According to my mom, one of the benefits of growing up on a farm in Iowa in the old days was corncobs--one tool, many uses. First, you ate the corn off the cob, then you used the cob in the outhouse (firstly to knock the point off the spicule of frozen urine that steadily grew up towards your heinie from the glory hole underneath the outhouse, and then to clean your heinie once your duty was done). And corncobs also apparently were excellent hot-burning fuel for the wood cookstove. And then there was the ubiquitous corncob pipe. Since most farms had upwards of a 100 acres or more of corn, this was one of the original sustainable sources of food, TP, recreation, and stove fuel.