Alcohol from Coco-nut Palms 555 



twenty-five trees one ton per year, under (the 

 usually) continuous tapping ; at this rate, if 

 all their force were turned into sugar, the 

 25,000,000 bearing trees would produce 

 1,000,000 tons of sugar each year, which is 

 one-seventeenth of the world's total production 

 from both cane and beet. Some 20,000 tons 

 of sugar are consumed annually in the tuba. 

 ,300,000 practically wasted in swizzle ! 



" By the way, as already shown, according 

 to experiments conducted by Dr. H. D. Gibbs, 

 of the Bureau of Science, the buri and nipa 

 palms can also be utilized as either alcohol 

 or sugar producers. The buri palms (Corypka 

 elatd) in the Philippine^ could easily produce 

 75,000 tons of sugar per annum ; or, if all the 

 trees were tapped at once, about 1,500,000 

 tons could be thrown on to the market : this 

 is ten times the cane-sugar output of the 

 Islands. 



" The nipa palms (Nipa fruticans) of the 

 Philippines are now producing some 70,000 

 to 85,000 litres of tuba per hectare per year, 

 and since this sap contains from 12 to 17 per 

 cent, of sugar, it will be seen that about 3 tons 

 of 96 per cent, sugar could be obtained con- 

 tinuously at very little expense from every 

 acre of the many square miles of nipa swamps 

 in the Philippines. Incidentally, it is shown 

 by Dr. Gibbs that the nipa is one of the 

 cheapest alcohol producers ; the raw material 

 for an imperial gallon of 90 per cent. (180 



