THE COCONUT 



clean, will pay for itself in the early maturing of the 

 trees. 



The ground used for coconuts is often very poor, and 

 should be enriched in every way possible. While the 

 trees are young, other crops can be grown with the 

 coconuts, but care 

 must be taken not 

 to make the ground 

 poor in this way. 

 Notches should not 

 be cut in young 

 trees; nor should 

 they be deeper in 

 the older trees than 

 is really necessary. 



The Crop. Trees 

 sometimes bear 

 many nuts by the 

 time they are five years old, and a good crop should be 

 obtained in about seven years after planting. A tree 

 ought never to bear less than 50 nuts in a year; and 

 twice as large an average as this is possible. At San 

 Ramon, 1000 nuts are expected to yield 5 piculs of 

 copra; but in Laguna they do not yield more than 

 3.5 piculs. After the nuts are cut, there is likely to be 

 a slight increase in the oil, if they are not opened at once; 

 but it is not safe to leave them more than one month. 



The Products. The work of opening the nuts and dry- 

 ing the copra is too well known in the Philippines to need 



FIG. 93. Method of collecting tuba in bamboo cylinders 



