VIII. A. 6 



Pratt et al.: Nipa Palm 



393 



excess of lime which prevent fresh juice from reaching the 

 preserving cream. A uniform circulation is accomplished in a 

 simple manner, and the beneficial results are evident. 



A further confirmatory test of the lime and sulphite preserva- 

 tive using funnels was made by a competent independent in- 

 vestigator on March 10, 1913. The palms for this test were 

 in Bulacan Province, had very short flower stalks, and had prac- 

 tically ceased to flow. The juice gave a strong positive test for 

 peroxidase, and could not be preserved with lime alone. "Very 

 few palms were flowing any juice at this time, and the long dis- 

 tances between available trees made it impractical to study more 

 than those recorded in Table XIII. The figures refer to the juice 

 carbonated in Manila two days after collection. 



Table XIII. — Analyses of tuba collected in Bulacan. 



No. of 

 sample. 



Volume 



of 

 juice. 



Volume 

 of lime 

 cream 

 used. 



Polariza- 

 tion. 



Brix. 



Sucrose. 



Purity. 





CO. 



cc. 



V.° 





Per cent. 





1 



150 



80 



54.8 



15.5 



13.4 



86.5 



2 



185 



40 



64.0 



18.7 



15.5 



82.9 



3 



240 



40 



44.0 



13.4 



13.4 



81.3 



4 



230 



40 



48.0 



16.3 



11.7 



70.5 



5 



250 



40 



49.0 



19.6 



11.8 



60.3 



Samples 4 and 5 contained no sulphite when tested before car- 

 bonation. No attempt had been made to clean the tuquils used 

 in collecting this juice, and it is probable that the greater part of 

 the sulphite was destroyed by the accumulation of organic slime. 

 The above results are of great interest as showing what may 

 be accomplished under the most adverse conditions. 



Various other experiments show that all tuquils in which fun- 

 nels had been used with lime and sulphite cream gave juice alka- 

 line throughout, with a purity about 5 units higher than corre- 

 sponding collections from the same palms following the old 

 method. Moreover, all tuquils in which funnels were not used 

 contained top layers of acid juice with twenty-hour collections. 



The use of the funnel method would involve no great difficulty 

 when applied to the collection of nipa juice on a commercial 

 scale, and has much to recommend it. The bowls for the funnels 

 could be turned out of wood at slight expense, and the stems 

 made from branches of spineless bamboo. The amount of lime 

 actually necessary for preserving tuba is very small, probably 

 not exceeding 1 per cent. A large excess is absolutely neces- 

 sary when the ordinary tuquil is used, although the greater part 



123668 2 



