and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society.— July, 1912, 77 



A STEAM COPRA DRIER. 



The "Philippine Agricultural Review" for 

 April describes a Steam Copra Drier which will 

 be of much interest to coconut-growers every- 

 where. The result of the experiments to be 

 made with it should be of great value to all 

 coconut estate managers, who must erelong be 

 widely taking up modern methods of culture 

 and cure, if they are to economise and get the 

 best possible returns in nuts and in profits on 

 all the produce as prepared for the market. 



A STEAM COPRA DRIER, 

 Of the Philippines Bureau of Agriculture 

 (By H, T. Edwards, Assistant to the Director 

 of Agriculture.) 

 With a loss of several million pesos annually, 

 by reason of the crude and unsatisfactory 

 methods used for drying copra in these Islands, 

 the introduction and use of an improved copra 

 drier becomes a question of great economic im- 

 portance. The original plans for an apparatus to 

 use steam heat were furnished about one year ago 

 by Mr. O W Barrett, chief of the division of ex- 

 periment stations, but the details of construc- 

 tion have been worked out by Mr Z K Miller, 

 machinery expert of the Bureau. Unfortunately 

 Mr Miiler did not have time to make any pre- 

 liminary tests of the drier at the Pandacan re- 

 pair shops of the Bureau, but it was decided to 

 exhibit the original apparatus at the Exposition 

 and to try it out there on the grounds instead of 

 delaying its introduction to the public any lon- 

 ger. It is believed to be the first machine of this 

 type. When perfected it may meet the require- 

 mentsof the Philippine copra industry and thus 

 help to raise the standard of that product in the 

 Orient, 



This drier is 5 64 meters long by 91 centi- 

 meters wide, 3 meters high at the front and 2 44 

 meters high at the rear end. Its sides are con- 

 structed of angle iron frames for the sections 

 into which are riveted two sheets of plain galvan- 

 ised iron with 3-millimeter asbestos millboard 

 between. The tracks for the trays are set on an 

 in-line of61 centimeters to 46 centimeters, There 

 are three rows of these trays with a 51-centi- 

 meter space between the rows. Each row holds 

 four trays or a total of twelve trays for the drier. 

 The trays, which are 91 centimeters by 137 

 meters, and 1 decimeter deep, are constructed 

 of wire and angle iron with the bottoms made of 

 bamboo slats set 6 millimeters apart. Each tray 

 has a capacity of about- 160 nuts. The trays are 

 fitted with trunk rollers and can be easily hand- 

 led by two labourers. The incline is such that 



very little effort is required to push the trays 

 when loaded. Each track has an entrance door 

 and a discharge door 91 by 28 centimeters. 

 There are also three doors of the same dimen- 

 sions on the top of the drier to carry off the 

 moisture while fresh air is admitted at the 

 bottom below the coils. The coils, located at 

 the bottom of the diier, contain 1,219 20 square 

 meters of heating surface, which will maintain 

 an even temperature between 15° and 180° and 

 will dry the copra in fifteen hours. | 



There are three methods of handling the raw 

 material in connection with this type of dry- 

 ing apparatus : 



1. The Birchfield method which cultivates the 

 necessity of husking the nuts— that is, the en- 

 tire nut is chopped in halves by means of a 

 heavy broadaxe, the halves being immediately 

 placed either in the sun on a concrete or hard 

 earth patio, or placed directly in the trays of 

 the drier where after two or three hours the 

 meat may be readily removed and then replaced 

 to complete the drying process, the refuse husk 

 and shell being thrown aside for fuel, 



2. The husked nuts are broken in halves 

 and the shells are either set out to dry in 

 the sun so that the meat can be removed 

 after about one day of good weather, or else put 

 directly into the trays of the drier and treated 

 as by the'lirst method. 



3. The meat from whatever process at any 

 stage of dryness is put into the trays without 

 considering the previous operations and kept 

 there until the attendant in charge pronounces 

 the drying complete. With the latter method 

 of procedure the capacity of a drier of this size 

 is estimated to be about 3,000 nuts in twenty- 

 four hours. 



It must be remembered that unripe or par- 

 tially decayed nuts cannot be expected to make 

 first-class white copra, though there is abetter 

 chance of obtaining a fair article by the use of 

 this type of drier than by the prevalent 

 "tapahan " method ; the faults which are par- 

 tially concealed by the tapahan method— that is 

 by the smoke obscuring the natural colour of the 

 material— are brought out clearly in operating 

 artificial driers. Pinkish or brownish pieces of 

 copra can be readily traced to either one or the 

 other of the errors which are so deplorably com- 

 mon in Philippine copra mating ; that is, unripe 

 or overripe kernels. 



The principal advantage in the use of the 

 steam drier is that it is practically impossible to 

 burn the material during the drying though of 

 course, the time required for turning out a copra 



