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CULTIVATION OF THE COCO-NUT. 



Soil and Climate. — A moist tropical climate, with good and some- 

 what sandy soil, near the sea, is the best for the growth of the Coco-nut 

 palm. If the tide rises so that the sea may flow in daily over the plan- 

 tation, so much the better, but drains must then be made, so as to allow 

 the water to run off freely. 



Sowing. — Ripe dry nuts only should be used, and the very largest 

 that can be obtained. Nuts for seed should be gathered from trees that 

 are mature but not too old, and kept dry for five or six weeks before 

 planting. The nursery -bed should be made under slight shade such as 

 that of the Coco-nut palm ; it should be thoroughly dug to a depth of two 

 feet, and the soil well mixed up with ashes and coarse salt. At the be- 

 ginning of the season's rains the nuts are put into this seed-bed on their 

 side, at a distance of one foot apart, and so that about two inches appear 

 above the surface. The nursery-bed should be kept damp, but not too 

 wet. It is a good plan to transplant them into other beds at two feet 

 apart when they are from two to six months old. 



Transplanting. — When the seedlings are from six months to two 

 years old they may be transplanted to their permanent positions in the 

 plantation, at distances from each other of twenty feet. Pits should be 

 dug for them, as large as three feet every way in poor soil ; ashes and 

 salt are useful additions to any soil, and it may be necessary to give 

 also a top-dressing of manure which should not be dug in. They 

 should be shaded by bananas or plantains for two years. 



Tillage and Manuring. — The Jamaica Nuts are very small and do 

 not give much "medt" as compared with those from Central America, 

 India and Ceylon. This may be due partly to unfavourable conditions 

 of soil, climate, etc., but much might be done to improve the fruit by 

 careful selection of nuts for seed, and a liberal treatment of the trees in 

 the plantation by tillage and manuring. It is calculated that in India 

 there are 480,000 acres under the Coco nut, and the cultivation is at- 

 tended to carefully. In Bombay, for instance, after the seedlings are 

 planted out, they are watered every day or two for the first year, every 

 two or three days for the second and third years, and every third day 

 for the fourth and fifth year. " During the rains, from its fifth to its 

 tenth year, a ditch is dug round the palm and its roots cut, and little 

 sandbanks are raised round the tree to keep the rain-water from run- 

 ning orf . In the ditch round the tree, 22 pounds of powdered dry fish 

 manure is sprinkled and covered with earth, and watered if there is no 

 rain at the time. Besides fish manure the palms get salt-mud covered 

 with the leaves of the croton-oil plant, and after five or six days with 

 a layer of earth ; or they get a mixture of cow-dung and wood ashes 

 covered with earth ; or night-soil, which on the whole is the best 

 manure." (Waifs Diet.) 



In the tropics of the old world generally, it is customary when the 

 plant is one year old to dig round the roots and apply ashes once a 

 month ; when the tree is two years old to open up every year at the 

 beginning of the rains the roots to a distance of four to six feet from 

 the stem, to apply ashes and dry manure to the roots, and leave the 

 opening until the end of the lainy season, then to fill in again the soil 

 which had been removed, and level the ground. During the time the 



