170 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



"The salient points," continued Mr. Knocker, 

 " derivable from those details, if borne in mind, 

 will tell the prospector of coconut land almost 

 in a few glances whether the property he is 

 contemplating purchasing is worthy of further 

 investigation. The topography, however, heing 

 satisfactory the geological formation of the 

 hills through which the streams flow that heip 

 to fertilize the land should be enquired into, 

 and the sea-shore, and river beds examined. 

 But these and other details requiring thought 

 and attention are obvious from a close study 

 of what I have roughly outlined to you. 

 Black Humus. 

 "To sum up: what the coconut planter should 

 look for is a soil of a black humus nature 

 washed by a sea or a river tidal way and land 

 well supplied with an admixture of shells and 

 sands and additionally enriched by natural 

 mountain alluvials. 



"In many parts of the world it has been 

 proved that, given such a soil, it is possible 

 to obtain the very best results from trees 

 planted 65 or 70 to the acre. But so far as 

 my researches go it is not to be found in the 

 Malay Peninsula to any appreciable quantity, 

 the best that I have so far seen, in large 

 cultivatable areas, being a light-coloured brown 

 hnmus on which, however, I don't think it 

 would be advisable to plant more than 48 trees 

 to the acre." 



Clean Weeding and Manukee. 

 " Clean-weeding ? Y68, I am of the opinion 

 that that is essential for coconut-land in Malaya 

 for reasons that will be obvious to the practical 

 planter. But I don't wish that to be recorded as 

 a law because the course of time may prove 

 otherwise. In fact, a Central American friend of 

 mine at present in London told me that there — 

 in Central America, not London, by-the-way ! — 

 they obtained best results by allowing a sub- 

 stantial undergrowth to cover the roots until 

 about the 4th year. By this method he, and the 

 planters in those regions, found the initial crop 

 was put back one year, but when the trees did 

 fruit they yielded a much heavier shower 

 of nuts. But as far as I can see, the most 

 successful coconut planters in Malaya will be 

 those who make a fine art of soil analysis 

 and manuring, that is to say, not to manure 

 the land indiscriminately but doctor it in 

 such a way as to enrich it with those elements 

 it is naturally devoid of. By that remark I want 

 you to understand that different localities in this 

 country will require different forms of manure ; 

 for it is quite obvious that in using a manure 

 manufactured from a stereotyped recipe or for- 

 mula the planter will, in all probability, be laden- 

 ing his soil with a constituent which it already 

 has a natural abundance of, whilst on the other 

 band he may be withholding something of which 

 it is entirely bereft. 



A Word of Warning. 

 " But there is a lot to be said about the culti- 

 vation of coconuts, and I ara seriously afraid this 

 is being overlooked in Malaya, and many plan- 

 ters are going into it too light heartedly after 

 the abnormal success of rubber. There will be a 

 lot of money thrown away upon it for this very 

 reason." 



PLANTAIN FIBHE INDUSTRY. 



Jaffna, January 15th. 

 Sir, — Perhaps many are not aware of the latent 

 source of wealth that lies buried in the plantain 

 fibre, which now practically goes to waste. In 

 the following few lines, I shall endeavour to 

 place before your readers the results of my 

 observations, and the experiments I. have been 

 carrying on, while I was in India some years 

 back. 



The main reason of our not utilizing the fibre 

 contained in the plantain, which is a common 

 plant in Ceylon, is, I believe, due to the general 

 ignorance of its existence. Experiments have 

 shown that the plantain fibre is admirably 

 suited for cordage of a superior quality. The 

 Manilla rope, which is very largely used 

 in ships and for machine driving, is made of 

 the fibre extracted from the " Manilla Plantain," 

 which is a native of the Malaya Archipelago. 

 Experiments for manufacturing fibres out of 

 plantain fibre were also made, and were found 

 satisfactory. 1 had with me a few different 

 kinds of these turned out by the Trivandrum 

 School of Arts, Some of them looked even 

 better than silk. 



The extraction of the fibre is a very simple 

 process, and is done by means of a machine 

 which in itself is very simple. The first of the 

 kind I saw was the invention of Mr. Proudlock 

 of Ootacamund, the pioneer of this industry 

 in South India. It consists of a smooth piece of 

 wood 4 ft. 6 in. by 6 in. on two posts fixed to the 

 ground, and a blunt knife fixed to it lengthwise, 

 with its edge downwards. One end of a string 

 is attached to the handle of the knife, and the 

 other to a long piece of bamboo to form a lever, 

 which is pressed by the loot to raise tbe blade 

 when working. The cost of it was only about 

 Rs. 3. The disadvantage of this machine is, 

 that it is not easily portable. An improvement 

 on this was the one made at the School of Arts, 

 Trivandrum. The Superintendent of this insti- 

 tution describes the machine as follows : — 



"The frame work of the machine is in teak- 

 wood and the scraping blade, with the squeezing 

 fluted rollers, fitted parallel to each other at the 

 top, are actuated by two separate strong springs 

 worked by foot levers. The machine on the 

 whole is sufficiently small and light, to enable it 

 to be carried conveniently to the very spot in 

 the plantain gardens, where the trees are cut, 

 saving thereby a large expenditure, that has 

 otherwise to be invariably incurred in the trans- 

 port of the raw material, The additional 

 mechanism for squeezing with the fluted rollers, 

 which work in ad vatice of the scraping operation, 

 gives greater pliability to tbe plantain seaths 

 and renders the extraction of the fibre much 

 easier." 



Experiments have shown, that a man with a 

 few clays' experience on the machine will be 

 able to "work about ten plantain stems a day, 

 with th r * assistance of a boy, to tear the seaths 

 into longitudinal pieces of an inch and a half 

 wide, and assisting him generally. An average 

 plantain stem cut for fruit yields about 1 Jib. of 

 fibre. The wages of the man and the boy may 

 be put down as 50 cts. a day, and for this 50 cts. 

 we get 151b. of fibre. At this rate it costs 



