480 



The Supplement to the Tropical Agriculturist 



ground. A number of buds will then sprout, 

 from the sturnp,and will form several trunks that 

 will bear fruit like the mother plant in a 

 short time. These sprouts, except two or three 

 should be cut off, for if all are permitted to grow 

 the fruit produced will be smali. 



Seed Selection.— Seed should be saved from 

 the best fruits only. By this is meant not so 

 much a larqe fruit as one that is sweet and well 

 flavored, with a small seed cavity and few seeds; 

 oblong fruit should be preferred, to roundish 

 ones in saving seed, as they grow on plants 

 having both stamens and pistils in the same 

 flower and these being, very largely, self-polli- 

 nated, the seeds produced from such flowers are 

 more likely to reproduce their kind than the 

 seed from roundish, raelonshaped fruits, which 

 mostly grow on female plants. 



All male plants should be deetroyeel wherever 

 they appear, as not only are they unproduc- 

 tive but by their pollen being carried to the 

 fruiting plants they tend to produce degenerate 

 plants when these are grown from ttie seed 

 produced on plants growing in the vicinity of 

 the male plants. 



There is no need to fear that the other plants 

 will not fruit if the male papayas are destr oyed, 

 for the reason that there are always plants 

 about having perfect flowers and which provide 

 sufficient pollen for the fructification of the 

 female plants. This applies particularly to the 

 Hawaiian papaya. 



General Remarks. —The papaya is very 

 impatient of water standing around the roots 

 and should be planted only on well-drained 

 laud ; being easily injured by strong winds, 

 it should be planted in sheltered situations. 



Keep the land clean of weeds anil the plants 

 well mulched. 



MR. W. WBCHERLEY ON THE 

 VALUATION OF COCONUT ESTATES. 



Sir, — In view of the present undoubted acti- 

 vity both in trade and company promoting 

 circles with respect to the copra industry, it 

 may not be out of the place to submit a few 

 salient facts regarding output and values of 

 average coconut estates such as would appeal to 

 the British investor. Primarily it must be 

 borne in mind that the majority of the>e pro- 

 perties are native owned, and for the most part 

 grossly neglected as regards cultivation, and 

 wastefully managed into the bargain. 



A full-bearing tree will yield 40 to 60 nuts for 

 copra per annum in six pickings, and 4,000 to 

 5,000 nuts are required to make one ton of copra. 

 Malabar and Ceylon copra fetches £3 to £4 per 

 ton more than the kiln-dried copra of Malaya 

 and the Pacific Islands. One hundredweight of 

 copra will give68 lb. of oil and 44 lb. of "poonac" 

 or cattle cake. The husks taken from the nut 

 intended for copra are utilised for making fibre 

 (coir) and 1,000 husks will produce 1 cwt. of 

 bristle fibre and 5 cwt. of mattress. As regards 

 the other utilities to which the tree lends itself, 

 such as the making of "toddy," &c, these have 

 little concern (or the European investor. 



"Poonac," which, as already stated, is the 

 residue "cake" after the oil has been expressed 

 from the copra, is a valuable cattle food, much 



superior either to linseed or cotton cake, as the 

 following analysis will show : — 

 Carbo- Albu- 



Food. hydrates, minoids. Fats. Water 



Coconut cake 40-60 1811 11.21 9'7 



Linseed 27-10 24 - 17 8'6 1217 



Cotton cake U"i 17-1 5-21 11-2 



Valuations of coconut estates based on the 

 per capita value of each tree are fallacious and 

 utterly worthless from an investor's point of 

 view, inasmuch as no two trees will yield alike, 

 neither are they by themselves insurable against 

 disease, pests, storms and other risks always 

 associated with tropical agriculture. One of the 

 recognised systems {and perhaps the best) is to 

 take a qualified expert's report on the property 

 as a whole, and than to dissect the certified 

 "counts'' of nuts for each of the six picking 

 periods over the previous four years, carefully 

 noting the picking of the fifth period, as this 

 should always give the largest proportion (20 

 per cent, to 25 percent.) of the total yield. 



Where these records are not available — which 

 is very often the case with native-owned pro- 

 perties —the safest plan is to take an average of 

 20 to 45 p6r tree (according to their condition 

 and age) and divide the total into thousands, 

 multiply that amount by three, and in this 

 manner we get approximately the net annual in- 

 come from the estate. 



Thus, suppose a property contains 500 acres 

 of fully- bearing palms, planted 60 to the acre, 

 the census (supposing there are no vacancies) 

 will give 500 by 60 equals 30,000 trees. At 40 

 nuts per tree the yield will be 30,000 by 40 

 equals 1,200,000. Multiply 1,200 by 3 we get 

 net income £3,600, which at twelve years' pur- 

 chase gives a value of £45,200. Deductions are 

 made (1) in the case of leaseholds, (2) where 

 buildings, plant, &c, are in a state ot disrepair 

 or do not exist, and (3) where there are evi- 

 dences of neglect in present cultivation. The 

 balance will then represent the full value of a 

 native-owned coconut estate. — I am, &c, 



W. WlCHERLEY. 



22, Liraes-grove, Lewisham, S.E, 

 — F. Times, Oct. 21. 



BANANA WINE 



has, according to the S'dcte, been successfully 

 manufactured at Saigon, in Oochin China, by 

 two Frenchmen, M. M. Guarin and d'Heerille. 

 The product is obtained by the fermentation 

 of the banana juice with yeast made from the 

 fruit. The liquor, besides being much cheaper 

 than ordinary spirit, is 9aid to have a delicious 

 perfume. — M. Mail, Nov. 3. 



THE QUEENSLAND NUT. 



Considerable interest attaches to the news 

 that Americans are planting the "Qeenslandnut" 

 in great quantity in California. The American 

 Government recently obtained 20,000 nuts from 

 Queensland for this purpose. The " Queensland 

 nut " is closely allied to, if not identical with, 

 the candle nut (Macadamia Ternifolila), and is 

 one of the mostnutritivenuts iutheworld. It has 

 a very hard and thick shell, and in planting 

 operations selection is employed by choosing the 

 nuts for seeds with comparatively thin shells. — 

 F. Times„Oot. 13. 



