The Cocoanut Part 1

The Cocoanut.

by William S. Lyon.

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

Bureau of Agriculture,

Manila, June 1, 1903.

Sir: In responding to numerous inquiries about the cocoanut, its uses, cultivation, and preparation for market, I have prepared, by your direction, the accompanying bulletin, which is intended to cover the general field of the inquiries addressed to this Bureau, and herewith submit the same, with the recommendation that it be published as Farmers' Bulletin No. 8.

Respectfully,

Wm. S. Lyon, In Charge of Division of Plant Industry.

To Hon. F. Lamson-Scribner, Chief Bureau of Agriculture, Manila.

THE COCOANUT.

INTRODUCTION.

The following pages are written chiefly in the interests of the planter, but the writer feels that the great agricultural importance which the cocoanut palm is bound to a.s.sume in these Islands is sufficient to justify the presentation of some of its history and botany.

For that part of the bulletin which touches upon the botany of the cocoanut I am indebted to Don Regino Garcia, a.s.sociate botanist of the Forestry Bureau; for that relating to its products and local uses, to the courtesy of manufacturers in Laguna; and, for the rest, to personal experience and observations made in Laguna Province and in the southern Visayan Islands where, as elsewhere in this Archipelago, the cocoanut may properly be considered a spontaneous and not a cultivated product.

HISTORY.

The legendary history of the "Prince of Palms," [1] as it has been called, dates back to a period when the Christian era was young, and its history is developing day by day in some new and striking manifestation of its utility or beauty. It seems not unreasonable to a.s.sume that much of the earlier traditionary history of the cocoanut may have been inspired as much by its inherent beauty as by its uses. Such traditional proverbs Or folklore as I have gathered in the Visayas recognize the influence of the beautiful, in so far as the blessings of the trees only inure to the good; for instance, "He who is cruel to his beast or his family will only harvest barren husks from the reproving trees that witness the pusillanimous act;"

and, again, "He who grinds the poor will only grind water instead of fat oil from the meat."

To this day the origin of the cocoanut is unknown. De Candolle (Origin of Cult. Plants, p. 574) recites twelve specific claims pointing to an Asiatic origin, and a single, but from a scientific standpoint 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 continent. His review of the story results in the nature of a compromise, a.s.signing to our own Islands and those to the south and west of us the distinction of having first given birth to the cocoanut, and that thence it was disseminated east and west by ocean currents.

BOTANY.

The cocoanut (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. [2]

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 3 meters in height, and is known to the Tagalogs as "Adiavan."

These different varieties are strongly marked, and maintain their characters when reproduced from seed.

USES.

The cocoanut 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 COCOANUT OIL.

Until very recent years the demand for the "meat" of the cocoanut 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 varied purposes in the domestic economy of the peoples in whose countries it grows. Within the past decade chemical science has produced from the cocoanut a series of food products whose manufacture 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 advance in the processes by which 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 Ma.r.s.eilles, the conversion of cocoanut oil into dietetic compounds was undertaken in that city in 1900, by Messrs. Rocca, Ta.s.sy and de Roux, who in that year turned out an average of 25 tons per month. During the year just 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,"

"cocoaline," or other products with suggestive names, belonging 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 b.u.t.ter" and, as such, ship them to all parts of the civilized world. It was necessary to disguise the earlier products 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 ready a market as b.u.t.ter. These "b.u.t.ters" have so far found their readiest sale in the Tropics.

The significance of these great discoveries to the cocoanut planter can not 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 b.u.t.ters necessarily prohibits their use in the Tropics, outside of points equipped with refrigerating plants. The field, therefore, is practically without compet.i.tion, 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 the immediate future.

Cocoanut oil was once used extensively in the manufacture of fine candles, and is still occasionally in demand for this purpose in the Philippines, in combination with the vegetable tallow of a species of Stillingia. It is largely consumed in lamps, made of a tumbler or drinking gla.s.s half filled with water, on top of which float a few spoonfuls of oil, into which the wick is plunged. In remote barrios it is still in general use as a street illuminant, and so perfect is its combustion that under a constant flicker it emits little or no smoke.

When freshly expressed, the oil is an exceptionally good cooking fat, and enters largely into the dietary of our own people. The medicinal uses of the oil are various, and in the past it has been strongly advocated for the cure of eczema, burns, as a vermifuge, and even as a subst.i.tute for cod-liver oil in phthisis. Its medicinal virtues are now generally discredited, except as a restorative agent in the loss of hair resulting from debilitating fevers. Its value in this direction may be surmised from the splendid heads of hair possessed by the Filipino women, who generally use the oil as a hair dressing.

Cocoanut oil is derived from the fleshy alb.u.men or meat of the ripe fruit, either fresh or dried. The thoroughly dried meat is variously known as copra, coprax, and copraz. The exportation of copra is detrimental to the best interests of the planter, tending to enrich the manufacturer and impoverish the grower. The practice, however, is so firmly established that the writer can only record a probably futile protest against its continuance.

The causes which for a long time will favor the exportation of copra instead of oil in this Archipelago may be briefly stated as follows:

(1) An oil-milling plant, constructed with due regard to economy of labor and the production of the best quality of oil, would involve an outlay of capital of $2,500, gold, and upward, according to capacity. The production of copra requires the labor of the planter's hands only.