247 



In my opinion, fifty good selected trees per acre is the optimum, 

 as we call it. If you put on forty trees per acre, you may get 

 a larger tree, and a few more nuts off each; but you must then 

 remember that you will be ten trees short per acre ; and if you 

 get 100 or 150 nuts per tree that is a pretty good production. 

 If you put 75 palms per acre, -it is certainly too much. So 

 although some are planting the trees only 30 or 33 feet apart, 

 I think that, considering everything, 50 feet is the proper 

 distance in ordinary more or less sloping, but not quite level 

 soil. Coconuts should not be planted on quite level soil. 

 It is impossible to say what the steady yield per acre will 

 be until you know the soil thoroughly, and how the trees 

 are behaving. Probably 100 nuts per tree, or about 5,000 per 

 year per acre, is not going very far out of the way for a 

 plantation which is neither best nor worst, but is moderately 

 clean. We get 250 to 300 nuts per tree in parts where the soil 

 is exceptionally rich and well-watered. But the general 

 average in one part is below 30, probably not more than 20 

 nuts per tree. But even that is not an estimate for all places, 

 because I have shown you photographs of over-planted areas, 

 where half the trees will be without any nuts at all, and have 

 been in that condition, perhaps, for years. Even on the Penal 

 Constitution Farm there are trees nine and ten years old 

 which have not shown any sign of fruiting yet. This is often 

 due to bad drainage, to scum and mess on the surface of the 

 soil. But generally speaking, on a moderately well cultivated 

 plantation, 100 nuts is not too much. It takes 250 to 325 nuts 

 to make a picul, and there are 16 piculs to the ton. Some 

 claim, with very large nuts, 200 to a picul. But during one 

 year, when the soil had to do without rain, the nuts were so 

 small that some of the factories said it took 500 of the nuts 

 to make a picul. It is impossible to give the cost per acre until 

 we know how much forest there is to be cleared, and how 

 much grass there is on it to uproot, and how much you have 

 got to pay for your labour. But those figures are worked 

 out in the pamphlet I have mentioned (Bulletin No. 25 : The 

 Philippine Coconut Industry, Bureau of Printing, Manila, 

 Philippine Islands.). 



In reply to a question by Mr. Allan on the subject of 

 the steam-drying of copra, Mr. Barrett said : There is no large 

 plant there for drying. Nearly four years ago I devised a 

 steam oven with steam pipes, and we made a model of it, amf 

 sent it to the Second Philippine Exposition, and it has been 

 copied in a few cases; though not so many as one could have 

 wished, and they were very cheap copies. We made ours of 

 sheet-iron and asbestos; we had steam-pipes running under 

 trays, and they were working very well. They turn out fairly 



