Mcallen Daily Monitor

EXAMPLE OF A PIG
Citrus fruit much like the famous pig which went to market, is slowly but certainly approaching the state in which every bit of it is being put to commercial use. An intriguing story comes from California, where research workers have determined a new successful method of using citrus pulp in tempering of steel.
The pulp's chemical reaction when used in "quenching" steel while the metal is in the process of manufacture, the report asserts, has placed it above ordinary water or other chemical solutions in successful handling of the metal. Thus another step in development of markets for every portion of fruit is recorded.
A review of the uses to which citrus is now put indicates that its program of utilization is full indeed. Fruit which cannot be marketed because of exterior blemishes, which render it unattractive, is sold to juice canneries. Such plants use, of course, the entire juice of each fruit and run it through preservation processes which allow it to be stored for indefinite periods of time. In turn, the rind of the fruit is used for pressing out citrus oils, which are sold at unusually high figures.
The remaining pulp is then used for fertilizer and has been experimented with on a very successful basis in this regard. When the rinds are not used for oil extraction processes the entire remainder from the cannery is then used for fertilization.
This leaves only the rough part of the interior fruit, or pulp, available for further uses. The California discovery regarding use of such pulp in steel mills is, naturally, of important consequence to the citrus industry.
Year after year laboratory research has shown how more and more by-products of citrus fruit may be put to commercial use.
The work of the federal citrus by-products plant at Weslaco, in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, is cited as a definite example of such profitable enterprise. Within a period of three years the laboratory has been able to show citrus cannery investors good reason for opening plants in this region and, in direct line with its activities, the sale of cull fruit by growers to canneries in the Valley has increased from $10,000 per year to $250,000 annually. The peak of such activity has not yet been approached, and its ultimate arrival will serve to teach the citrus industry of this section several valuable lessons in the work of putting citrus by-products to work for the benefit of the Valley.
The example set long ago by the pig, all of whose anatomy save the squeal is used commercially, thus has set a very worthy example for the grapefruit and the orange. The Valley is beginning to show definite profits from such an example, and the citrus industry at large should realize the far reaches it yet must traverse to reach the situation point in its activity.