194 



THE COCO-NUT 



CHAP. 



in lands where such places were first used for coffee or 

 cacao. In Cochin the copra is spread on mats to dry, 

 and the mats are brought in before showers and at night. 

 Care in drying the copra is the chief explanation of the 

 high quality of Cochin oil. 



From start to finish sun-drying may take from five 

 to nine days. If more time is needed, it takes too 

 much work, and the resulting copra is inferior. 



In almost every country which produces copra 

 more or less of it is dried over free fires, from which it 

 receives the smoke and soot as well as the heat. The 

 fuel is almost always the dry part of the nut — husk 

 and shell or one alone. The hottest and cleanest fire 

 is made by the shells, but these alone are not sufficient 

 except when most of the drying is done by the sun. 

 Except for the small part marketed as "Cebu sun-dried," 

 practically all Philippine copra is dried in this way. 

 The drying houses are mere shacks, as cheap as possible. 

 Koof and sides are usually made of coco-nut or nipa 

 leaves, or the roof may be of bamboo ; corrugated iron 

 is unusual, though the owners are seldom too poor to 

 afford it. The shacks are usually a scant 2 metres 

 high, and just big enough to each handle the nuts from 

 a small grove. The fire may be on the ground, but is 

 more often in a hole 30 to 60 cm. deep. Over it is a 

 grating, usually of coco-nut wood, on which the drying 

 is done. Iron in contact with drying copra discolours it ; 

 but as smoked copra is never white anyway, the use of 

 wood in the grills is a mere matter of local convenience. 

 Larger and better smoke houses are sometimes built. 



The procedure in drying varies in different lands, 

 and even in different provinces in the Philippines. 

 Exceptionally, the drying is uninterrupted. As a rule, 

 the half-nuts are first heated until the meat will come 

 out of the shell ; this takes two or three hours. The 

 meat is then put back on the grill and heated either 

 until dry, or on two successive evenings for about two 

 hours each, which dries it. The total time of firing is 

 then only about six hours. To dry it so rapidly the 



