The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-05-24
BUTTONS ON BUSHES.
A Nut Furnishes This Needful Article
of Wearing Apparel.
From Popular Mechanics.


From Popular Mechanics.
No, the ivory buttons you wear do
not represent the death of an elephant
in the wilds of Africa, your pearl but
tons were probably never nearer than
you took them to the shell of bivalve
mollusk, and the probabilities are that
no rubber tree was ever tapped to pro-
duce the hard rubber buttons that
adorn your overcoat. Down in Cen
trail America there is fruit producing
palm that has quite metamorphosed the
button business, and formed the nu-
cleus for one of the most important in
dustries in the United States. The seed
of this fruit contains a milk that is
sweet to the taste and relished by the
natives. The milk when allowed to re-
main in the nut long enough becomes
indurated and turns into a substance as
brittle and hard as the ivory plant.
Most Of the buttons now used in Amer
lea, whether termed ivory, pearl, rub
Der, horn or bone, come from this w.
DRY plant. Thus the probabilities are
that your buttons are made from a
vegetable milk. and they grow on
bushes. ~ vi
The ivory plant is one of the marvels
"a NhC dSC, anu T6WdTulEB It's Brow
ers with vast fortunes. The nuts are
brought to the United States by the
shipload and hauled across the CONT
nent to the big button factories, from
which they issue forth in every con-
ceiVable design, color, grade and clas-
sification of button.
The ivory plant has recently been
discovered in California, but the nut
1t produces in it's wild state is of in
ferior quality and will not make good
buttons. II is believed, though, that
with the proper cultivation the fruit
would be as valuable as the Central
American. If so, the growing of but
tons in America would become an in
dustry of Importance second only to
the growing of corn, wheat and cotton,
for everybody wears buttons.
The best ivory nut for commercial
purposes is found on the banks of the
River Magdalena, in the United States
of Colombia, where by some it is call
ed the Tagua palm. The fruit forms a
globular head about twice the size of
a mans head and weighs from twenty
to twenty-eight pounds. The head is a
kind of cluster of bulbs, and in all con-
tains from fifty to sixty seeds. The
seeds are allowed to dry and are har-
vested several times a year by the ma
tives.
The Apparel Gazette, the great deal
ers' authority on everything that peo-
pie wear, says: 1.-THE ivory nut is used
almost solely in the manufacture of
buttons, though some factories also
make poker chips from them. The nut,
however, has superseded the archais
mud, rubber and bone buttons in vogue
formerly. 1t admits of wider and more
varied treatment for this purpose than
any other known substance, and is
easily worked. The United States con-
sumes more than one-half of the
worlds product of ivory nuts, and
nlne-tenths of the vegetable ivory is
manufactured into buttons.
When the nut reaches the button
factory 1t is cut into three slabs. In
the process of cutting out the button
IS partially shaped. Afterward the
thread holes are drilled and counter
sunk. The button is then sent to the
~pollsher, who uses the shavings and
powder made in drilling to polish them
IN their white state. Afterward they
are sent to the designer, who traces
on the buttons in indelible dyes the
designs needed to make them match
the various weaves, coloring and tex
lures OF fabrics. After receiving these
outlines, If the buttons are to remain
smooth and receive another coat of
coioring, they are put into dye. If thew
are to be stamped with a segregated
pattern, they are put into a pressing
machine ftted with dies of the pattern
desired.