/'4 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[March 2, 1885. 



downward to form the roots, still clinging to its parent for 

 its support uutil the entire inside of the shell is filled with a 

 round, white, ball-like substance that is formed by the con- 

 gealed milk of the coconut. From it the roots, fast form- 

 iug, receive their staff of life, untill the mother " coke" 

 becomes exhausted, having fulfilled her mission, is deserted 

 by her offspring and left a dead and useless mass of fibre. 

 On grows the tree, sending deep into the ground her roots and 

 hij-hinthe air her trunk, until after the lapse of from five 

 to ei :ht years she in turn pays tribute to mother earth by 

 bearing her first, and under favorable circumstances con- 

 tinuing to yield for more than half a century, giving her 

 owner from 100 to 250 marketable nuts a year 



Through the centre of the trunk of the coconut tree is 

 a hollow filled with a soft fibrous substance which furnishes 

 the life of the tree and acts as a giant pump in forcing to the 

 nuts the immense quantity of water required to fill them. 

 This fibrous heart has a wonderful filtering or distilling 

 power, for no matter in what location the tree may be 

 growing, either upon the beach or in the malarial swamps 

 with its pools of stagnant water, when nature has done 

 its work, she deposits in the coconut a sparkling liquid 

 as clear as crystal and as cool as if drawn from the 

 deepest well in our northern door yards. Having no 

 particular season for bearing, but bearing all the year round, 

 blossoms, ripe and green fruit may be found on the 

 same tree. 



The blossom of the coconut is a most beautiful and 

 peculiar work of nature's art. Appearing at the base of 

 the long, ragged leaves is a dagger-like sheath, green in 

 color, and standing erect until its own weight causes it 

 to bend downward, where it hangs until the stems it 

 encloses, which are to bear and sustain the nuts, are 

 sufficiently matured to proceed on their journey without 

 further protection, when this outer protection drops to 

 the ground, leaving a cluster of ragged stems upon which 

 you will find every few inches miniature coconuts which 

 require about fourteen months to ripen, so that at all 

 times may be found on the same tree nuts varying in 

 size from a walnut to that of a man's head, and some 

 weighiug from ten to twenty pounds. Among the many 

 difficulties which the coconut grower has to contend with 

 beside the hurricanes, are the flying fox and the coconut 

 beetle, both of which are very destructive to the young 

 trees, eating their way in all directions into the stems, 

 destroying alike both foliage and fruit, and a still greater 

 enemy to the coconut is the "robber crab" (birgus latro), 

 common along the coast of all tropical islands, which 

 subsists entirely upon coconut diet. Finding a fallen nut, 

 he sets to work with his strong claws to remove the tough 

 fibrous covering, tearing it jiff bit by bit until he reaches 

 the hard shell, when he at once begins to hammer with 

 his heavy claws at the sprout or weakest eye until he 

 has pounded a hole through the meat to the inside. This 

 done, he extracts all the meat with a uarrow pair of 

 pincers nature has provided him with. This ''robber crab" 

 is equally aware of the value of the fibre obtained from 

 the coconut busk, for he will collect the fibre in large 

 quantities and carry it to his burrow, and lie upon it 

 until some lazy native comes along, digs him out, and robs 

 him of his l>ed: the fibre obtained from the crab's nest 

 bring more highly prized for its fineness than that obtained 

 by hand or machine. From under the dead crab's tail 

 tin' native takes a lump of fat which, when boiled down 

 will often produce a quart of pure oil. resembling in every 

 particular that produced from the coconut. 



GATHERING AND HUSKING. 



The sections from which our northern countries receive 

 their supply of coconuts are the northern coasts of South 

 and Central America, Jamaica, Porto Rico and Baracoa, 

 the butter grades coming from the northern coast of South 

 and Central America, these varieties having a much thicker 

 meat, and, shelling more readily, are much prized by oar 

 best confectioners and bakers. Some idea of the importance 

 of the coconut industry may be formed when I tell you 

 that there were received at the port of New York last 

 year over fifteen million of nuts, and yet there never 

 seems to be an over supply, which is not surprising when 

 one house alone in New York handles over ten millions 

 uuually, consuuiiug theni mostly for desiccating purposes, 



Where coconut culture is made a business, the ripe 

 nuts are gathered from the ground, where they are allowed 

 to drop from the tree, as coconuts are not picked, but 

 to be marketable must drop of their own accord, and allowed 

 to remain in heaps at least a month before husking, in 

 order to got what is termed well cured or browned, when 

 the husk is removed prior to being loaded into the vessel 

 or steamer. The process of husking is simple, yet laborious, 

 and to the uninitiated would be tedious work, but in the 

 hands of the skilled busker the coconut will be relieved 

 of its fibrous covering in three blows upon the sharp point 

 of a stake driven into the ground for that purpose, skilled 

 workman removing the husks from 1,000 cokes in a day. 

