PREFACE. •5S 



'THHE first edition of "AH about the Coconut Palm" appeared in 

 •*• 1885, and for a considerable time the work held the field as 

 the book of reference on Coconut Cultivation, But consisting as it 

 did of a collation of information reprinted from the Tropical Agri- 

 culturist, it was of the nature of a pot-pourri, and, though of consider- 

 able interest from the general reader's point of view, furnished no 

 reliable data from the planter's stand-point. Since the last edition 

 was published in 1904, much has been learned about Coconut Culti- 

 vation and reliable authorities have published works on the subject. 

 The most important of the latter are Hamel Smith's Coconuts, the 

 Consols 0/ the East, Prudhomme's Le Cocotier, Preuss' Die Kokospalme 

 und ihre Kidtur and Dr. Copeland's The Coconut ; and to these we 

 are greatly indebted in the compilation of this book. 



In the present edition it will be found that the bulk of the 

 material which has hitherto appeared has been eliminated owing to 

 the information being quite out of date. Matters of historical — 

 almost archaeological — interest have also been omitted, and in their 

 place more useful papers and abstracts have been inserted. 



The Ceylon Observer Press has done a great deal of pioneer 

 work as publishers, not only in launching the newspaper of that 

 name, but also the Tropical Agricidturist and other pamphlets and 

 monographs dealing with agricultural products. The Tropical Agri- 

 culturist, founded in 1881 by the late Mr. John Ferguson, c.m.g., long 

 enjoyed a world wide reputation as the first Agricultural Journal in 

 the East. In 1905 it passed into the hands of the Ceylon Agri- 

 jrj cultural Society, and ultimately into those of the Department of Agri- 

 »— culture, of which it is now the official organ. The present proprietors 

 ,/V ") of the Ceylon Observer Press, while endeavouring to carry out the 

 policy of Messrs. A. M. & J. Ferguson in their daily paper, 

 <C are maintaining the same interest in matters agricultural which their 

 ^ predecessors took, and, as an earnest of that determination, are 

 issuing this revised edition of " All about the Coconut Palm " in the 



