Cultivation in Malaya 53 



dirty, whilst drying over the grill is still worse. 

 Experiments in the Philippines support our 

 ideas that the rotary and tunnel systems of dry- 

 ing are the best, as the heat can be adjusted to 

 a nicety, and packed away in trays or cylinders 

 there is no chance, except through carelessness, 

 of the copra getting dirty. If needed for edible 

 butter, the meat cannot be kept too clean. 



The other day we approached some very 

 large buyers of copra and coco-nuts, who we 

 knew grew and prepared a large portion of 

 their requirements overseas, and put the follow- 

 ing questions to them, which they very kindly 

 answered,. in reference to the pros and cons of 

 mechanical dryers and of a rotary dryer in 

 particular : 



Question. Do you, on the whole, prefer 

 sun-dried or mechanically dried copra, if 

 equally free from mould ? 



Answer. Providing the percentage of oil 

 in the copra is equal, we prefer mechanically 

 dried copra, but believe, as a rule, mechani- 

 cally dried copra contains a less percentage 

 of oil than sun-dried. 1 



1 When this is so, we should say that it was the fault 

 of the men behind the machine, not the machine itself, 

 and is due to too rapid drying. Watch the sun on 

 either cacao or copra, and see how it works. It makes 

 it " sweat out " its moisture, and at the same time 

 the more it does so, the more oily does the product 

 seem to become, up to a certain point, as if the sun 

 would draw out the oil also. Even the sun can become 

 too hot, and so in midday it is best with cacao, especi- 

 ally at the start, to shade the produce. On the other 



