55 2 Coco-nuts The Consols of the East 



actually considering the question of catch- 

 crops, cover-crops, and proper distances 

 quite a new departure. 



" The question of drying the copra is one 

 that will give considerable trouble for some 

 years to come, but the ' ice has been broken,' 

 and at least one modern dryer has been ordered 

 and three or four types of * home-made ' 

 apparatus are about to be tried out. Already 

 the Philippines are producing one-third of the 

 copra of the world, even with the plantations 

 running at half-speed, so to speak, and the 

 area suitable for coco-nut planting is hardly 

 more than half planted up. The sad fact 

 about Philippine copra is that about two-thirds 

 of it is made by the 4 tapahan ' method, 

 which means that it is not only badly smoked 

 but irregularly dried, so that during transit 

 (or before) a large percentage of the material 

 rots. Hence the Philippines have the credit 

 of producing the most and, heretofore, the 

 worst copra in the world. It is said, how- 

 ever, that the product from Cochin- and Indo- 

 China is about as bad. In the Visayas, 

 especially in the Island of Cebii, the copra 

 is for the most part dried in the sun, and 

 although this sort of article necessarily is more 

 or less dirty and mixed with sand, it is whiter 

 at least, until it becomes covered with blue, 

 green, and yellow mould. One large artificial 

 dryer in the Islands (which it seems is seldom 

 used) produces copra which will endure storage 



