Word: carnauba
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...elect Julio Prestes were both from Sao Paulo which was then sorely handicapped by the collapse of the world coffee market and unable to fight back. Since most of Brazil's 20 States, which figure in the world market only with such specialties as cocoa, Brazil nuts or carnauba wax (phonograph records), are merely so many jungle-choked, politically impotent drains on the Federal Treasury, this shift provoked no outcry. Rebellious Paulistas were brought to terms when the Federal Navy tied up Sao Paulo's harbor city of Santos, kept their grey-green mountains of coffee impounded until...
...carnauba palm is "the tree of life" to native Brazilians, who use its wood for cattle pens, its leaves to thatch huts, its fibre for baskets and fishing nets. Industrially, carnauba wax is used mainly in floor, shoe and auto polishes, has no substitute.* After the rainy season it forms on the succulent carnauba leaves, sealing up moisture for the arid months. Natives cut the leaves twice a year, dry them in the sun, beat them with clubs until the wax scales off in white, greasy flakes. Most prized is the golden wax taken from the eye of the palm...
Brazil is the only source of carnauba wax. Last year exports totaled 13,500,000 Ib., more than half of which went to the U. S. Principal uses are: floor and furniture polish-Johnson & Son, A. S. Boyle Co.; shoe polish-Gold Dust (Shinola, 2-in-1, Bixbee), Whittemore, Griffin; auto polish-Simoniz, Du Pont...
Having no organized market, wax is handled by a group of Manhattan importers. Because prolonged rains reduce the carnauba's need for hoarded moisture, the wax crop varies widely from year to year. This year the rains came early, stayed late. Result is a delayed crop, a rise in price per Ib.-now 38?, almost four times that of the 1932 bottom, but far short of an 80? peak price in 1918. Few U. S. waxmen agree with Johnson's President Johnson that there is a serious shortage...
...Before carnauba wax was first used commercially about 50 years ago beeswax was used for polishes. Today most beeswax goes into Catholic altar candles, which must be at least 51% beeswax to meet an old Church law based on the supposed virginity of bees. No such rule governs votive candles, sold in great numbers to the faithful. These may be made of ordinary stearic acid and paraffin...