43 
With this increase in the number of trees, without any improvement in 
their yields, if there had been no drought, the total cut of nuts for 1904 
should have been over 300,000; the actual number was 134,410. The 
record just given shows that the period of depression which followed the 
former drought was identical in character with the one to be anticipated 
from the present condition of the trees. The first real step in return to 
a fit yield was the cutting of May, 1905, about two years after the former 
drought ended ; the return can not go much farther before the effects of 
this drought will head it off. 
It is then the experience at this farm that a “dry season” occurring 
only every other year will constantly keep the yield of nuts at consid- 
erably less than half of what it would be if the supply of water were 
always sufficient for the tree’s needs. It is obvious that a coconut plan- 
tation will be a probable source of continual profit only in localities where 
dry seasons may never be expected or where it is feasible by irrigation 
always to keep the ground sufficiently moist to enable the roots to preserve 
their full, normal activity. 
CONCLUSION, 
We have just seen that a considerable supply of water must constantly 
be at the disposal of the coconut, or it will protect itself against injurious 
desiccation by a partial suspense of its vitality. The necessity of this 
yater as the carrier, in solution, of the plant’s mineral and nitrogenous 
raw food has previously been touched upon. I made no direct experi- 
ments in the fertilization of the coconut, but it is the unanimous experi- 
ence of those who are acquainted with the subject that an increase in 
some of the constituents of its mineral food has a very marked favorable 
effect on the production of the fruit.2* At San Ramon certain trees are 
pointed out as particularly productive because they have long received 
the waste from the kitchen. The quantity of mineral food which the 
tree takes is roughly proportional to the amount of water which it 
absorbs.** Increasing the plant’s transpiration has, then, the same effect 
*“ Experiments with the object of determining whether the soil surrounding the 
coconut roots contains nitrifying organisms were undertaken by Dr. W. B. 
Wherry, of this Bureau. Unfortunately Dr. Wherry left Manila before the work 
could be completed. Indications of nitrification were not lacking in his work, 
which is sufficiently encouraging to be continued. The assistance of nitnifying 
organisms would be a material advantage to the coconut, although it has been 
shown above that the amount of water which the tree takes up and transpires 
would, even in such poor soil as that encountered along the beach, contain a 
sufficient quantity of inorganic constituents to allow the plant to thrive.—P. C. F. 
“It is true that in a wet soil the food is in more dilute solution than in a dry 
one, but this is partially compensated for by the selective absorption of nutrient 
salts from very dilute solutions, the solution absorbed being more concentrated 
than that in the ground. The more dilute the solution the greater is this selective 
power, 
