196 



THE COCO-NUT 



CHAP. 



A steam -heated desiccator, notably compact and 

 efficient, was exhibited by the Bureau of Agriculture at 

 the Philippine Exposition of 1912. It was made of 

 two coats of sheet-iron with a middle layer of asbestos. 

 Inside are lateral iron rails running at an incline 

 from one end to the other, and far enough apart for 

 convenience ; down these the trays are slid. A system 

 of steam pipes covers the bottom and ventilation is at 

 the bottom and top. The whole structure is about 6 

 metres long, 3 metres high, and 1|- metres wide. Aside 

 from the heating apparatus, it cost about six hundred 

 dollars. The copra is first dried in the shell, until it 

 will separate from it. The copra from several trays is 

 then put on to one, without the shells, and dried for a 

 longer time. The capacity is about 1600 lbs. a day. 

 The fuel used was coal. In demonstration the drier 

 was altogether satisfactory, the only adverse criticism 

 being that the planter using it would lose money by 

 selling too little water in his copra. 



A tunnel drier devised by a German engineer, but 

 not yet tested in practice, is described in a recent 

 number of Der Tropenpjlanzer. In principle it is not 

 very different from that of the Philippine Bureau of 

 Agriculture, which has just been described. 



Three driers, built according to a plan devised by 

 Pedro Bonito, have been built in the Province of La 

 Laguna to dry copra by means of steam heat. One of 

 these, at the town of Magdalena, is illustrated by the 

 accompanying photographs. - This machine uses a boiler 

 said to be of six English horse-power. For fuel the 

 husks and shells of the coco-nuts are used, but only 

 husks enough are used to supplement the shells. The 

 copra is dried in cases, of which there are three. Each 

 of them consists of nine vertical tiers of trays with 

 thirteen trays in each tier. Through these cases run 

 horizontal pipes, containing steam, under a pressure in 

 ordinary practice of 60 lbs. or at a temperature of 

 130° C. Both the inventor and the manager state that 

 the pressure can be raised to 120 lbs. without risk of 



