41 
sufficiency of water; it is arrested at the same time as is that of the 
younger leaves, long before the ones formed during the drought would 
bear flowers on their axillary branches, even in the most favorable 
weather. ‘Thus the number of branches whose pistillate flowers were 
“opened” on a certain tree during the six months ending with April, 
1905, was six, whereas during the preceding six months it had been nine. 
The flowers do not open until more than six months after the first appear- 
ance of the subtending leaf. 
The number of nuts which can be borne depends upon the number of 
fruiting branches, and on every branch there are more pistillate flowers 
than can possibly give rise to mature nuts. The number which develop 
is a matter of individual difference between the trees; some regularly 
bear as many as ten, others never more than three. My observation of 
mature trees has not shown that the drought exercises any influence on 
the number which blast. It has seemed to me that in a grove in which 
the trees are in the first year or two of bearing a somewhat larger propor- 
tion than usual was blasting during the drought, but then it is also true 
that a very large percentage always do blast on such trees (on the first 
branches no nuts mature), so that this effect is uncertain. Neither have 
I been able positively to determine that the drought exerted any influence 
on the rapidity of the ripening of the nuts. If there is such an influence 
it will be toward a more rapid ripening, the tree thus producing smaller 
nuts, with less store of food. ‘The records of the San Ramon farm show 
the number of nuts cut and the number of nuts and amount of copra sold, 
but they do not show how many nuts have been picked up from the 
ground nor at what times nuts have been used for seed; and these items 
are so considerable that I can draw no sufficiently accurate conclusions 
as to the yield of copra per nut.?¢ 
The direct result of the checking of the growth of the young leaves and 
flowering branches will be a deficiency in the yield of nuts, beginning not 
less than nine months after the drought first makes itself felt (nine 
months being about the minimum time between pollination and maturity) 
and ending at least eighteen months after the drought is broken (that 
being the usual time elapsing between the appearance of a leaf and the 
maturing of the subtended nuts). Bis 
There are other considerations which make it necessary to extend this 
period of depression in both directions. When more than a minimum 
number of nuts are borne on a branch the latter itself is unable to sustain 
the weight, so that the additional support must be furnished by the 
petioles of the lower leaves. The untimely casting or depression of these 
leaves withdraws this support and leaves the branches carrying the great- 
est load in a condition in which breakage is likely to occur. The nuts 
* Judging by the eye alone, I can say positively that the nuts cut during April, 
1905, averaged distinctly smaller than usual. 
