Can This Unassuming Little Desert Shrub Really Save The World?

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Consejo Internacional Sobre Jojoba, 1815 N. University St., Peoria, 111. 61604: This seems to be the oldest jojoba organization around and CISJ's co-director, Thomas K. Miwa, is highly respected in the field. As long as the supply lasts, CISJ will send you a packet of 10 articles about jojoba for $1.00.

The Jojoba Center, P.O. Box 763, Carpenteria, Calif. 93013: the service arm of the newly founded Jojoba Research Foundation. For $2.00 the center will send you a packet of information and a few jojoba seeds.

Printing and Publishing Office, National Academy of Sciences, 2101 Constitution Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20418, The academy offers a very definitive, 32-page book about the jojoba plant, its cultivation, and its market potential for $3.75. Ask for Products From Jojoba: A Promising New Crop For Arid Lands. Another book, Jojoba.- Feasibility of Cultivation on Indian Reservations in the Sonoran Desert Region, is also available for$6.25. a

Yes! I say it can!

"Jojoba, jojoba, jojoba ... that's all you talk about," says my wife. And she's right too! I can't help it. Because I know what the jojoba plant means to the sperm whale, the whole balance of nature, and all the peoples of the world!

I didn't always know, of course. It was on ly in 1973 that I stumbled onto an Arizona Republic article by Maggie Wilson that explained how the endangered sperm whale could be saved by the oil from this desert shrub. And, although I was immediately in terested in lending a hand to the whales...I have to be honest and confess that what really caught my eye in the piece was the part that said $50 would be paid for each and every two-inch-long jojoba seed that was brought in.

Wow! My home here in Mesa, Arizona just happens to be smack in the middle of the plant's biggest native area. And-since I'm a nature lover, prospector, and at least a for tune seeker—I wasted no time in rushing right out to fill my pockets with those two inch-long seeds.

Well, I didn't find any (although I did find some one-inchers weighing two grams ... which is far above average). But while I was looking I learned that the jojoba is a very, very unique plant. Not only can it save the sperm whale ... but it can bring new life to and lands, provide millions of jobs exactly where people need them the most in all parts of the world, and maybe even help get the modern world off its petroleum addiction and onto a saner, renewable-resource way of life.

And it can do all of this while turning bar ren desert land into what can only be called liquid solar energy farms. Wow! Before I knew what was happening, I had forgotten all about a few piddling little $50 seeds. I wanted to become part of the inevitable Jojoba Revolution! I began to write letters, talk to people, and take everyone I could haul out into the desert to see jojoba plants in their natural habitat.

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