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LOWCOUNTEY PLANTING REPORT. 

 (From an Old Hand.) 



MONSOON — COCONUT PLANTING — THE COPRA TE.UJE. 



Hapitigam Korale, 25th May ISSC). 

 The Monsoon oi^ened here on the 17th, and it 

 has diibbleil daily evei since, with very little 

 wind, except one fierce squall on the 23rd, that 

 lasted only a few minutes, but quite long enough 

 to tear forest trees up by the roots, and scatter 

 large limbs of jak and other fruit trees in all directions. 



This is the proper season to plant Coconuts, 

 but most of the clearings in this part are some- 

 what behind, and in some cases the proper tune 

 may slip away and leave some of us up a tree. 

 In my own case I was a trifle late, but I am 

 getting on with lining and holing about 20 acres 

 of new clearing as fast as the rainy weather will permit. 



Within the past ten or twelve years, a vast 

 improvement has taken place in the management 

 of Coconut property in this district. A clean 

 estate was then the exception, it is now the rule. 



There are still a few, who stand true to old 

 ideas ; for instance, there are a few acres of the 

 best soil in my neighbourhood, that about fifteen 

 years ago was given out to goiyas and planted. 

 When they had taken all they could from it, the 

 land was left without another cent being expended, 

 the lantana rushed up, and in a couple of years 

 not one coconut plant remained. At the end of 

 seven years it was again cleared, again cropped 

 by goiyas, and again it ran precisely the same 

 course. It has this season been taken in hand a 

 third time, and it remains to be seen whether 

 it will be better cared for on this occasion, than 

 on the former attempts at cultivation. 



On the other hand there appears to me to be 

 more energy and liberality in some cases than 

 knowledge of the plant and its requirements. My 

 idea of Coconut Cultivation can be conveyed in 

 two words, manure and jjloiigh, and those two 

 operations should be modified according to the 

 character and quality of the soil. 



Within the past few years a revolution has taken 

 place in the Copra Trade, ihe local oil mills cannot 

 comiaete with the export prices, and have had to 

 close up, but the export trade requires a better 

 article than the smoked and less than half dried 

 commodity, that satisfied the local trade. The 

 copra dealers that used to compete keenly for 

 the estate crops have not readily accommodated 

 themselves to the new development, and, in con- 

 sequence, they are not so prompt to purchase crops, 

 and nuts accumulate so as to induce proprietors 

 seriously to consider the expedience of drying 

 their own copra, and such among them as have 

 any constructive talent are using it in the in- 

 vention of drying houses to render -themselves 

 independent of weather and enable them to turn 

 out a good clean well-dried product that will 

 take the top of market. I had occasion many 

 years ago to test the difference between thoroughly 

 dry copra and that taken to market by native 

 dealers, and founl that thorough drying brought 

 1 cwt. to 95 lb to say nothing of the discolour- 

 ing of the resulting oil by smoking the copra, 

 to save it from too rapid deterioration, before it 

 could be sold in its less than half dry state. 

 In those days, copra rose and fell in price, 

 according to the supply and the wants of the 

 mill and chekku owners, but there was no dis- 

 tinction of qualities. The rise of the export trade 

 has done much to remedy this state of things, 

 and the planter has now the chance of being 

 rewarded for careful preparation, and more or less 

 perfect drying apparatus will soon be made o« 

 most etitatea. 