 Northern ingenuity has lately invented a pair of husking- 

 tongs, resembling somewhat the tongs used by our black- 

 smiths for holding hot irons, but differing by having solid, 

 sharp steel points, which, when driven into the coconut 

 husk, will remove it more rapidly and with much greater 

 ease than can be done under the old-fashioned stake system. 

 When husked for market they are piled up in great heaps, 

 or placed under sheds ready for the first vessel or steamer 

 going North, and on her arrival are placed in dories and 

 paddled to the sides of the vessel, which often anchors 

 a long distance from the shore, owing to the absence of 

 docks in many ports of the tropics. 



When the vessel is reached the nuts are passed up the 

 sides and counted, and a check given for the same, which, 

 when presented to the captain or agent employed to load 

 the vessel, is paid in cash. If it should be a schooner 

 loading, the nuts are placed in the hold loose, sometimes 

 as many as three hundred thousand being carried in one 

 load. Frequently t hey are used as ballast in banana vessels, 

 fifty to one hundred ami fifty thousand being placed in 

 the hold, with banana racks built above. In steamers where 

 mixed cargoes are. carried they are either placed loose 

 in the hold, or put in gunny bags. 100 to the bag. The 

 average loss in transportation is from 5 to 8 per cent, 

 and sometimes as low as 3 per cent; in exceptional cases' 

 as high as 20 per cent. This loss is attributed to different 

 causes. Sometimes the nut is not fully ripe or properly 

 cured, and rots, or is over-ripe, and sprouts, or the vessel 

 may be infested with wharf rats or immense tropical 

 roaches, either of which attack the soft eye of the nut 

 letting the air into the meat, which causes rapid decay' 

 To prevent this destruction the eye of the nut is some- 

 times covered with a pitchy substance made from tar or 

 rosin, which is particularly distasteful to the rat and roach 

 Sometimes, so infested with rats and roaches do these 

 coconut vessels become, that before reloading they have 

 to be fumigated o- smoked out by burning sulphur in 

 the hold and fastening the hatches down, thus killing the 

 rats that could not be otherwise reached. 



When a cargo is ready for sale a gang of men are stationed 

 in the hold with bushel baskets, in which they place such nuts 

 as appear to be good, throwing into other baskets such as are 

 cracked and rotten. Platforms are arranged in the hatches 

 upon which men stand to receive the baskets as they 

 are handed up from below. AVheu they reach the deck 

 the baskets are slid along on a wet board to the dock 

 where they .ne counted and loaded into trucks or put into' 

 gunny bags, 100 in each, and are then ready to be delivered 

 to the buyer. The buyer establishes its value largely upon 

 the size of the nut and thickness of its meat. Ff wanted 

 for general market use the question first asked is: "Will 

 100 nuts fill a double extra gunny bag:- 1 "if mi. the buyer 

 is usually satisfied, as the size, of the nut is what is most 

 appreciated by the average buyer. If, however, the cargo 

 is to be sold to a confectioner manufacturer for. desicatiii" 

 purposes his first question is: "Howmauy pounds of meat 

 will the cargo furnish to the hundred nuts?" That cannot 

 lie determined by the size of the nut, for a car"o of 

 Baracoa nulg may be. larger in size, heavier in weight" than 

 the same number of "eu.ist" nut. The "coast." nut will 

 furnish more pounds of meat, as the Baracoa nut has a 

 heavier shell, contains more water, ami the meat is thinner. 

 For instance, a bag of 100 good Baracoa nuts, weighing 

 15n to 100 pounds, would probably shell from 50 to 70 

 pounds of meat, while the average weight of 100 "coast" 

 nuts, being 160 pounds, would yield about SO pounds of 

 richer meat, than any other grade of nuts, the average 

 ,oss in shell and water being about 50 per cent, 



