38 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[July i, 1884. 



M. O., on " The Straits Settlements and British Malaya." 

 (The Right Hon. W. E. Forster, M. P., will preside.) Also 

 that the Annual Conversazione will be held at the South 

 Kensington Museum on Thursday June 10th. 

 The meeting then separated. 



COCONUT CULTIVATION. 



(Continued from pa : /e 3.J 



Gratitude of the Coconut for Fertilizing Matter.— On all 

 soils, except the most fertile, the presence of a human 

 habitatiou iu a coconut field cau always be distinguished 

 at a distance by the superior height and luxuriauce 

 of the trees that surround it. The native accounts 

 for this appearance by sayiug that the coconut loves 



the sound of the human voice. This 

 the old theory of the water rising in 



on 

 the 



a par 

 pump, 



with 

 be- 



cause nature abhorred a vacuum, which held its groind 

 till it was discovered that nature's abhorrence of a vacuum 

 was only thirty-two feet deep. The bulk of the Sinhalese 

 people have not yet discovered that whistling gigs to a 

 millstone would be quite as useful as singing the gems of 

 vocal music to a coconut tree. The true cause of the 

 better thriving of the trees round a dwelling is natural manur- 

 ing. Where a family and their usual stock of domestic 

 animals reside, there are daily droppings of fertilizing 

 matter within the circle they frequent, decreasing from the 

 centre outwards. The trees nearest the house are always 

 in hearing years before the out field, and they always 

 continue the most productive throughout, or as long as the 

 house remains inhabited. Put a set of lines iu the most 

 backward part of a field, and improvement begins at once. 

 This proves the gratitude of the coconut for any help, 

 however small, that either by accident or design is given 

 to it, and sugge ts hastening the profitable period by artificial 

 means. Ou most places, a few trees near the house, flower 

 in the sixth year, some even in the fifth, and yield a fair crop 

 in the eighth, whereas those that have had no manure do 

 not begin before the tenth year and struggle into bearing, 

 one by one, up to the twentieth, while the best that the 

 natural soil cau do is not attained before the twenty-fifth. 

 There is not within my experience any other plant 

 that so quickly and fully responds to fertilizers and much 

 or little the result is proportionate. If one tree favour- 

 ably situated can bear a crop in the seventh year, a 

 whole field may be made to do the same, the question 

 being: "'Will it pay?" To auswer this question the cost 

 of opening a coconut field must be analyzed. 



Xatiii Practices r ' Calculations of Cost. — By goyas, the 

 field will be cleared without money spent ; and in a 

 very favourable case, the land-share of the secondary 

 crops, will cover the cost of lining, holing and planting, 

 and the owner takes over his • field free of all CO' ts, 

 to him, except the fee simple of the laud, and the 

 accumulated interest ou it. The field is then left 

 to grow up in jungle for three years, when there is 

 the alterrative of clearing the jungle or letting it grow 

 on, and finally smother 90 percent of the plants, whereas 

 the reclearing of the jungle, if done in the sixtn year, 

 will probably save 50 per cent. The field may then be 

 left till the most forward trees begin to flower, say in the 

 twelfth or thirteenth year, when the final clearing takes 

 place ; and iu favourable cases 40 per cent of the trees 

 will be alive, and 10 per of these in bearing, the re- 

 mainder being of all sizes downwards, in the event of 

 steady cultivation being then carried out, in keeping 

 down the jungle and replanting the vacancies. The 

 annual expense per acre will be R12, and only about the 

 twentieth year, will the field be yieldiug enough to cover 

 its annual cost, while 10 percent of vacancies will still exist. 

 Thus the absolute cost in money of bringing coconuts into 

 bearing, in the most slovenly and desultory manner, will be 

 R120, R30 of which will be recouped by produce up to the 

 twentieth year. 



Effects of Lantana. — I have assumed that the land dealt 

 with is of average quality, and that the indigenous jungle 

 alone has to be treated ; but if lantana obtains a settlement 

 in the third year, and is left untouched for the next 

 three, not one coconut plant will survive till the seventh 

 year. AYhen lantana gets into a clearing, it thorough ly 

 masters and keeps down eOery other growth that it | 



overshades, but any tree that has got above its usual range 

 of seven or eight feet is safe from being smothered. How- 

 ever, its growth may be retarded by the struggle to obtain 

 food in the soil against such an active and greedy foe. 

