698 
*t HE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST* [AfatL 2, 1888. 
THE FOURTH QUAETEI! OF 1887 AND PART OF 1888. 
The coconut planters of the Mahaoya Valley 
have paid the penalty of a drought that con- 
tinued frdm the middlfe of December 1880 to the 
middle of April 1887, broken by ODly a few scanty 
sprinklings of rain. The coconut loves the sun, 
and responds gladly to its influence, but at the 
same time it needs much moisture in the soil 
it occupies, and if the due balance of heat and 
moisture be not maintained, the plant suffers. 
On grey loamy sands and level surfaces the tree 
can stand drought with little or no damage, but 
this district is composed of undulating uplands 
with very little level land, and none of the true 
coconut soil. The soil is, however, of good quality 
for the greater part, and very fit, tut for the an- 
nual recurrence of long droughts. During the year 
1887 the distriot was severely tried, and the 
consequenoes are very disheartening to the 
planters. At the end of 1886 there was on 
the trees the largest crop the district had 
ever borne, but the drought arrested the 
growth of the fruit half way to maturity, 
and though the two largest gatherings of the year 
were numerically better than the corresponding ones 
of any previous season, there was a loss of from 
80 to 40 per cent in the weight of copra as 
compared with the average outturn, 
As the planting of coconuts still goes on with 
unabated vigor, the question is being seriously 
mooted, whether they are not being overdone, like 
cinnamon and cinchona ? There can be no doubt 
that production is rapidly increasing, that prices 
are not holding their ground, and there seems 
little chance of any permanent improvement on 
present rates. On a former occasion I ventured 
to name something over 20,000,000 as the number 
of coconut trees in Ceylon : it was objected that a 
Government official had estimated them at more 
than twice that number ; it is therefore evident 
that he and 1 have proceeded on different methods. 
I do not know his, but here is mine. In the last 
closed commercial year, we exported : — 
C'nut oil 300,000 cwt. equivalent to 150,000,000 nuts 
Copra equivalent to 18,000,000 „ 
Nuts exported 10,000,000 „ 
178 millions. 
Take 20 nuts as the average crop per tree, and the 
result for exported proJuce is 8,225,000 trees, 
double that for local consumption 16,450,000, and 
add 3,053,000 for barren trees and young planta- 
tions, and we have 20,000,000. Allowing the aver- 
age of 100 trees to an acre, this gives 200,000 acres. 
I have slated the average bearing at less than the 
truth, and I rather over-than under-rated the 
loaal consumption, while the proportion of nuts 
to copra and oil is in accord with my own 
experience, as an old planter and oil maker ; I have 
th.er.foie to ask what becomes of the fruit, if from 
40 to 50 mill : on trees exist in the island. * 
It would be well to know what is being done 
in coconuts cn the Malabar coast, which is our 
chief competitor in the European market. If the 
enterpri;eis going ahead there as here, the period 
of glut will arrive the sooner. The doings of other 
lands is of little co lsequence to us, as the Austra- 
lian coloni '3 and China will probably absorb all 
the produce of Oceana, and the United States 
and Canada will take all the West yields, 
* We certainly do not see much room for criticizing 
these figures, save that the local consumption of nuts 
may be even larger than " W. B. L." makes it. What 
about the trees devoted to " toddy and arrack"? Has 
our correspondent not left them out of bis calculation 
altogether P— Ed. T, A, 
so that outside local competition we have 
only Cochin and the African palm oil to 
meet. If uncle Sam with his grand con- 
ceptions happened to be inside the tropics, we 
might soon expect him to supply himself and 
have some to spare for other markets; but I have 
great faith in the fact that the coconut is a 
strictly tropical plant, needing both tropical heat 
and tropical moisture to its perfect developement. 
In this island we can do nothing with it 2,000 
feet above sea level. The amount of sun heat or 
of air heat it will enjoy has never been measured, 
but we know well that it will not succeed where 
the temperature, even on rare occasions, falls below 
60 degrees. I must, therefore, demur to the pre- 
tension of the gentleman who professes to know 
more about the coconut than any other in the 
world when he plants 3,500 acres to the north 
of Cape Sable. 
Breaking up the soil, either by plough or ma- 
motie, and systematic manuring, are making way 
among the proprietors in this district, but to 
manure economically we need an analysis of 
poonac that can be depended on ; we know that 
the two heroic elements are nitrates and 
phosphates, but we need to know the due 
proportions necessary of nitrate to maintain a 
head of from 25 to 30 green leaves, and of 
phosphate to put 100 nuts per annum on such a 
tree. We know that we have no provision to make 
for the formation of oil, because all the elements 
of that product are derived from air and water, 
and few soils are deficient in the bases derived 
from the earth. 
Mr. Akbar, the owner of a large estate at Katu- 
kanda, has now completed a system of irriga- 
tion, by which he proposes to raise from the 
river nearly 400,000 gallons of water daily, which 
is to be carried over the property in pipes and 
drains. If this work should be sufficiently success- 
ful to add 250 nuts per acre to the aver 
age annual crops, it will be a very profitable in- 
vestment ; but if it succeeds at all, it will do much 
more than this, as witness the scores of germs 
that drop from every bearing tree during the 
three dry months. The most perfect success, how- 
ever, can only be taken as an example by 
estates bordering on the river, as an inexhaustible 
supply of water is an indispensable requisite for 
such an enterprise. We, who have no such 
convenience, must rest content, with keeping the 
soil in good heart, and trust to the rapid recovery 
of the trees when rain comes, as however forlorn 
they may look at the end of the dry season, they 
have generally put on a good heavy crop by the 
end of October, and if the dry season is not un- 
usually protracted and unbroken, the crops are 
perfectly satisfactory, if 60 nuts per tree over a 
whole estate without manure can be gathered. 
Writing this on the 23rd of February, it is the 
57th day without one drop of rain, but we have 
suffered much less than at the same time last 
year, owing probably, to the heavy rainfall o 
December. W. B. L. 
[Since then rain has fallen. — Ed. T. A.] 
-> 
PBOGBESS OF TEA IN HAPUTALE. 
A correspondent sends us the following :— 
" The progress made by the district of Haputa'e in 
the cultivation and manufacture of tea is surprizing, and 
in a short time nearly half the estates will be pluc king 
and making tea. The Haldummulla end of the district 
seems the furthest advanced in this respect, Needwood, 
West Haputale, and Berragalla being bard at work, 
' whilst the Ooslanda and Poonagala end still chiefly ad- 
I heres to its old love, coffee. Old Needwood has got a 
