IV 



SELECTION OF SEED 



113 



product must be placed. As a rule, the product will 

 be marketed in the form of copra or of oil. In this 

 case the first consideration is the total amount of copra 

 or oil which a variety will produce, and next in im- 

 portance to this is the size of the individual nuts. For 

 between two varieties of approximately equal total 

 productiveness, the one with the larger nut is decidedly 

 the more valuable. This is for the obvious reason that 

 it costs about as much to harvest, to husk, and to open 

 a small nut as it does a large nut, and that therefore 

 any given amount of copra can be manufactured more 

 cheaply from large nuts than it can from small ones. 

 It is further to be observed that the copra of large 

 nuts will sell on a really discriminating market at a 

 higher price than the copra of small nuts, because it 

 can be marketed in larger pieces. The difference in 

 economy in handling large nuts and small nuts is so 

 great that even though one of the dwarf nuts, which in 

 general mature several years sooner than the large nuts 

 do, were approximately equally productive with one 

 of the very large varieties, it would still in the long 

 run not be economical to select the dwarf nut for the 

 manufacture of copra. 



If the product of the coco-nut is to be marketed 

 in the form of jaggery (tuba, or coco-nut wine) or used 

 to make alcohol, sugar, or vinegar, then the choice of 

 variety will be entirely different. The value of the 

 product is here independent of the size of the nut, but 

 depends on the total vigour of the tree and on the 

 number of fruit clusters which are formed. The number 

 of these fruiting branches is often greater on the dwarf 

 varieties than it is on the varieties with large nuts. 

 Since the dwarf varieties are also productive at a much 

 earlier age, it is obvious that these are the ones to be 

 chosen. In the Philippines the coco nino is the most 

 valuable nut for this use. 



There are also special uses of the coco-nut and 

 special markets for some of the products. To meet 

 these a special selection of the seed nuts or special 



i 



