326 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



October 19, 1918. 



COCO-NUT CULTIVATION IN BRITISH 



GUIANA. 



In the Ayiicultural News of September 7, lOl.s, 

 a review of Professor Harrison's able aikiress as 

 President of the Royal Agricultural and Commercial 

 Society of British (iuiana appeared. In that review 

 the position of the colony with regard to coco-nut 

 cultivation was brieHv noticed. In view, however, 

 of the increasing interest in this ipiestion in these 

 islands, it seems advisable to reproduce in the fol- 

 lowing paragraplis the major part of the Professor '.s 

 remarks on the subject: — 



In the lite seventies and early eighties some impetus 

 had been received towdrds the cultivation of coco-nuts in tlie 

 Mahaicony-Abary distric", where there are great areas ot 

 relatively light loimy lo sandy lands, especially well suited to 

 the growth of coco nut palms. The late Honourable B. 

 Howell Jones's paper in Yot. II of Timehri for 1883, 

 entitled '.\ Visit to the Oil and Fibre Works at Plantation 

 Fortitude' supplies a striking picture of the coco-nut 

 industry at that time. The industry, as appears to be 

 the rule with industries here in their earlier stages of 

 inception, later fell into a condition of temporary stagna- 

 tion, so that in 1897 there were, including scattered trees, 

 not more than 3, -500 acres under coco-nuts in the whole 

 colony. The following is practically the only reference ot 

 any importance to the cultivation of coconuts in this colony 

 which appears in the report of the West Indian Uoyal 

 Commission : — 



'The cultivation of coco nuts has existed in British 

 Guiana from an early period, but it has apparently never 

 attained large dimensions. This is probably due to the 

 unsuitable character of the stiff clay soils on the coast, and to 

 the prevalence of disease. In 1847 the number of coconuts 

 exported amounted to 466, -530. At present, large fjuantities 

 of nuts are used locally by the Eiist Indian immigrants. The 

 recent e.xports are only slightly in excess of those of 1847. 

 Mr. William Smiths evidence before the Special Commission 

 in 189-j indicated that at Mahaicony Creek and other locali- 

 ties the conditions were favourable for coco-nut cultivation, 

 but the nuts were small, and conseijuently they fetched low 

 prices. The present condition of the industry deserves to be 

 carefully investigated Only specially selected lands should, 

 be planted, aud suitable manures applied to ensure large nuts': 

 This statement could not be regarded as encouraging, 

 and hence little attention was given towards the extension of 

 the coco nut cultivation, until the arrival of Sir Alexander 

 Swettenham from the .Straits Settlements in .laniiary 1902 

 brought a ditierent aspect tf> bear on coco-nut growing. His 

 experience there had taught him that successful cultivation of 

 the coconut is not confined to light or sandy soils near the 

 seashore. He was aware that heavy crops of coconuts, 

 although the nuts may be of relatively small size, are 

 obtained from strains of coco-nut paltnB which have become 

 accustomed to growth on clay- loams or on heavy clay soils. 

 He saw here coco-nut palms biaring crops ot exceptionally 

 large numbers of coco-nuts, and he reasoned tliat if this is the 

 case on trees, isolated or in widely scattered small clumps, 

 there should be no reason why similar heivily bearing 

 palms should not be grown over large area.s. 



.\t first Sir Alexander feared that the relatively ."niall 

 si7.e of the nuts produced here would stand in the way of an 

 expfirt industry, and he moved tbe Board of .Agriculture to 

 import selected seed-nuts from Singapore: but before these 

 outH arrived he had seen nuts from Wakenaam and from 



near Lichrield in the .'ibary district which mere than favour- 

 ^•iily compared with those received later from Singapore, 

 The Singapore nuts were sprouted, and some of the palms 

 obtained from them were planted at the I'.xperimental Fields; 

 the majority of them, however, being set out at On ler- 

 neeming. .Some thousands of nuts yielded by the palms 

 r lised from the Singapore seeds have been distributed for 

 [ilanting p'lrposos. Sir Alexander Swettenham was, as he 

 was in every way, energetically aided by the late 

 Sir .\lexander Ashraore, who was largely responsible for the 

 preparation of the earliest leaflet published by the Baard 

 dealing with coco-nut planting. Oftimes Mr. Ashmore, as 

 be then was, told me: 'I have never anywhere seen ooco-nut 

 pahns bearing such great numbers of nuts as many of them 

 in Georgetown and its vicinity do.' 



In .January 1903 the total area planted wiih coco nuts 

 was under 3,800 acres, but an impetus to coco-nut planting 

 was at once given by Sir Alexander Swettenhara's views so 

 that the area had increased to .5,140 acres at the end of 1904 

 just after Sir Alexander Swettenham bad relinquished the 

 Go%-ernment of the colony. Since then coco nut planting 

 has regularly and steadily increased, so that on December 31, 

 1917, not less than 2.3,870 acres had been so planted in 

 liritish Guiana. 



llecent enquiries have proved that the ripe nuts from 

 coco-nut palm>, growing under the climatic conditions preva- 

 lent on the front lands of the colony, not only contain as 

 hiwii a proportion of oil as do nuts, the products of any other 

 country, but are capable of yielding copra of exceptionally 

 high oil content, hot-air dried copra from them having been 

 found to contain from 72 to as high as 79 per cent, of oil. 

 Medium sized nuts yielded the highest proportion of oil in 

 their copra, both as sun dried (76 per cent.), and as hot-air 

 dried (79 percent.)- 



Since Sir .^exander Swettenham left us we have found 

 experimentally that the most reliable kinds of seed-nuts for 

 planting purposes are medium-sized ones, yielded by palms 

 which are flourishing — not merely existing— on lands of like 

 nature to that on which the nuts are to be planted, and 

 under similar climatic conditions. It is not wise to endea-/- 

 our to improve our strains of coco-nut palms by plaotiog 

 seed-nuts obtained from palms growing nn the far lighter soils 

 of Trinidad or Tobago or of any other country; those obtained 

 from Wakenaiiu, from near Aurora, and perhaps frotn else- 

 where in Essequibo, and specially selected seed-nuts from the 

 .Mahaicony- Abary District will give better and more vigor- 

 ously growing piluis, and what is more important, palms 

 more resistant to adverse climatic influences than such 

 imported ones will be. The sole exception to this that I am 

 aware of are a few, a very few, of the strains imported at the 

 instance 'if Sir .Mcxander Swettenham from the Straits 

 Settlements. 



Dr. Cramer, late of .Surinam, and now in Java, is 

 strongly <>f opinion that a strain of '■oco-nuc palms specially 

 fitted for growth on heavy clay soils, and resistant to our 

 local climatic conditions, has been naturally evolved in 

 I'ritish Guiana in the course of many years' growth under 

 these conditions. 



On the other hand, from what I have seen during recent 

 years of local coco-nut palms, I believe that the average 

 annual yields from trees vary from probably less than five to 

 as many as 150 nuts per tree — .some trees here being of 

 remarkably heavy bearing jiower — but, as a rule, fanners 

 will just as soon set seed nuts from a pahn of five-nut type 

 as from one of l-^O-nut strain. 



Planting coconut palms from nuts without reference 

 to !.he bearing powpr •.{ their parent palm, either in number 



