26 COCONUT PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



altogether a mistaken idea. Liming, when practised under proper 

 advice, results in much benefit, particularly in the case of heavy clay 

 soils and those containing a large proportion of vegetable matter, 

 helping in the one case to make the soil more open and less resistant 

 to the movement of the roots, and in the other correcting the acidity 

 which is generally associated with an excess of humus ; while in both 

 cases it assists in the conversion of potential into available plant food. 

 The presence of lime in the soil in some proportion is, of course, 

 essential, since it is ordinarily the base which, in combination with 

 nitric acid, resulting from the oxidation of ammonia, goes to form the 

 nitrates which are of such importance as plant food, Mr. A. "W. 

 Beven is in favour of small doses of lime (10 to 12 cwt. per acre) 

 every other year, instead of larger quantities at longer intervals, 



COCONUT PRODUCTS. 



COPRA. 



Only mature nuts should be used for making copra, and after 

 these are plucked they should be stored for from 2 to 4 weeks. The 

 number of nuts that go to a Candy (560 lbs. or 5 cwts.) of copra may 

 vary from 900 to 1,500 — 1,100 to 1,200 being an ordinary average. 

 After husking the nuts and splitting them open, drying may be done 

 in one of the following four ways : — In the sun, on a grill over an open 

 fire, in a specially constructed drying room, or in patent driers. Drying 

 entirely in the sun from start to finish is a slow process, taking about 

 a week, and is only possible in dry districts where the weather can be 

 depended upon. This method produces a high quality copra- In 

 Cochin sun drying is done very carefully on mats. Inordinary copra- 

 making the tiist drying is frequently done in the sun till the kernel 

 has sufficiently shrunk for removal from the shell. The after-drying is 

 continued on the grill till the copra crackles. The ordinary grill is 

 made of wood, usually coconut-wood, with shallow pits underneath in 

 which there are open fires, the fuel used being coconut husks or shells 

 or both. In this way the kernels arc subjected to the action of direct 

 heat for six or eight hours. If care be taken to properly regulate 

 the heat, and to produce the minimum of soot, copra of good quality 

 could be produced. A very fine copra is turned out in drying 

 houses with the furnace at one cud and hot air distributed by pipes 

 through the building. There are a number of these in the Island and 

 in view of the satisfactory results they give, it is surprising that they 

 are not more extensively adopted. Various forms of ' Driers ' 



