THE CUBA REVIEW 



27 



AGRICULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL NOTES 



COMMERCIAL YIELD OF OIL IN COPRA 



There seems to be no doubt that the 

 average commercial yield of oil in copra 

 is 63 per cent in the experience of German 

 crushers. This yield leaves a cake with a 

 content of 6V2 to 7 per cent of oil, and at 

 times the cake contains even as much as 

 11 per cent. 



Fresh cocoanut kernels contain from 30 

 to 40 per cent of fat, sun-dried copra con- 

 tains as much as 50 per cent and kiln-dried 

 copra considerably more — sometimes as 

 much as 74 per cent. Lewkowitsch states 

 that the mean content of fat in copra ob- 

 tained from 21 analyses was 68.3 per cent. 

 In these tests the maximum percentage was 

 attained in copra from the Pacific Islands 

 and was 74.72 per cent. Malabar and Cey- 

 lon copra came next with 71 per cent, while 

 Manila copra yielded in some instances 67 

 and 68 per cent, and had a low record of 

 64.7 per cent. 



The above figures from Lewkowitsch re- 

 fer to total oil content. The Hamburg 

 crushers expect to obtain an average of 63 

 per cent of oil. In a single pressing of the 

 raw material the variations are said by a 

 well-known machinery manufacturer to be 

 from 60 to 66 per cent. Both hydraulic and 

 continuous-process presses are in use in 

 Hamburg and both types of presses are 

 manufactured in this country. Both types 

 of presses have their special advantages, 

 the continuous-process press being particu- 

 larly useful in dealing with soft kernels, 

 while the hydraulic presses are more par- 

 ticularly available when the material at hand 

 is hard and tough. 



IMPROVING THE AGUACATE 



Orchardists in southern Florida are be- 

 ginning to plant out aguacate seedlings with 

 the idea of saving those which stand the 

 fruiting test, giving them names just as 

 seedling oranges, pomelos and apples are 

 named and thereafter propagated by bud- 

 dage ; most of the Florida as well as the 

 California avocados are budded nowadays, 

 i. e., they are named varieties, on a par with 

 the named citrus fruits. 



One feature of avocado growing not to 

 be neglected is the selection of varieties 

 that will fruit during the dry season. This 

 would avoid possible loss of fruit through 

 injury by wind and rain. 



Another thing which will tend to make 

 the avocado one of the few really important 

 fruits of the future is the very high nu- 

 tritive value of the pulp; this contains 

 from ]', to 18 per cent of readily digcstil)le 

 oil besides a fair percentage of starch and 



sugar. In fact, the avocado is one of the 

 few fruits which would serve as an emer- 

 gency ration without any other food for a 

 considerable time. The comparatively high 

 price of the fruit on the retail market, de- 

 pending largely upon the supply, of course, 

 is almost entirely responsible for the slow 

 progress of this fruit toward world-wide 

 popularity. 



A very distinct type of aguacate with 

 thick, hard skin, and found in Guatemala, 

 which promises to surpass in shipping 

 qualities the better known forms, is rec- 

 ommended by the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. 



"N'irgen" banana, an unidentified wild species in 

 tlie Pliilippines, having tlie fruits covered with 



husks. 



SOME COCOANUTS 



-Mr. O. W. Barrett, chief of the Division 

 of Horticulture at Manilla, gives some 

 figures of the world's cocoanut yields. He 

 says : 



"If all the cocoanut trees of the world 

 gave forty nuts apiece we would have the 

 tremendous crop of ten billion nuts per 

 year, or well over 300 nuts per second. 

 These, if laid end to end, would form a 

 line reaching around the earth ninety 

 times, which would make a broad belt 

 some 20 metres or 6.") ft. wide over land 

 and sea." Mr. Barrett estimates that the 

 I'Iiilii)i)incs have .'iO.OOO.ODO trees bearing 

 and otherwise, against 60,000,000 in Ceylon. 



