Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-07-08
THE COCOANUT.
Its Importance as an Article OF Commerce
teresting Figures.
orr iponc nnnoorat

per cent. of its weight in oil), the trade
being almost exclusively in the hands of
the Germans, who ship principally to
Europe. San Francisco oil-crushers are
the chief manufacturers of cocoanut oil
in the United States, and handle nearly
all the cOpra sold in this country, which
they procure from Samoa, Tonga, or the
Fiji islands. The importation of copra
exceeds $4,000 annually. The United
States imported in the year 1885. ending
June 30, cocoanuts, cOir fiber, coir warn,
and oil to the value of $1,78OOOO (exclu-
sive of copra). The importations of the
fiber and yarn for 1885 exceeded $4,000,
900. The consumption of the fiber in the
United States has increased rapidly in the
past six years, as shown by the importa-
ton of 1879 being only $1,800,00O.
The largest cOcoanut-fber mandatory
IN the world is located in London, Eng
land, where great quantities of cocoanut
hUsks are in stock. Often 100000 of
the husks are in store at one time, while
enormous quantities of the fiber are being
disposed of. Often 20 tons are shipped
in one consignment, going to all parts of
the world. About 100000 nuts are
landed in the United Kingdom yearly
Nearly all of these nuts are imported in
the husks. After the nuts are removed
from the husks they are sorted as to size
and quality and are then sold to fruit
dealers, cOnfectiOners, etc. The husks
are passed through a powerful crusher
driven by steam power, which fiattens and
partially sOftens them. They are then
thrown into huge tanks, each holding
many thousands, where they undergo a
steaming and soaking process for several
hours. After the husks are sufficiently
soaked they are ready for the mills, which
consist of cylinders or drums. each being
studded on its own periphery with 1000
or 5000 steel teeth. They are driven by
steam and run with rapidity. Each husk
is divided longitudinally into thin slices,
and each piece is passed into the mill
separately by the workingman or feeder,
he retaining firm grip of it so far as
not to allow it pass out of his hands
After one-haIf of the slice of the husk is
thus cleaned the feeder reverses it,
passing in the other half Each slice of
the husk is passed throug three of these
mills in succession. This method of
cleaning the fiber, through apparently a
very dangerous one, is gone through with
wonderful rapidity. A recent invention
IN machinery for extracting the fiber
from the husk on the plantation where
the nut is grown, it is said, will probably
revOlutiOnze the system of producing cOir
fiber from the cOcOanut husk, in the fact
that they are a small portable machine,
enabling the most ordinary labOrer to
prepare the fiber at cost of so per cent.
less then the one now in use in England.
In CeylOn, India and other countries,
where the cOir of fiber is prepared for
shipment by the nativ es, the husks are
placed in ponds, often in mud, where they
remain to rot. Even six months soaking
is sometimes required to loosen the fiber
sufficiently to enable natives to rub and
wash the fiber clean.
New Orleans imported for the year
ending Dec. 81, 1885, cocoanuts to the
value of S2,12S or over 5,40S,5 500 nuts.
These nuts are largely usedfor disiccating
purpose. One of the largest houses in
the United States engaged it that business
is located in st. Louis, Mo-, where over
100000 nuts are annually consumed for
that purpose. twenty-five per cent. of
the cocOanuts gathered for shipment to
the United States are rejected, being
small, cracked or otherwise defective, as
nuts for desiccating should be sound and
contain the milk, it being evidence of the
sweet condition of the nut. Twenty-Five
per cent. of the cocOanuts gathered for
shipment to New Orleans and rejected
would have produced over $4,000 pounds
of copra and yielded 405, 800 pounds of
oil and 27O, 400 of oil cake, equal to cotton
seed cake as food for stock. Apparently
the rejected cocoanuts on the Caribbean
coast of Central America would sustain a
profitable business in the manufacture of
oil, either by erecting small plants on the
ground for producing the oil or shipping
the copra to New Orleans, where oil-miIls
are already established, and where the
trade in cOcoanuts, cOpra, oil and cake
could be made as famous as the traffic in
cottOn-seed products is now. But there is
still another and much greater waste ex-
listing in the cOcOanut trade of Central
and South America and the West Indies,
which should be used to augment the COM
merce of New Orleans. From figures
above given we find that by including the
rejected nuts, 6,76O,025 nuts must have
been grown last year on the cocoanut
plantations that supply the New Orleans
market. The husk of each nut contains
one-third of pound of the fiber called
coir, and as none of this fiber was saved,
1t is clear that a waste of about 2,253, 541
pounds of coir fiber existed in connection
with the cocoanut trade of New Orleans,
and If valued at the average of last years
$4,000. The copra would perhaps
amount to $4,000, making an additional
value to the cocoanut importations of
New Orleans of $4,000, thus showing
that nearly so per cent. of the available
commercial product of the cocoanut palm
that contributes to New Orleans impOrta-
tions is not utilized. The improved plan
tation machines for extracting the fiber
from the husks will certainly enable the
cocoanut planters to save the coir fiber at
a very small cost, and by extracting the
oil from the rejected nuts the profits of
the grower will be largely increased and
the cultivation of the cocoanut tree rapid
~ extended.
Hancocks Word was Good.
heard not long ago from the lips of
an old-tlmer story about Gen. Han
cock which 1 have never seen in print,
ana Whlch illustrates in striking light
nigh charactnr nf +1o4 L.