September, 1911.} 



235 



Edible Products. 



the interior of the bucket, and a handle 

 or the same material completes the 

 article, though the joints are usually 

 caulked with "chunam," a mixture of 

 lime and oil, like putty. The inner 

 polished and siliceous skin of the leaf- 

 sheaf forms the interior of the bucket, 

 the exterior being left rough from the 

 thinning-down process. 



When the palm-sap is destined for 

 sugar-making it is boiled in primitive 

 fashion in some convenient clearing in 

 the forest, in large, shallow iron pans 

 set in the top of a dome-shaped clay or 

 mud furnace. This is fired with chopped 

 wood, a quantity of which is always 

 piled on a rack near the furnace to dry. 

 The empty sagueiro buckets, too, are 

 generally suspended mouth downwards 

 in a rack over the furnace, to clean and 

 dry, for they cannot be left empty on 

 the ground long without swarming 

 with ants. A piece of the mid-rib of the 

 sugar-palm leaf, beaten at one end to 

 separate the fibres and make a sort of 

 broom, is used to stir up the boiling 

 liquor, and a rough iron ladle to test the 

 syrup ; whilst a primitive table of 

 "gaba-gaba" and stakes, holding a 

 supply of empty coconut shells in 

 halves, completes the sugar-maker's 

 stock-in-trade. The whole apparatus is 

 more or less protected from the weather- 

 by the usual attap-thatched open shed. 

 The syrup is constantly stirred up with 

 the broom to prevent burning, and from 

 time to time a little is ladled out into a 

 coconut shell to try its condition ; as 

 soon as a sample sets properly, the 

 contents of the boiling-pan are ladled 

 into the coconuts. The product forms 

 dark-brown cakes resembling toffee in 

 taste, and is either broken up and 

 powdered to use like ordinary brown 

 sugar, or melted down with a little water 

 to make a syrup which is much eaten 

 with sago ; the broken pieces are also 

 used as a sweetmeat. 



This native manufacture of palm- 

 sugar was still an important native in- 

 dustry in 191)9; when Mr. F. Muir and 

 the writer stayed some months in the 

 Malay islands, but ordinary cane and 

 beet-sugar were displacing it by degrees, 

 and doubtless before very long the 

 making of palm-sugar by the natives 

 will belong to past history. Yet this 

 palm-sugar has a peculiar and rich 

 flavour, and, as the supply of firewood 

 for boiling is free, and, at present, 

 unlimited, it is manufactured by the 

 Malays at a very trifling cost. 



The coarse black bast or fibre which 

 covers the bases of the leaf-sheaths of 

 the sugar-palm is made into cordage for 

 rigging praus and other uses, and is 



known as gamulu. A peculiarly soft, 

 dark snuff-brown material is scraped 

 off the exterior of the trunk and 

 employed both for caulking boats as 

 already mentioned, and also for tinder. 

 Nearly all the natives in Ceram carry a 

 little tinder box full of this stuff. 



Wallace was, we believe, the first to 

 notice at any length and at first hand 

 the manufacture of palm-wine and sugar 

 from Arenga saccharifera in his " Malay 

 Archipelago." Since he lived so many 

 years in the fifties and sixties of the 

 last century in these islands, they have 

 certainly changed much. The area of 

 actual forest on most of the islands has 

 been greatly reduced, not so much for- 

 merly by the operations of Europeans 

 as the natives' habit of clearing patches 

 of forest to enable them to grow bananas 

 and vegetables, and after one crop was 

 gathered, forsaking this ground and 

 clearing another plot to save the labour 

 of properly tilling the soil. But of 

 recent years Europeans have felled and 

 burned off much valuable timber to 

 make room for rubber and coconut and 

 other plantations ; much land in some 

 parts has been disafforested and then 

 deserted, and is now covered with low 

 second growth jungle, or, worse still, 

 with the tall and harsh " Kusu-Kusu " 

 grass which is difficult to force one's 

 way through, and cuts like knives. 

 Ceram is at the present time almost the 

 only island in the Dutch Indies which is 

 practically untouched, and already 

 forest is here being cleared for growing 

 coconuts for copra, 



COPRA TRADE IN PHILIPPINES. 



Second Largest Element in Foreign 

 Trade— Importance of Crop and 

 Growth of Trade with 

 United States. 



(From the Manila Bulletin, 26th 

 July, 1911.) 



An interesting review of the copra 

 trade in the Philippines has been pub- 

 lished by the Department of Commerce 

 and Labour, Washington, giving the 

 exports from the islands to foreign coun- 

 tries and the growth of the trade in 

 copra with the United States. 



The article contains some interesting 

 reading for those engaged in the copra 

 trade, and the review of the copra situ- 

 ation as given is in part as follows : — 



The Philippine Islands shipped abroad 

 110,374 metric tons of copra in the 

 calendar year 1910, and the average price 

 for the year was about 3| cents gold per 



