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(3) Analyses of coconuts from the same locality, but having husks of 
different color, prove that the color of a nut has very little if any influence 
on its composition. 
(4) The difference between trees near the seashore and those farther 
inland is solely in the quantity, not in the quality, of nuts which they 
produce, coconuts from inland regions averaging fully as well as those 
from the beach. This fact is shown both by analyses and by practical 
tests on a large scale. 
(5) Analyses were made of twenty ripe coconuts from Davao, Minda- 
nao, and they were found to have very much the same proportion of the 
various constituents and to give the same total yield of oil as the average 
lot of ripe nuts from San Ramon. 
(6) Coconut oil is generally stated to have a great tendency to become 
rancid, but all the experiments made in this laboratory show that, when 
once prepared in a pure state, its keeping qualities are equal if not 
superior to those of most other vegetable fats and oils. This popular 
fallacy in regard to coconut oil probably arose from the inability or 
disinclination on the part of most observers to procure pure samples, as 
the commercial product unquestionably has a high acid value and a bad 
odor, and deteriorates with fair rapidity, this change being greater as a 
rule the greater the initial acidity of the oil. 
(7) Most of the free acid and the accompanying bad odor and taste 
is produced in the copra itself before the oil has been expressed. The 
oil from a sample of copra which had been cut into fine pieces and exposed 
to moist air for one month increased in acidity from 1.5 to 23.3 per cent. 
(8) The hydrolysis and subsequent destruction of fat in copra is 
brought about by molds (the greater part of which are Aspergilli), acting 
either alone or in symbiosis with certain bacteria, the condition most 
favorable to this growth being a moderately high, constant temperature 
and a water content of from about 9 to 17 per cent. No organisms were 
found growing on a sample containing 4.76 per cent of moisture and no 
change in acidity took place. Samples containing from 23 to 50 per 
cent of water were infested by several species of bacteria which subsisted 
on the nonfatty portion of the copra but produced very little free acid 
from the oil. No molds were found in these samples. 
(9) Ordinarily, commercial copra contains from 9 to 12 per cent of 
moisture, a very favorable condition for mold growth. ‘The remedy for 
this rapid deterioration is simply to dry it so that it contains not more 
than 5 per cent of moisture, and express the oil as soon as possible, avoid- 
ing long storage in a warm, moist atmosphere. 
Drying—By comparing the various methods of copra drying, a hot- 
air apparatus, either rotary or stationary, was found to be the most 
efficient. It is suggested that a combination of centrifugal with hot-air 
drying might prove of considerable value, provided a market could be 
