158 



THE COCO-NUT 



CHAP. 



notes on the previous condition of the trees are very 

 often kept with too little care. 



It is no unusual thing for a planter to apply a 

 fertilizer to a grove, and to report the immediate 

 increase in the yield as a result, and then to consider 

 that the experiment has been closed. An increase in 

 the yield during the six months following the applica- 

 tion is indeed not impossibly a result of it ; but if a 

 very marked increase is observed during that time, it 

 is more likely to be due to something else than to the 

 fertilizer. From what has been stated in the earlier 

 pages, and from the observations which are made by 

 each class in this college, it is perfectly evident that 

 the principal effects of such treatment will make them- 

 selves felt from a year to two and a half or three years 

 after the application. 



The most considerable result must be very indirect, 

 by an increase in the general vital activity of the tree. 

 In its application to the nuts, this may show, first, in 

 the production of larger nuts, which may be manifest 

 within six months but surely not much sooner than this; 

 or second, in the production and ripening of more nuts 

 on each bunch, which can hardly be evident within nine 

 months of the application, and is never likely to be the 

 chief factor in the increase ; or third, in the production 

 of a greater number of bunches of nuts, or, in other 

 words, in the more rapid succession of bunches. The 

 same factors which will so influence the thriftiness of 

 the tree as to cause the more rapid production of new 

 bunches can also be expected to produce larger nuts, 

 and are likely to cause rather more nuts to mature on 

 a bunch. The rate at which the bunches of nuts follow 

 one another depends upon their rate of development, 

 and on the rate at which they begin to be formed. So 

 far as we know, fertilizers have little or no influence 

 upon the rate of development. This is certainly con- 

 trolled by the supply of water in much more con- 

 spicuous degree. The number of bunches cannot be 

 greater than the number of leaves produced in any 



