November, 1911.] 



405 



Edible Products. 



distances and properly cultivated would 

 be conservative. 



Harvesting Nuts. 

 Nuts when ripe should be carefully 

 harvested. It is best to cut the stems 

 close to the nuts with a sharp knife or a 

 pair of pruning shears. If nuts are 

 not wanted for seed, they may be 

 allowed to fall to the ground, but if 

 intended for planting they must be care- 

 fully lowered, as otherwise many of 

 them will be so injured by the fall, that 

 they will fail to germinate. Nuts should 

 be harvested every three months, and at 

 this time dead leaves and the surplus 

 clothlike bark which grows about the 

 bases of the leaves should be removed. 

 If it is found that beetles are boring 

 into the trees to any extent, clean, 

 " sharp " sand should be freely scattered 

 in the axillse of the leaves, and it any of 

 the large holes made by rhinoceros 

 beetles are found, they should be probed 

 with a hooked wire, the beetles removed 

 and the holes then plugged with wood 

 to prevent them from holding moisture 

 and causing decay. 



Methods and Cost of Copra Making. 



In the majority of cases the method 

 at present employed in making copra 

 is as follows :— The nuts are husked by 

 the use of a sort of metal spear point 

 fixed to a stick set vertically in the 

 ground. The shells are then cracked in 

 halve? with well-directed bolo (working 

 knife) strokes, and are placed in the 

 sun, concave side up. A less common 

 though perhaps more advantageous 

 proceeding is to halve the unhusked 

 nuts with a bolo. 



As the meats begin to dry they shrink 

 away from the shell and are then read- 

 ily removed. They may be dried in the 

 sun until all but about 10 per cent, of 

 the moisture has been driven off. If 

 weather conditions are fat ourable, sun- 

 dried copra is very white and brings a 

 high price, but as coconuts thrive best 

 in regions where the rainfall is quite 

 evenly distributed throughout the year, 

 copra is liable to get wet from time to 

 time when drying, and this darkens it. 



Unfortunately, in many districts, the 

 Filipinos do not care to take the trouble 

 to sun-dry their copra, but place it in 

 bamboo racks under which they build 

 fires. Copra cured in this way is not 

 likely to be anything like so uniformly 

 or so thoroughly dried as that cured in 

 the sun. The smoke turns it dark, and 

 the oil obtained from it contains a cer- 

 tain amount of creosote. Any person 

 producing copra on a large scale should 

 install an artificial drying plant. 



The system employed for drying 

 codfish at Gloucester, Massachusetts, 

 might well be utilized. A good sized 

 heater causes hot water to circulate 

 through a system of pipes on which are 

 placed "flakes" consisting of rectan- 

 gular wooden frames over which ordin- 

 ary poultry wire is spread. These 

 " flakes " are about 10 feet by 6 feet, and 

 are slid in place from both sides of the 

 system of hot water pipes, the whole 

 system being some 20 feet wide. The 

 hot water pipes are contained in a closed 

 chamber in which a number of doors 

 are suitably located. Into this chamber 

 air is forced by a large rotary ventilat- 

 ing fan, and the opening or closing of 

 doors causes it to circulate as desired. 

 Copra dried in this way would be snow 

 white, and would bring a peso or two 

 a picul above the regular market price. 



The expense involved would be small, 

 as dried coconut husks make excellent 

 fuel, and the ashes from the furnace 

 would make good fertilizer for the 

 growing trees. 



Accurate data as to the cost of harvest- 

 ing nuts and making copra are not 

 available. 



It is stated that the average operator 

 will husk a thousand nuts per day, and 

 that one man has been known to husk 

 as many as 3,000, The work is hard, 

 however, and $0'50 per day should, there- 

 fore, be allowed as thb wage for coconut 

 huskers. A second man should be able 

 to halve, and a third to put in the sun 

 the nuts which the first man husks. 



I understand that a number of copra 

 making plants in India and Ceylon are 

 now supplied with decorticating, break- 

 ing and drying appliances, which make 

 the cost of producing copra materially 

 less than that involved in the use of 

 hand-labour. 



Enemies cp Coconuts and Means 

 op Combating them. 



In the Philippines coconut trees are 

 comparatively free from enemies. In 

 some of the sugar-growing regions the 

 rhinoceros beetle, which breeds in the 

 bagass heaps, sometimes causes consider- 

 able losses by boring into the trees, 

 especially if the number of coconut trees 

 is small, so that a large numbers of beetles 

 concentrate their attacks on individual 

 trees. Other species of beetles, which 

 attack the wood of the trees, have been 

 found, but as a rule their depredations 

 are not at all serious. Insects may best 

 beattacked by destroying their breeding 

 places. The spreading of "sharp," 

 coarse, clean sand in the axillaa of the 

 young leaves which are favourite points 



