The modern era in the history of its
cultivation began in Japan where, between 1890 and 1895, the sponge gourd
was first grown commercially.
The initial justification for the culture of sponge
gourds on a commercial scale is based on
the particular fitness of their skeletal
network for many practical uses, and the
special emphasis on their increased production is due to their successful employment as filters in marine steam engines
and also in diesel engines.
This special
use had made them important to the
United States Navy.
Since the time
Japan started growing and exporting
sponge gourds, almost the entire commercial supply of the United States has
come from Japan.
Japan's biggest customer for loofah sponges up to World War II was Germany which bought more sponges than all other countries.
After Pearl Harbor
this supply was suddenly cut off. The
same catastrophe which stopped their importation enormously increased the
need for them, constituting at the same
time the greatest single stimulus to their
wider distribution and cultivation.
Official recognition of the great importance of the sponge gourds was given on
April 8, 1942, when the War Production
Board, in order to conserve the country's
stockpile, issued an order forbidding delivery, sale or use of loofah sponges except on the highest priority. Not
only was the worth of sponge gourds
thus officially established, but under a
program of encouragement, the U. S.
Government by this one official act gave
considerable impetus to its spread to
fresh regions where new sources of supply might eventually be established.
Attempts to grow loofahs on a commercial scale in the States of California, Alabama and Florida were not successful,
but the tropical countries to the south
(Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, Dominican Republic, E1 Salvador, Guatemala) in a
year's time were cultivating and exporting sponge gourds to the United States.
Before World II 60% of the imported
loofah sponges were employed as filters,
which indicated their usefulness to the
U. S. Navy, and 40% of them were applied to civilian uses. However, it can
be said that, besides filters for the Navy
and for steam engines in general, the
military uses of sponge gourds range all
the way from surgical operations to
cleaning windshields of jeeps.
The special use of loofah sponges in steam vessels consists in tile
fact that water condensed after expansion in the engine is passed through
several layers of closely packed loofah
sponges to rid it of oil and dirt before it
enters the boiler to be used a second
time. Substitutes were tried when the
supply of vegetable sponges was suddenly cut off, but all of them proved
unsuitable.
Loofah sponges have a similar
use in internal combustion engines, such
as diesels, except that the filtering function here is to remove carbon and metal
dust from the oil.
Because of their peculiar structure, loofahs make fair shock
absorbers. This useful aspect, as well as
their capacity for absorbing sound, has
been exploited in steel helmets and
armored vehicles of the U. S. Army.
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