200 Coco-nuts The Consols of the East 



local markets. When the home trade is glutted 

 the fruit lends itself readily to canning purposes, 

 and under suitable conditions might be exported 

 with profit if the supply is enough to make a 

 market. As its cultivation requires the mini- 

 mum of care, its growing as a side line deserves 

 due consideration. 1 



Oranges and other citrus fruits are also said 

 to do remarkably well under coco-nuts, whilst 

 others again speak well of cotton for five or 

 six years, as did one of our friends, for 

 instance, of his caravonica under coco-nuts in 

 Tobago, West Indies. Attention should be 

 paid to these crops, they will invariably repay 



1 At the same time a word of warning. Away from 

 a remunerative local market, or where produced in 

 quantities too small for working up an export trade, 

 pineapples must be a dead loss, unless one day it is 

 found remunerative to cut out the young fruit and 

 develop the leaves for their fibre. When profitable to 

 plant, the coco-nuts, being 30 ft. apart either way, lend 

 themselves admirably for an intercrop of pines, which 

 always do good service on the slopes of hills as terraces 

 to prevent soil erosion, especially if planted quincunx 

 or triangularly, so that each other row stops the gaps 

 between the plants in the alternate ones. By such 

 means comparatively little space is left between one or 

 other of the roots for the earth to run through. Planted 

 3 ft. apart and 6 ft. from the palms, five rows of pines 

 could be introduced between the coco-nuts, when 

 30 by 30 ft., or four rows if the centre line be left 

 vacant, giving thereby a space nominally 6 ft. wide, 

 to admit of a passage through. Whatever may be the 

 drawbacks of such culture, the pineapples keep down 

 weeds, discourage soil erosion, and last but not least > 

 keep the soil open and aerated. 



