COCONUT PLANTER'S MANUAL. 141 



THE TREATMENT OF COCONUTS. 



Extract from a Lecture by Mr J. E. P. Rajapakse. 



(Delivered in 1923.) 



Of all the cultivated products of this Island the most useful and reli- 

 able one to invest in is Coconuts. It is grown with very great success in 

 the Western and North-Western Provinces and also in a few other provinces 

 with fair success. A great part of the wealth of the permanent population 

 of this Island is invested in it. It produces not only the exportable articles 

 as Copra, Desiccated Coconuts, Oil, Poonac, Fibre, Fresh Nuts, etc , but also 

 a hundred other things useful to man and beast. It cannot be imagined 

 what this Island would be without this useful tree. 



In the olden days, as the demand for coconut products was not very 

 great, the value of a thousand nuts was from Rs. 15 to 20; today it is from 

 Rs. 60 to 80. 



Formerly the coeonut was planted in lands best suited for its growth in 

 alluvial soils bordering rivers and oyas and in sandy soils along the sea coa«t. 

 These estates, though carelessly p'anted, without piying much attention to 

 distance, quality of seed-nuts, depth of holes, etc , were very successful and 

 bore heay crops. Some of the lands being by rivers were fertilized by silt 

 deposits from floods. Further, tying cattle to the trees was practicable 

 then owing to the presence, in the viciniy of estates, of large tracts of land 

 belonging to Government and others, suitable for grazing cattle. With the 

 extension of cultivation these lands are no longer available for pasture- and 

 cattle grazing has to be restricted to planted areas As sufficient cattle for 

 manuring could not be supported on plantations atom the use of artificial 

 fertilizers is being resorted to now. 



Fresh lands with ideal coconut soil and a rainfall of 75 inches or over 

 are exhausted now. If cultivation is to be extendel it mu3t be on cinnamon 

 lands in the Colombo and and Negombo Districts, or in drier districts with 

 a rainfall from 50 to 75 inches. Large areas of cinnamon land are being 

 turned into coconut plantations. Generally these lands are white sandy 

 soils, the whiteness being due to depletion of organic matter by the con- 

 tinual removal of everything that had been produced by the cinnamon. 

 Both the Manning Coconut Trial Ground at Negombo and my experimental 

 plots at Alexandra Estate, which are conducted under the guidance of the 

 Department of Agriculture, are on land of this description. Careful manu- 

 rial experiments conducted at Manning Coconut Trial Ground have 

 demonstrated that these soils are most deficient in potash and next in 

 phosphoric acid, a fair quantity of nitrogen being available. The Alex- 



