THE SAMOAN COCOANUT 15 



it can so adjust its shipments as to offer a vessel a charter both 

 ways, to the great reduction of freight charges. It follows that 

 these advantages- of the larger concern tend greatly to continue 

 in a measure the monopoly it once conspicuously enjoyed, to 

 the disadvantage of smaller shippers. 



Copra is simply the meat of the cocoanut, dried in the sun, 

 generally by being spread on mats, until the greater part of the 

 watery juice is evaporated. For this purpose the nut is left to 

 thoroughly ripen — that is, until the white flesh, or kernel, which 

 lines the inside of the shell to the thickness of three-fourths of 

 an inch or more, reaches that degree of hardness found in cocoa- 

 nuts sold at the fruit stands in the United States. At this state 

 all the clear, palatable water which completely filled the interior 

 in the green stage is absorbed. 



When a commercial demand for cocoanut oil first sprang up, 

 and shipments were small, it was customary to ship the pure oil 

 in casks, free of the wood or fibrous residuum. It was then bought 

 by the traders direct as oil from the natives, who secured a sepa- 

 ration of the oil by ajlowing the green copra to stand exposed 

 to the sun in canoes — troughs, as it were — until the heat and 

 decay set the oil free to collect at the bottom, to be afterwards 

 strained. 



No oil has been so shipped for a great many years, and the 

 one mill set up for extracting the oil mechanically was not a 

 profitable venture. Cooperage could not be had here, and the 

 importation of casks was found too expensive. Then the leak- 

 age in a long voyage in wooden packages was found to be very 

 great. For many years the oil cake obtained from cocoanuts 

 met a ready demand from dairymen and small farmers in Europe 

 as a food for cattle, but latterly it has fallen into disfavor, the 

 opinion obtaining that it is productive of derangement, if not of 

 disease. The decline of this use has to some extent affected the 

 price of copra. It was formerly estimated that the sale of the 

 oil cake paid the cost of the freight on the bulk copra. 



Marseilles is the principal manufacturing point of cocoanut 

 oil, but large quantities are shipped to Liverpool, to ports on 

 the Baltic, and to San Francisco. The oil is used to some ex- 

 tent by admixture as a lubricant, but its chief use is found in 

 the manufacture of common and medium grade soaps. Its ten- 

 dency to become rancid — an objection which has not been en- 

 tirely overcome — is a serious hindrance to its emplo}'ment in 

 many things, and precludes its use in the manufacture of the 



