General Notes 60 1 



Madras Mail recently told us : " We are 

 mindful rather of the repeated failure of 

 coco-nuts to justify the anticipations indulged 

 in regarding them by sanguine directors. 

 Take, for instance, the case of the K ........ 



Coco-nut Estate Company, a Ceylon rupee 

 undertaking, which, according to the Investors 

 Chronicle, offers another instance as to the 

 unremunerative character of coco-nut planting. 

 It owns 18,550 trees in bearing after eleven 

 years' existence, equivalent to 206 acres, and 

 last year's crop, which was well in excess of 

 the estimate, was 250,919 nuts, or under four- 

 teen nuts per tree ! J . . , a Malayan under- 

 taking, after three years of intensive cultivation 

 with coco-nuts grown under ideal conditions, 

 has had to reduce its official estimate for 1913- 

 14 to 750,000 nuts, against 1,000,316 obtained 



in 1910-1 r. S , which anticipated 300,000 



nuts for 1912-13, but harvested only 173,734 

 nuts, has now reduced its official estimate for 

 1913-14 to 200,000 nuts. These estates are under 

 first-class management, and these facts, says 

 our contemporary, " should serve to warn the 

 investing public against those who are privately 

 touting for subscriptions to coco-nut companies. 

 The Colonial Secretary would never have 

 issued his warning against the coco-nut schemes 

 of ex-Government officials unless there had been 

 very strong reason." We include these remarks, 

 not to frighten or discourage would-be planters, 

 but to warn them of what to expect ; and, above 



