April 1908. 



307 



Edible Products. 



almost unanswerable, contention for an 

 American derivation. None of the 

 remaining nineteen species of the genus 

 Cocos are known to exist elsewhere in 

 the world than on the American con- 

 tinent. His review on the story results 

 in the nature of a compromise, assign- 

 ing to our own Islands and those to the 

 south and west of us the distinction of 

 having first given birth to the coconut, 

 and that thence it was disseminated east 

 and west by ocean currents. 



BOTANY. 



The coconut (Cocos nucifera, Linn.; is 

 the sole oriental representative of a 

 tropical genus comprising nineteen 

 species, restricted, with this single 

 exception, to the New World. 



Its geographical distribution is closely 

 confined to the two Tropics.* 



Not less than nineteen varieties of 

 C. nucifera are described by Miquel and 

 Rumphius, and all are accepted by 

 Filipino authors. 



Whether all of these varieties are 

 constant enough to deserve recognition 

 need not be considered here. Many are 

 characterized by the fruits being 

 distinctly globular, others by fruits of a 

 much prolonged oval form, still others 

 by having the lower end of the fruit 

 terminating in a triangular point. 



In the Visayas there is a variety in 

 which the fibrous outer husk of the nut 

 is sweet and watery, instead of dry and 

 astringent, and is chewed by the natives 

 like sugar cane. Another variety 

 occurs in Luzon, known as " Pamocol," 

 the fruit of which seldom exceeds 20 cm. 

 in diameter. There is also a dwarf 

 variety of the palm, which rarely 

 exceeds three meters in height, and is 

 known to the Tagalogs as " Adiavan." 



These differeut varieties are strongly 

 marked, and maintain their characters 

 when reproduced from seed. 



USES. 



The coconut furnishes two distinct 

 commercial products — the dried meat of 

 the nut, or copra, and the outer fibrous 

 husk. These products are so dissimilar 

 that they should be considered separately. 



COPRA AND COCONUT OIL. 



Until very recent years the demand 

 for the " meat " of the coconut or its 

 products was limited to the uses of soap 

 boilers and confectioners. Probably 

 there is no other plant in the vegetable 

 kingdom which serves so many and so 



* The coconut palm has been reared as far north 

 as Indian River, Florida, latitude 28° N., but has 

 * not proven a profitable commercial venture, 



varied purposes in the domestic economy 

 of the peoples in whose countries it 

 grows. Within the past decade chemical 

 science has produced from the coconut a 

 series of food products whose manu- 

 factuie has revolutionized industry and. 

 placed the business of the manufacturer 

 and of the producer upon a plane of 

 prosperity never before enjoyed. 



There has also been a great adva/nce in 

 the processes by Avhich the new oil 

 derivatives are manufactured. The 

 United States took the initiative with 

 the first recorded commercial factories 

 in 1895. In 1897 the Germans established 

 factories in Mannheim, but it remained 

 for the French people to bring the 

 industry to its present perfection. 



According to the latest reports of the 

 American Consul at Marseilles, the 

 conversion of coconut oil into dietetic 

 compounds was undertaken in that city 

 in 1900, by Messrs. Rocca. Tassy and de 

 Roux, who in that year turned out 

 an average of 25 tons per mouth. 

 During the year jiist closed (1902) their 

 average monthly output exceeded 6,000 

 tons, and, in addition to this, four or 

 five other large factories were all working 

 together to meet the world's demand 

 for " vegetaline," '* coeoaline," or other 

 products with suggestive names, belong- 

 ing to this infant industry. 



These articles are sold at gross price 

 of 18 to 20 cents per kilo to thrifty 

 Hollandish and Danish merchants, who, 

 at the added cost of a cent or two, 

 repack them in tins branded " Dairy 

 Butter," and, as such, ship them to all 

 parts of the civilized world. It was 

 necessary to disguise the earlier pro- 

 ducts by subjecting them to trituration 

 with milk or cream ; but so perfect is 

 the present emulsion that the plain and 

 unadulterated fats now find as re?dy a 

 market as butter. These " batters "have 

 so far found their readiest sale in the 

 Tropics. 



The significance of these great dis- 

 coveries to the coconut planter cannot 

 be overestimated, for to none of these 

 purely vegetable fats do the prejudices 

 attach that so long and seriously have 

 handicapped those derived from animal 

 margarin or margarin in combination 

 with stearic acid, while the low fusion 

 point of pure dairy butters necessarily 

 prohibits their use in the Tropics, out- 

 side of points equipped with refrigerat- 

 ing plants. The field, therefore, is practi- 

 cally without competition, and the 

 question will no longer be that of finding 

 a market, but of procuring the millions 

 of tons of copra or oil that this one 

 industry will annually absorb in th,e 

 immediate future. 



