140 



THE COCO-NUT 



CHAP. 



expense for fertilizers to prevent this impoverishment 

 is therefore very little. Practically the same considera- 

 tions apply to other grains as do to rice. Maize is 

 everywhere easy to raise. Its use therefore makes less 

 demand upon labour. In most places it too is a 

 profitable crop, though the gross returns are not likely 

 to be comparable to those from rice. Because of its 

 height, maize must not be planted too close to young 

 coco-nuts. 



In recently established coco-nut plantations in the 

 Philippines, it has been a very common practice to mix 

 coco-nuts and abaca. With a reasonable measure of 

 neglect, rather than of attention, the abaca is expected 

 to begin to yield returns during the third year, and to 

 continue to do so up to the tenth year. The theory is 

 that, in about ten years, the coco-nuts will come into 

 full bearing and the abaca - will be worn out. This 

 combination of crops has little indeed to recommend it. 

 The abaca* shades practically all of the ground by the 

 time that it comes into bearing. If an attempt is 

 made to plant it so far from the coco-nuts that the 

 latter are not shaded, there is practically no place left 

 to be occupied by the abaca (Musa textilis). 



Whenever I have seen the combination in practice, 

 the coco-nut is shaded, except for the tips of a few 

 leaves which grow straight up and close together, 

 before the end of the first year. The coco-nut, therefore, 

 during the first years, when the bole is first getting 

 established and the tree is fixing its habits of growth, 

 receives so little light that it forms fewer leaves than 

 it should, and these of slow growth, and starts life with 

 a slender stem which never afterwards becomes as stout 

 as it should be. From the standpoint of the coco-nuts, 

 the interplanting with abaca* is therefore a thoroughly 

 bad practice. The mixture of the two crops might 

 still be a good business practice if it yielded very large 

 returns during the years that the abaca is in production. 

 But this is not the case. While the abaca at first 

 shades the coco-nut|, and hinders its development and 



