Bdible Products. 



156 



In Ceylon seed-nuts are selected from trees of strong and robust growth, 

 and of [middle age, producing large nuts with thick and heavy kernels ; the nuts 

 are allowed to mature on the tree, and when picked are lowered by hand and not 

 thrown down as is usual here. Nurseries are prepared in good land, in or near to 

 the field to be planted, by trenching 18 inches deep and dividing into beds 3 feet 

 wide. The seed-nuts are laid side by side on the beds, and the spaces between 

 filled in with earth, after which the beds are covered with grass or straw to the 

 depth of 3 inches, and water is applied frequently, especially during dry weather. 

 After six months the young plants are removed to other nurseries where they 

 are planted 3 feet apart aud where high cultivation is concentrated upon them. 

 When the plants are from two and a half to three years of age, the whole field 

 is cleared, lined, and holed, and the plants from the nurseries are transplanted 

 to the positions they will permanently occupy. All nuts which are slow in spring- 

 ing in the first nursery are rejected and not replanted into the second, and any 

 plants in the second nursery which do not show vigorous growth are also rejected ; 

 so this method gives opportunities for an exceptionally good selection of seed, and 

 it is claimed that fields planted in this way are most regular and yield the largest 

 number of nuts per acre. The saving effected by not having to keep the whole 

 field clean for the three years during which the plants are growing in the nurseries, 

 is claimed more than to cover the cost of the nurseries and transplanting three 

 year-old plants. 



After planting, the young trees should be kept free from grass and weeds 

 until they come into bearing ; here it is usual to keep only such laud as is occupied 

 by the young trees clean, and this practice has its advantages as it keeps the 

 unoccupied land under cover and economises labour. Fields come into general 

 bearing here between the ages of from 12 to 20 years, depending upon the quality 

 of the land and mode of cultivation, but from the fact that many individual trees 

 begin to bear at eight years of age it may be inferred that, with a more careful 

 selection of seed and a more liberal system of cultivation, this long period might 

 be considerably reduced. 



From the time crops are reaped there is a constant drain of plant food from 

 the land, which must be made good somehow, or the ultimately inevitable exhaus- 

 tion of this plant food must bring about failure of crops. This exhaustion depends 

 upon what part of the produce is removed and not returned to the land, as the husk, 

 shell, oil, and meal contain the more important plant foods of the soil in different 

 quantities and proportions. Thus, if only oil is shipped from the plantation and the 

 meal and ashes of the husks and shells used as fuel are returned to the land, the loss 

 will be of little consequence, especially if the meal is fed to stock whose manure 

 is utilised. If, on the other hand, the unpeeled nut is shipped the loss 

 is great. 



Analysis of the different parts of the coconut show that 1,000 husked or 

 peeled nuts remove from the soil 5*22 lbs. of potash, 4'95 lbs. of nitrogen, 1*60 lbs. of 

 phosphoric acid, 1*18 lbs. of sodium chloride, and 0'48 lb. of lime, which suggests 

 kainit, basic slag meal, and green soiling with a leguminous plant as a cheap and 

 effective system of maintaining the fertility of a coconut plantation. 



Little tillage or manuring has been done hitherto on Trinidad plantations, 

 which is probably accounted for by the fertility and suitability of our soils at pre- 

 sent under coconuts, and the shortness of time the best plantations and those 

 undermost intelligent management have been in cultivation ; but one has but to 

 compare them with some of the older plantations to see what they may come to if 

 this is neglected. 



