The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



about picking of nuts. He should read my para 

 again. I said I knew of no other country where 

 men climb the trees and pick the nuts. This 

 doeB not infer that in Ceylon no other method of 

 collecting the crop is favoured. His remark 

 about the lie is not in the best of taste. Per- 

 haps he would have 4,600. But, Sir, I find my 

 figures were wrong after all. We had 75 trees 

 to the acre and in 1896 the pickings turned out 

 an average of 63J nuts per tree over the whole of 

 the bearing portion. This givesj[4,752£ nuts per 

 acre on the average. What does Mr Beven think 

 of that ? He perhaps would have said 4,750 or 

 4,755, or something else not correct. I have al- 

 ways been under the impression that there were 

 4 and not 5 candies to a ton. 



In conclusion Mr Beven should travel and see 

 what other countries can do in the way of coco- 

 nut producing. I, also, at one time thought it 

 impossible to beat Ceylon as^coconut country. 

 But travel has changed my views. — Yours, 



T. A. Manchip. 



"BV FINAL REPL^. 



Negombo, 5th June, 1912. 



Deak Sik, — My friend Mr. Chas. Grenier, 

 Editor of " Grenier's Rubber News," sends me 

 hi ) issue of the 29th May, presumably because 

 it contains a (very angry) reply of Mr. Manchip 

 to my letter of the 28th April last, which was 

 written in response to a request from you for 

 opinions on Mr. Manchip's letter. It will be 

 well for Mr. Manchip to learn that a discus- 

 sion can take place without a childish display 

 of temper. My " most superior manner " must 

 be evident only to Mr. Manchip's distorted 

 vision. Europeans, as well as natives, have 

 " planted up hundreds of acres of laterite " I 

 cannot divine what Mr. Manchip is aiming at 

 whon he writes " the low-country Sinhalese in 

 whom Mr. Beven seems to place so much con- 

 fidence." I always place confidence in anyone, 

 whatever his nationality, who deserves my con- 

 fidence. The veriest tyro knows that " loose 

 white sand " will not yield good results as re- 

 gards cropping unless fertilised. 



What Mr Manchip states as a fact "that manu- 

 ring was stopped on these fields (loose white 

 •and) after Mr Beven took charge. — I do not say 

 on his advice— and the crops fell off very con- 

 siderably, and it was not until a regular system 

 manuring was again adopted that things brigh- 

 tened up once more," is pure, unadulterated fic- 

 tion, evcked out of a very imaginative brain. I 

 know nothing personally of the Straits. I have 

 read that black beetle has proved to be a pest, 

 and has been legislated against and that there is 



an Inspector of Pests. In which part of the 

 Strait?, I do not know. I favour the Dutch dis- 

 tances of putting down coconut plants 25'x25' 

 as I think that a proper distance. This is the 

 almost general distance adopted by all coconut 

 planters. There was no occasion for Mr Manchip 

 to indulge in the cheap and ill-mannered sneer 

 cf my " Sinhalese friends' methods." Anybody 

 but Mr Manchip would have seen that my re- 

 ference to his great care to be exact was banter 

 Is Mr Manchip a Scotchman ? 



I am very interested to learn that Mr Man- 

 chip picked 63J nuts per tree in 1896 " over the 

 whole bearing portion." The information would 

 have been more interesting if Mr Manchip had 

 mentioned its acreage. I made a slip in my 

 previous letter when I calculated the ton at 5 

 candies. "J. D. V. " of Negombo corrected me 

 and I thankfully received his correction. I am 

 most anxious, and had been before Mr Manchip 

 advised mo, to travel and enlarge my experience 

 of coconuts. I applied for leave to my previous 

 employers at the beginning of last year to go to 

 the Straits. The reply was : " Your application 

 cannot be entertained." If I had the time and 

 the means, 1 would visit not only the Straits, but 

 Java and Sumatra as well. I do not hold the 

 opinion with which Mr Manchip credits me, 

 that it is " impossible to beat Ceylon as a coco- 

 nut country." I wish, by personal inspection, to 

 satisfy myself that other countries do better 

 than we. This ends this controversy, in which 

 we are both agreed in the main. — Truly yours, 

 B. 



COCONUT BUTTER: OLEOLINE. 



Captain Svensen, of Brisbane, who has large 

 interests in the Solomon Islands, told a Sydney 

 interviewer that copra, the flesh of the coconut 

 was steadily advancing in price, and was today 

 three times as high as it was when he started 

 planting in the islands twenty years ago. One 

 reason for this was that a variety of butter, 

 known as oleoline, was being manufactured on 

 the Continent out of coconut oil. The product 

 was pure white, with a rather nutty flavour, 

 and many people preferred it to the ordinary 

 butter. In Germany, where margarine was 

 prohibited, a tremendous demand had set in for 

 oleoline. It sold there at from 3d to 4d per lb. 

 less than best butter. He was surprised that 

 some manufacturer had not started operations 

 in Sydney, where the copra could be got cheaper 

 A lot of oleoline, perhaps not under that parti- 

 cular name, was imported into Australia, and 

 used for confectionery purposes. He had been 

 informed that the Hindus, who cn account of 

 religious scruples would not touch butter made 

 from cows' milk, were beginning to use the 

 coconut butter; and if this were the case, it 

 would give an enormous impetus to the coconut 

 growing industry.— Fiji Times. 



