VI 



COCO-NUT PRODUCTS 187 



whether fresh, stagnant, or salt, until the fibres can be 

 freed easily from the waste matter in which they are 

 imbedded. How long this takes depends on how the 

 maceration is performed and on what means are used 

 to clean the fibre after it is completed. When the fibre 

 is to be cleaned by hand, and the retting is done in 

 clean, fresh water, the husks are said to be left in it for 

 at least several months, and sometimes for as much as 

 a year and a half. In salt water maceration is more 

 rapid, and in stagnant water still more so. Further 

 the maceration may be hastened by boiling or by skin- 

 ning the husk, and it is a common practice to hasten the 

 decay by opening the husks before the soaking begins, 

 so that the water may immediately penetrate the in- 

 terior. If the soaking stops soon enough, the fibre is 

 hard and clean ; but if it continues too long, the fibre 

 becomes dark enough to lower its value, and loses its 

 strength by decay. It should therefore be allowed to 

 go on as short a time as will make it economically 

 possible to clean the fibre. When the cleaning is done 

 by hand, the husks, after soaking, are beaten thoroughly 

 and then scraped and combed. The more thoroughly 

 this is done, the better price the product will bring. 



The larger part of the fibre put on the market, and 

 the fibre of best quality, is now the product of factories 

 where the work is done by machinery. In the best 

 equipped of these factories, the husks are soaked in 

 concrete tanks in fresh water and for only two or three 

 days. They are then taken out and subjected to a 

 mechanical combing by a device which holds them 

 against a revolving cylinder set with long sharp teeth. 

 This combing is repeated perhaps four times. After 

 this, the fibre is washed by brushing in fresh water, and 

 this is continued until the fibre is practically clean. It 

 is then dried in the sun, either in open yards, or, in the 

 best establishments, on concrete courts. When well 

 dried it is again combed by hand and at the same 

 time sorted into different qualities. This combing and 

 sorting may be repeated two or three times, and finally 



