oils may be entirety omitted. 
The same general process, however, is employed for all of them. 
This consists in ripening whole milk, or skim milk, usually with a 
pure " starter," as is done in creamery butter making, adding the 
animal or vegetable oils, or both, and then churning, graining, salting, 
and working, as described in greater detail under coconut oil 
(page 21). 
Aside from the use of tallows in lard and butter substitutes, and, to 
a less extent, in sausage, suet puddings, mincemeat, and similar foods, 
large quantities of the inedible grades are required by the soap maker 
and the manufacturer of leather dressings and of lubricating greases, 
as well as in other technical industries. The introduction of the 
hydrogenation process for hardening oils has made it possible to 
produce hard soaps from vegetable oils without the addition of as 
much tallow as was formerly required if the soap maker desired 
anything but a soft soap. This has probably brought about some 
decrease in the amount of tallow employed in the soap trade. As a 
people, however, we are demanding each year more soap, so the 
total quantity of animal fats going into our soap kettles is greater 
rather than less than it was five years ago. 
HOW TO INCREASE OUR TALLOW PRODUCTION. 
The amount of tallow which can be produced in the United States 
depends very largely upon the number of animals slaughtered. 
Perhaps the dressed carcasses might be more closely trimmed for 
fat than is now the custom. In that case, however, the housewife 
who buys the meat would be deprived of the fat, in the form of 
scraps and drippings, which she now uses for food purposes, and which 
is probably quite as valuable to her as fat in the form of oleomargarine 
would.be. Every butcher whose plant is subject to Federal inspec- 
tion makes two grades of tallow — edible and inedible. The inedible 
fat is made from animals unfit for human consumption or parts of 
diseased animals. The greater the number of tuberculous cattle 
coming to the packing house, the greater the amount of fat turned in 
to the "tank house," as that part of the plant where condemned 
animals are rendered is called. 
The stockman has it in his power to augment the supply of edible 
fats in the United States in two ways: (1) By keeping his cattle 
healthy; (2) by properly fattening his animals before marketing 
them. It is not as easy to fatten a steer as a hog. The lean range 
steer, however, which in the stockyard is classed as a "canner," 
can be made into a fat steer if fed a suitable ration. 
