546 Coco-nuts The Consols of the East 



Sugar made from the sap is, apparently, 

 unknown in the Philippines, but is well known 

 among the natives of Ceylon, India and 

 Guam (an island in the South Seas, belonging 

 to the United States). The sugar, as with 

 cane-juice, is obtained by boiling, and in India, 

 ten to twelve seers of sap yield one of jaggery, 

 or gur, a dark brown, semi-viscid mass, which, 

 if granulated, would lose heavily in weight, 

 for it can be refined according to European 

 principles. 



Discussing the question of obtaining sugar 

 from the coco-nut, nipa, and other palms, we 

 learn from Dr. H. D. Gibbs that there is a 

 possible, not to say a probable chance of the 

 business of making sugar in the Philippine 

 Islands becoming a profitable one. Discussing 

 the nipa first, we are told that the advantages 

 of its product over those of cane lie in there being 

 a practically inexhaustible supply of nipa trees 

 located all over the Archipelago. Another 

 feature is that, since the sugar would be pro- 

 duced from sap, the crushers in the ordinary 

 sugar mill, which form one of the heaviest 

 items of expense in the mechanical line, would 

 be unnecessary. Another considerable item 

 is that once planted, the nipa takes care of 

 itself, that it requires no cultivation, and that 

 its product may go on for a century. Trees 

 which have been producing for half that time, 

 viz., fifty years, are already on record among 

 unimpeachable authorities. The method of 



