COCOANLT-PLANTINC; 73 



not yet arrived at maturity, and this would 

 further tend to reduce the nieun output. On the 

 other hand, at Inhauibane probably a larger pro- 

 portion of nuts is consumed by the people, as 

 in the coastal belt, where the cocoanuts grow, 

 there are much fewer trees per head of population. 

 Counting these in, the average yield would prob- 

 ably amount to thirty nuts per tree. If we add 

 75,000 young trees, the total of cocoanut-trees 

 in Inhambane is brought to 270,000. 



In the interest of those who may contemplate 

 embarking capital in cocoanut-planting at Inham- 

 bane or elsewhere on the coast, it is advisable 

 to state again that when estimating the per- 

 formance of a plantation or the suitability of a 

 locality for growing cocoanuts we must base our 

 returns not only upon the trees from which nuts 

 are actually gathered, but upon all the trees 

 on the land of a bearing age, whether any nuts 

 are cropped from them or not. If he is not 

 careful about this, the inquirer is apt to be 

 totally misled. Quite recently I asked the owner 

 of a cocoanut plantation, not at Inhambane or 

 Quelimane, what his yield per tree per annum 

 was. He told me 150 nuts per tree, adding that 

 there was one tree which gave 400. I happened 

 to see the returns of a plantation not far away 

 from that place where the average yield worked 



