and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society.-April, 1910. 



provided for it, to be, if necessary, re-treated. 

 This appears to be an ingenious piece of 

 apparatus which apparently reduces rubber 

 production to a puiely mechanical, or physical, 

 process, and, if it carries out satisfactorily all 

 that its inventor claims, should greatly accel- 

 rate the output. 



The celebrated German chemist, Emil t ischer, 

 has discovered a true solvent for caoutchouc in 

 ethylene dichloride, a volatile non inflammable 

 liquid with a non-explosive vapour. The so- 

 called rubber solvents do not actually dissolve 

 caoutchouc, which is only swelled and diffused 

 through them, and ethylene dichloride differs 

 from them in that it actually dissolves rubber, 

 or causes it to assume the liquid form just as 

 much as water dissolves sugar, and the sugar 

 passes into the liquid state. This discovery, 

 in all probability, will have an important bear- 

 ing on the manufacturing industry.— London, & 

 China Express, March 18. 



OUR PALM PRODUCTS FOR THE 

 FIRST QUARTER OF 1910. 



STEADY RISE ALL ROUND. 

 The first quarter of 1910 was a remarkable 

 one in that while nut crops were normal, all 

 products, save desiccated, kept on rising in 

 price steadily instead of falling the same as in 

 other years. 



Coconut Oil. —This is well over last year 

 the figure being 98,514 cwts against 84,621 ; it 

 is also well over the last four years for this 

 quarter. The price f.o.b. kept on rising until it 

 reached R580 per ton, almost up to the record 

 price (R585) of 1907. This export is remark- 

 able in the face of the great demand for copra. 



The United States of America have completely 

 deserted us this year, and any Ceylon oil 

 they got must have been from the United 

 Kingdom. The only way we can account for 

 this is the probable heavy imports from 

 their own Colony, the Philippines, of either 

 oil or copra — able possibly to lay it down via 

 San Francisco cheaper than we could from here. 

 Besides, high prices may be driving them 

 back on the cheaper West African palm oil for 

 soap making. 



Copra — both in export and as regards price 

 — has exceeded all past records for the period. 

 The drying of this has been very briak. Very 

 high prices were paid for best nuts, reaching in 

 some cases nearly R70. The outturn was good 

 it taking about 1,300 nuts to the candy on an 

 average. The export at the end of March 

 (April 4th) reached 134,302 cwts. against 119,873 

 cwts. to the same date in 1909. 



Desiccated. — This was very dull over the 

 quarter, prices ranging from 18| cts. per lb. to 

 21cts. for ordinary assortment- Some mills 

 had to stop work a short time, while all the 

 rest were going very slow, some turning their 

 attention to copra drying, which seemed to 

 pay them better during February and March. 

 High-priced sugar causes a falling off in manu- 

 facture of confectionery, etc., and demand for 

 desiccated nuts from the manufacturers is then 

 poor. Early in the season some millers refused 

 22£ cts., feeling sure the produce was bound to 



rise— in sympathy with nuts, oil, and copra; but 

 it was the very reverse. The year began with 

 very heavy exports, thus making matters worse, 

 and it looked as if heavy shipments had been 

 carried forward from December to January. 

 The swing is the other way now ; and our 

 quarter ended (say, on April 4th) with a total 

 export of 4,741,751 lb. against 4,910,386 last 

 year. The outturn was normal, it taking a 

 little under three nuts to the pound. 



Poonac. — There is a slight increase in this for 

 the quarter ; but, as long as the present heavy 

 shipments of copra go on, we cannot expect 

 to do very much more in the way of shipping 

 poonac. 



Nuts in Shell.— There is a falling-off in our 

 Coconut Export to date, but of late years there 

 has been little change in our total shipments, 

 our greatest year being 1908 with 21,188,692 

 nuts; while ten years ago, we were sending 

 away about 150,000,000 nuts. 



Coir.— There is very little falling-off in this 

 as compared with last year. Prices have been 

 improving, but, the demand is not what it 

 was a decade ago. It looks as if some cheaper 

 material has been found by the trade. 



To give our readers some idea of the impor- 

 tance of our great coconut industry, we find that 

 notwithstanding our having gone through one 

 of our worst droughts, there being little or no 

 rain in some nut districts for fully 18 months, 

 in 1908, our record year, 

 Oil and Poonac took ... 268,048,400 nuts 

 Copra do ... 215,132,825 do 



Desiccated nut do ... 82,230,690 do 

 Nuts in shell ... 21,188,692 do 



*For Arrack and Toddy and Esti- 

 local consumption ... 230,000,000 mated 



Making a total of 816,600,607 nuts 



which, at the low average of 4 cts. each, gives 

 us a total value of R32,664,024'28 against 

 R40,000,000 estimated by Dr. Attygalle a few 

 days ago, a figure which will probably not be far 

 out for the 1910 outturn with its record prices. 



GUANO FOR RUBBER TREES. 



A planter from the Dutch Islands calling recen- 

 tly on Mr H NRidley, Director of Botanic Gar- 

 dens, S.S., stated that he had remarkable in- 

 crease in growth of his Para rubber trees, after 

 using guano, imported from Europe. A small 

 quantity was put round each tree in a shallow 

 trench surrounding the tree and covered in with 

 soil. The cost was three cents a tree. This 

 inexpensive method of manuring might be very 

 useful in bringing on young plants. 



* Had the enormous number of trees set apart 

 for this, and which practically yield no nuts, 

 been cultivated as nut-bearers, the estimated 

 total for that year would doubtless have reached 

 816,600,607 nuts. Surely the great industry 

 is worthy of greater representation in Coun- 

 cil than at present obtains, both European 

 and native. The roads— not worthy of the name 

 — are a disgrace to Government in our outlying 

 nut districts. 



48 



