244 



THE COCOANUT PALM. 



quantities to meet any demand, and brought to town in the coasting 

 droghers. How many hundreds of acres are now covered with this 

 stately palm, and how many thousands of the nuts annually fall to the 

 ground, almost useless to the proprietor ! " 



It is a low and safe estimate to take the value of the produce of an 

 acre of cocoanuts in bearing at from SI. to lOZ. On the sea-shore 

 these trees begin to bear in six or seven years. A great part of the 

 waste shores of this island is very suitable for the growth of the cocoa- 

 nut ; and the demand for this most useful of all fruits, even where no 

 machinery has been erected for the preparation of its products, is 

 unlimited. The disease which destroyed the cocoanut tree in some 

 West Indian islands, is unknown here. Within the last three or four 

 years cocoanut trees have been planted, especially on the north side 

 of the island, more extensively than ever before. 



In Trinidad great attention has of late years been given to cocoa- 

 nut production. In 1863 and 1864 only 250,000 were shipped 

 annually, but in 1876 the number had risen to over 4,500,000. The 

 value of the export is now over 18,000Z. The civilized world of 

 the temperate zone can absorb all the oil and fibre the tropics are 

 likely to send for generations to come, however great the supply. 

 The trees are always in bearing, but we learn that in some quarters 

 at least, the Trinidad planters confine themselves to three great re- 

 gular pluckings, at four months apart — namely, in April, August, and 

 December. The cultivation is extending on the shores of the colony. 



The value of the cocoanuts and cocoanut fibre exported from 

 Trinidad in 1871 was estimated at 8732Z. against 2863Z. in 1870. 

 The cocoanut can be grown in unlimited quantities on the eastern 

 coast of the island, where two factories have been established for some 

 time for the preparation of oil and fibre. The difiiculties of pro- 

 curing labour in that remote part of the island, and of shipping the 

 produce on an exposed coast, have hitherto retarded the commercial suc- 

 cess of these establishments ; but if these difficulties can be overcome, 

 a large extension may be given to this branch of colonial industry. 



There is a considerable demand for cocoanuts in the United States, 

 but then the American captains require them to be delivered husked, 

 and that they be large and spherical. Cocoanuts can be had in Tri- 

 nidad at 10 to 13 dollars a thousand; in Jamaica they sell at 18 

 dollars, and in Central America at 25 dollars. A Trinidad paper well 

 remarks that " as the fibre could be so readily utilized in the States, 

 it is rather singular the traders do not oJBfer to buy the nuts, as picked, 

 at the low rates current in these islands, and husk and sort them 

 after arrival in America, selling the large handsome nuts to the first- 

 class fruiterers, confectioners, and grocers ; the smaller nuts to the 

 street seller, and the husk to the mat, mattress, and brushmaker, the 

 rancid nuts, if any, going to the soap-boiler. There is good reason to 

 believe we grow a goodly proportion of lusty, handsome nuts, having 

 firist-class soils for the tree, an equatorial climate and prolific bearers. 

 Planting is always extending, at Mayaro, Icacos, Irois, Carenage, 

 and other places, leaving many virgin beaches, along which, sooner 

 or later, they will be dotted. We have at least as good conditions 

 for producing prime nuts as any colony in these seas." 



