ese
parts are spread out and exposed to the sun for a few hours, or such
time as may be necessary to cause the fleshy albumen to contract and
shrink away from the hard outer shell, so that the meat may be easily
detached with the fingers.

Weather permitting, the meat thus secured is sun dried for a day
and then subjected to the heat of a slow fire for several hours. In
some countries this drying is now effected by hot-air driers, and a
very white and valuable product secured; but in the Philippines the
universal practice is to spread out the copra upon what may be called
a bamboo grill, over a smoky fire made of the shells and husks, just
sufficient heat being maintained not to set fire to the bamboo. The
halves, when dried, are broken by hand into still smaller irregular
fragments, and subjected to one or two days of sun bath. By this time
the moisture has been so thoroughly expelled that the copra is now
ready to be sacked or baled and stored away for shipment or use.

All modern cocoanut-oil mills are supplied with a decorticator armed
with revolving discs that tear or cut through the husk longitudinally,
freeing the nut from its outer covering and leaving the latter in
the best possible condition for the subsequent extraction of its
fiber. This decorticator is fed from a hopper and is made of a size
and capacity to husk from 500 to 1,000 nuts per hour.

Rasping and grinding machinery of many patterns and makes, for
reducing the meat to a pulp, is used in India, Ceylon, and China;
and, although far more expeditious, offers no improvements, so far
as concerns the condition to which the meats are reduced, over the
methods followed in the Philippines. Here the fleshy halves of the
meat are held by hand against a rapidly revolving, half-spherical
knife blade which scrapes and shaves the flesh down to a fine degree
of comminution. The resulting mass is then macerated in a little water
and placed in bags and subjected to pressure, and the milky juice which
flows therefrom is collected in receivers placed below. This is now
drawn off into boilers and cooked until the clear oil is concentrated
upon the surface. The oil is then skimmed off and is ready for market.

The process outlined above is very wasteful. The processes I have seen
in operation are very inadequate, and I estimate that, not less than
10 per cent of the oil goes to loss in the press cake. This is a loss
that does not occur in establishments equipped wit