161 



Edible Products. 



Upon suitable coconut soils— i.e., those that are light and permeable -common salt is 

 positively injurious. In support of this contention, I will state that salt in solution 

 will break up and freely combine with lime, making equally soluble chlorids of lime 

 which, of course, freely leach out in such a soil and carry down to unavailable depths 

 these salts, invaluable as necessary bases to render assimilable most plant foods ; 

 and that, on this account, commercial manures containing large amounts of salt, 

 are always to be used with much discretion, owing to the danger of impoverishing 

 the supply of necessary lime in the soil. Fin illy, so injurious is the direct application 

 of salt to the roots of most plants that the invariable custom of trained planters 

 (who, for the sake of the potash coutained, are compelled to use crude Stassfurt 

 mineral manures, which contain large quantities of common salt) is to apply it a very 

 considerable time before the crop is planted, in order that this deleterous agent 

 should be well leached and washed away from the immediate field of root activity. 



That the coconut is able to take up large quantites of salt may not be 

 disputed. That the character of its root is such as to enable it to do so without the 

 injury that would occur to most cultivated plants I have previously shown, while 

 the history of the coconut's inland career, and the records of agricultural chemistry, 

 both conclusively point to the fact that its presence is an incident that in no way 

 contributes to the health, vigour, or f ruitfulness of the tree. 



Mr. Cochran's analysis, based upon the unit of 1,000 average nuts, weighing 

 in the aggregate 3,125 pounds, discloses a drain upon soil fertility for that number, 

 amounting in round numbers to— 



Pounds. 



Nitrogen ... ... ... ... ... 8£ 



Potash ... ... ... ... ... 17 



Phosphoric acid ... ... ... ... 3 



Reducing this to crop and area, and taking 60 fruits per annum per tree as a 

 fair mean for the bearing groves in our coconut districts and on those rare estates 

 where a systematic spacing of about 173 trees to the hectare has been made, we 

 should have an annual harvest of 10,300 nuts, or, stated in round numbers, 10,000, 

 which will exhaust each year from the soil a total of 



Pounds. 



Nitrogen ... ... ... ••• ... 82J? 



Potash ... ... ... ... ... 170" 



Phosphoric acid... ... ... ... ... 30 



The coconut, therefore, while a good feeder, may not be classed with the 

 most depleting of field crops. 



To make this clear I exhibit, by way of contrast, the drafts made by a 

 relatively good crop of two notoriously soil-impoverishing crops— tobacco and corn— 

 and, on the other hand, the drafts made by an equivalent average cotton crop, a 

 product considered to make but light drains upon sources of soil fertility. 



A proportionate tobacco crop of 1,000 kilos per hectare will withdraw from 

 the soil (reduced to the same standard of weights adopted by Mr. Cochran)— 



Pounds. 



Nitrogen ... ... ... ... ... 168 



Potash ... ••• ... ... ... 213 



Phosphoric acid... ... ... ... ... 23 



An equivalent crop of shelled corn, say, of 125 bushels per hectare, will 



withd raw- 

 Pounds. 



Nitrogen ... ... ... ... ... 200 



Potash ... ... ... ... ... ... 135 



Phosphoric acid... ... ... ... ... 75 



