September, 1908. J 



229 



Edible Products. 



of the Coconut Palm," adding to his 

 very full notes some twenty diagrams. 

 Mr. Herbert Walker wrote on "The 

 Relation of the Production of Oil to the 

 Nut, "with ten full-page photographs. 

 Mr. Walker, in the February issue, also 

 writes on " The Keeping Quality of 

 Coconut Oil, and the Causes of its 

 Rancidity," and Mr. Charles S. Banks on 

 "The Principal Insects Attacking the 

 Coconut Palm," continuing the article in 

 the April journal. These articles are 

 accompanied by numerous illustrations, 

 showing the insects and the harm that 

 they do tothe trees and fruit. 



Most of the investigations were carried 

 on at the San Ramon Government Farm 

 on the west coast of Miudanoa, which is 

 some ten miles north of the town of 

 Zamboanga. The head Bureau is situat- 

 ed, of course, at Manila. 



Mr. Copeland comes to the conclusion, 

 as regards the effect of water on the palms 

 that if a considerable supply is not con- 

 stantly at the disposal of the trees, it will 

 protect itself by a partial suspense of its 

 vitality. As regards fertilisation, it is 

 the unanimous experience of those who 

 are acquainted with the subject that an 

 increase in some of the constituents of 

 its mineral food has a very marked 

 favourable effect on the production of the 

 fruit. Certain trees, as with cacao and 

 coffee, are pointed out as particularly 

 productive, because they have Ions; 

 received the waste from the kitchen, and 

 it is recognised that the quantity of 

 mineral food w r hich the tree takes is 

 roughly proportional to the amount of 

 water which it absorbs, the solution 

 absorbed being more concentrated than 



that in the ground. The palm will 

 naturally grow in a "poor" soil — that is, 

 one in which the mineral nitrogenous 

 raw food is present in very dilute solu- 

 tion ; but it must not be expected to 

 thrive even on the richest soils if its 

 supply of light is restricted by other 

 trees or in auy other way. Increasing 

 the plant's transpiration has the same 

 effect, once it can absorb moisture from, 

 the soil, as applying a fertilizer to the 

 ground, and its transpiration (emission of 

 vapour) is somewhat accelerated by the 

 wind, and greatly so by intense illumina- 

 tion. It therefore follows that the wider 

 apart the trees stand the better yield. 

 A double row of trees yielded, in a cat- 

 ting, twenty-two nuts per tree ; a single 

 row, i.e., without trees on either side, an 

 average of twenty-seven nuts per tree ; a 

 tree planted alone gave fifty-five nuts at 

 a cutting. 



On this point Mr. Copeland considers 

 that up to a distance of at least 15 metres 

 (metre =3 ft. 3^ inches) any increase in 

 the intervals between the trees would 

 probably result in an appreciable ad- 

 vance in the average yield per tree ; but 

 whether the total yield per acre or hec- 

 tare would be commensurate with the 

 extra area of land such wide planting 

 would require seems very doubtful. 

 Mr. Copeland himself adds: "In my 

 opinion, the trees in a grove can 

 usually best be placed at intervals of 

 about 9 metres. In exposed rows they 

 may well be closer together, and where 

 intense cultivation is economically pos- 

 sible the distance between them maybe 

 a little less." — Tropical Life, Vol. IV., 

 No. 2, February, 1908. 



