e considered, the lack of good
roads still further impedes the oil maker. He can not change the
size and weight of his packages from day to day to meet the varying
passability of the trail. On the other hand, packages of copra may
be adjusted to meet all emergencies, and the planter can thus take
advantage of the market conditions which may be denied to the oil
maker.

(4) Perhaps the most serious difficulty the oil maker has to contend
with is the continuous discouragement he encounters from the agent
of foreign factories, who buys in the open market and, bidding up to
nearly the full oil value of the copra, finds an ample manufacturer's
profit paid by the press cake, so valuable abroad, but, unfortunately,
practically without sale or value here. The residue from the mill may
be utilized both for food and for manure by the oil maker who is a
tree owner and who maintains cattle. For either of these purposes
its value rates closely up to cotton-seed cake, and the time is
not remote when it will be recognized in the Philippines as far
too valuable a product to be permitted to be removed from the farm
excepting at a price which will permit of the purchase at a less
figure of an equivalent in manure. So active are the copra-buying
agents in controlling this important branch of the industry, that
they refuse to buy the press cake at any price, with the result that,
in two instances known to the writer, they have forced the closure
of oil-milling plants and driven the oil maker back to his copra.

Many copra-making plants in India and Ceylon are now supplied with
decorticating, breaking, and evaporating machinery. The process
employed in this Archipelago consists in first stripping the ripe
fruit of the outer fibrous husk. This is effected by means of a stout,
steel spearhead, whose shaft or shank is embedded firmly in the soil
to such a depth that the spear point projects above the ground rather
less than waist high. The operator then holds the nut in his hands
and strikes it upon the spear point, gives it a downward, rotary
twist, and thus, with apparent ease, quickly removes the husk. An
average operator will husk 1,000 nuts per day, and records have been
made of a clean up of as many as 3,000 per day. The work, however,
is exceedingly hard, and involves great dexterity and wrist strength.

Another man now takes up the nut and with a bolo strikes it a smart
blow in the middle, dividing it into two almost equal parts. Th