Owing to the relatively high price of butter there is a growing demand for cheaper fatty foods, especially among the poorer classes.

In the first number of the "Philippine Journal of Science " a series of papers deals with the cultivation of the cocoanut palm and the production of the oil. The nuts are split in two, the " milk " being allowed to run to waste and dried in the sun or in a kiln for a few days. The " meat " is then removed from the shell and further dessicated, when it forms the copar of commerce. A number of nuts which were stored for six months and had not sprouted, were found to contain 20 per ceut of shell, 34 per cent of milk and 46 per cent of meat, equivalent to 19.5 per cent of copra or 12.4 percent of oil, the percentages being calculated (n the weight of the nuts* free from husks. The dried copra therefore contains over 68 per cent of oil. Analysis showed that on an average the fresh meat of a cocoanut contains 4.683 grammes of nitrogen, 2.475 grammes of potash, and 1.74 grammes of phosphoric acid.

The milk of a cocoanut contains on an "average 1.542 grammes of nitrogen, 1.313 grammes of potash, and 0.171 grammes of phosphoric acid. The analytical data given are by no means exhaustive; but they are sufficient to show that as regards the high yield of oil and the presence of considerable amounts of nitrogen potash and phosphoric acid, the cocoanut possesses a distinctive nutritive value. As cocoanut oil has been largely employed as a food without the production of unfavorable results, and as it is sold at less than half the price of butter, there would appear to be good reasons for the further extension of its use as an alternative to butter, especiall-y since its peculiar flavor has been eliminated by a process of purification.