 The presence of lantana iu a clearing guarantees the ex- 

 termination of every other member of the vegetable king- 

 dom that depends on the first eight feet in space for its 

 air, light and sunshine.* It has rather bothered the old 

 school coconut planters. 



Calculations of Proceeds. — The chances are that under 

 the above system the yield of average soil will 

 be 1,000 per 'acre, worth (say) R30. There is R90 to 

 make good, the interest on which, at 10 per cent, is K!i ; 

 the current expenditure is R12, aud there is R9 over to 

 he deducted, if we value the proceeds at R30. Supposing 

 the aunual increase of proceeds, to be R5, it will - take 

 five years to rub out the R90 that stood at debit iu the 

 twentieth year. Thus in the twenty-fifth year, the place 

 is clear, and the annual average income per acre will 

 be thencefourth R38 per acre, so long as the price 

 keeps up to R30 per 1,000, and this calculation drops 

 all the back interest on the original cost as well as on 

 current expenditure ; from the twelfth to the twentieth 

 year, which, if takeu into account, would leave from R60 

 to R70 to be made up before the property was thoroughly 

 clear of debt. This is by no means a fancy sketch, but 

 almost the exact history of more than one property 

 that I have had under my own observation during the 

 whole course of their existence. 



Another Sketch. — I will now give another sketch of what 

 happened on the adjoining lot to one of th i properties 

 described above. The land was felled, cleared and plauted, 

 but the jnugle got up again so rapidly, that, at the end 

 of twelve months, it was ten feet high, and the wild pigs 

 have done "their worst" with the plants— only four 

 plants remained in the whole field. This was rather dis- 

 couraging, but the proprietor had a good deal of latent 

 pluck, and the second year went to work on a new,plau. 

 The jungle was regularly rooted out, at a cost of R20 per 

 acre, and planted with cassava, to which the pigs more 

 earnestly inclined th-m to the coconut plants, and thus about 

 70 per cent were got out of this danger. The vacancies 

 were regularly supplied twcie a year, but at the end of u : ne 

 years they still amounted to 10 per cent. In the meantime 

 continual war was made against jungle and lantana, aud 

 when the trees were four years old, the pasture grass was 

 mid-leg deep. Cattle were then introduced, but, as many 

 of the plants were not out of danger, they were tethered 

 out of reach and shifter! as required. Before the end of 

 the fifth year 10 per cent of the plants were in flower, 

 and three-fourths of all that had been treated with cattle- 

 manure, were in bearing before the ninth. Further depon- 

 ent sayeth not, as the ninth year is not yet ended. The 

 trees that began to flower three years ago have now crops 

 of from 50 to 150 nuts; allowing for all accidents, they will 

 average 80 per tree, or 5,600 per acre, which at R30 gross 

 proceeds R180. I think the proprietor would have refused 

 me bis permission to tell in Negombo and publish in the 

 streets of Colombo that he had expended above R200 per 

 acre on coconuts before obtaining any appreciable re- 

 turn. It would have blasted his character as a prudent 

 and intelligent person for ever, unless accompanied by the 

 further fact that every penny principal and interest would 

 be returned before the twelfth year leaving a very valu- 

 able property in his hands. The ouly thing that has been 

 brought into this property by way of manure was one- 

 third of a ton of quicklime, at a cost of R7'50 per acre. 

 As everything done on this property was experimental, 

 the expense would be very considerably reduced by the 

 knowledge acquired of what to do, and how and when to 

 do it. It may be added that the land in question is very 

 much above an average quality, which, if favourable to re- 

 sults, greatly enhanced the cost. There is a portion of this 

 property that has never got any cattle, manure but iu every 

 other respect, the treatment has been the same, and there 

 i^ no outward difference in the soil ; yet there is a marked 

 difference in the trees, not one of them being in bearing 

 and many not even so advanced as to show stem. As their 

 wants cannot be supplied from internal resources, the pro- 

 prietor states that he will give each of them 12 cents worth 



* "The survival of the fittest."— Ed. 



