COCO-NUT PRODUCTS 198 



luxury. If such care be not taken, or if the rain be 

 too sudden to be guarded against, the copra on which 

 it falls is permanently damaged. 



The best copra can only be produced by uninterrupted 

 drying from the time the nuts are opened until desicca- 

 tion is complete. It is especially important that the 

 copra become surface-dry as promptly as possible. For 

 this reason, where the sun is relied upon, it is good 

 practice to open no nuts as late as the middle of the 

 day. However dry and regular the climate may be, it 

 is usually necessary to shelter the drying copra at night, 

 either by bringing it under a roof or by putting one 

 over it. If the copra is brought in, its position will 

 incidentally be changed as the drying proceeds. When 

 the copra has dried sufficiently so that it begins to 

 shrink from the shell, it is easy to remove it, and this 

 should be done. Even though the work of removing it 

 were no consideration, it should not be taken from the 

 shell until it is ready to come out easily and whole, 

 because good copra is more valuable if marketed in 

 large pieces than if broken up. In many places the 

 sun is relied upon for the preliminary drying up to the 

 time of removal from shell, where the subsequent drying 

 is performed on grills or in kilns. In Tahiti, where the 

 whole nuts are split, strips are then torn from the husk, 

 and by means of these the half-nuts are then hung up, 

 face downward, in the sun. In three or four days the 

 meat contracts from the shell and falls. It is then 

 dried for several days more. Good copra is produced 

 in this way ; but the labour required to hang up the 

 half- nuts makes the method impracticable on large 

 plantations. 



If split nuts are laid out on ordinary ground to dry, 

 they are almost certain to get dirty, either in handling 

 or from dust blown over them ; if half- dried copra 

 without the shell is so treated, there is no chance of 

 its drying clean. Specially prepared areas, smooth and 

 JLard, whether of cement or not, are used where sun- 

 drying is intelligently practised ; these are commonest 



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