68 
However, considering the average percentages as calculated to the nut 
free from husk, there appears a gradual increase in the proportion of 
meat, copra, and oil from Series I to Series III, with a corresponding 
decrease in the percentage of milk, indicating that the meat is becoming 
firmer, is losing some water and gaining oil, as the nut increases in age. 
In Series IV, those nuts which had been kept for six months, the meat 
remains practically the same in amount, but there is a marked drop in 
the proportion of copra and oil, probably due to decomposition or other 
changes which are beginning to take place in the meat. However, No. 5 
of this series, a nut in which decomposition had already set in, shows 
an abnormally high percentage of both copra and oil, a fact which is very 
hard to account for, although it is possible that this individual may have 
been still higher in these substances before decomposition began. In 
both Series I and IV the percentage of oil in the anhydrous copra 1s 
considerably higher than it is in IT and III, though this is more than 
counterbalanced by a much lower proportion of copra in the meat. Both 
in very fresh and in overripe nuts there is a considerable deficiency in 
oil, but the principal loss is in the amount of copra to be obtained, this 
result being due to a higher percentage of water as compared with solid 
matter in the meat. In all these nuts it will be noticed that the propor- 
tion of shell to the whole nut varies but little. 
Analyses of nuts from the same trees but of varying degrees of ripe- 
ness.—In order as much as possible to eliminate the variations in the 
individual nuts, and to discover if those taken from the same tree would 
not show greater uniformity in their composition, fifty nuts from one tree 
near San Ramon were procured for analysis. 
Ten of the least ripe among these were analyzed as shown in Series V. All of 
the individuals of this series were well developed externally, but were full of 
milk, and not yet sufliciently mature to be picked for making copra. 
The ten ripest nuts of the lot were next selected (Series VII). Their husks 
were of a dead-brown color and thoroughly dry. 
The remaining thirty were in a condition which might be termed “fairly ripe’— 
that is, they were of the kind ordinarily used for making copra, Nine of these 
were analyzed at once (Series VI), and the remainder shipped to Manila for 
storage and future analysis. In Series V, VI, and VII “total solids” in the 
milk were determined in addition to the regular analysis. 
