Planting in the West Indies 67 



the producers be compelled to allow the nuts 

 to drop, as unripe kernels cause such unsatis- 

 factory copra, and one man's unripe supplies 

 can give an entire centre a bad name. As 

 the nuts need only be gathered two or three 

 times a year, the cost of hand gathering would 

 not come heavy, and any nuts that may be 

 overlooked will, in due course, find their way 

 unaided to the ground. On the other hand, 

 Mr. William S. Lyon writes : " The practice, 

 so general in the Seychelles, of allowing the 

 nut to hang till it falls to the ground is certainly 

 undesirable in these islands (the Philippines). 

 On the contrary, the over-ripe nuts will seldom 

 fall until dislodged by a storm, and it is no 

 uncommon thing where the harvesting is left 

 to natural causes to see nuts upon the trees 

 that have sprouted and started to grow. Such 

 nuts are, of course, worse than valueless for 

 the manufacture of oil or copra, as there is a 

 danger of their being included with the sound 

 nuts, and even the husk has depreciated in 

 value, the finest coir being, as a matter of fact, 

 derived from nuts that have not attained full 

 ripeness. In any case the nuts should be 

 picked, and the crop worked up before any 

 considerable enlargement or swelling of the 

 embryo occurs, as from this time onward, 

 physiological changes arise which injuriously 

 affect the quantity and quality of what is 

 called the meat. The heaping up of the 

 nuts for some time after harvesting favours 



