THE] 
COLOMBO 
Added as a Supplement Monthly to ihs " TEOFICAL AQRICULTUBIST." 
March : 
The following pages include the Contents of the Agricultural Magasiins for 
Vol. XL] 
MARCH, 1900. 
[No. 9. 
THE COCONUT INDUSTRY IN CEYLON. 
iLTHOUGH the coconut palm has 
been cultivated aud has flourished 
in tlie Island for centuries, its 
products did not until recently 
take as prominent a part as 
might have been expected among 
exports. The explanation is that the palm is 
slow of growth, taking from five to fifteen years, 
according to the character of the soil, to come 
into bearing, and not being in full bearing till ten 
to twenty-flve years. In these circumstances, 
European capital which expects quiet returns such 
as coffee, cacao, tea, and cardamons yield, has not 
been largely attracted to it ; and the experience of 
European planters in the Northern and Eastern 
Provinces, where only very small profits were 
derived owing to the difficulties of transport, was 
not such as to encourage investors- What the 
native plantations yielded, lessened by the enor- 
mous claims of home consumption, was therefore 
practically all that reached the market aud was 
available for export and for manufacture at the 
hands of British merchants, Within the past ten 
to fifteen years, however, there has been an im- 
mens* development of cultivation, partly through 
the growth in knowledge and enterprise of the 
Ceylonese themselves, and partly through the 
appreciation by Europeans of the fact that, though 
the returns from coconuts are low, they are sur«r 
than from any other industry, and that as an 
investment there is nothing to equal palm culti- 
vation. The following figures from the exports 
Statistics of the Island will show at a glance the 
immense development there has been in the 
coconut industry : — 
1861. 
Value. 
Cwt. Rk. 
Cocouufc Oil 83,605 1,010,430 
Do Poonac . . No record. 
Copra ... 27,279 18^,680 
Coir ... 43,163 nOS,640 
Desiccated Coconuts ,. Not established 
Gals. 
Arrack 39J,3o5 267,870 
1898. 
Cwt. 
Valu». 
Rs. 
Coconuts 
435,93S 6,684 30S 
216 620 897,426 
.Wli,277 6,328,462 
183,931 1,767,345 
116,433 2,342,971 
Gals. 
65,^02 153,094 
Nut-. 
79,960 12,027,714 541,247 
The foregoing figures show not only the great 
advance made by every product of the coconut 
palm since 1861, but also the new uses to which 
the nut and its products are put. Thus, in 1861, 
either there were no exports of poonac (the kernel 
refuse after oil is expressed) or they were so small 
as not to be worth recording. Now they are sent 
away by thousands of hundredweights to various 
parts of the world, chiefly Europe, to fatten stock. 
The trade in desiccated coconuts is of very recent 
growth, and the exports have found a place in the 
commercial tabular statemants only since 1891 ; 
now the kernels of about 40,000,000 nuts are 
annually deprived of their moi.sture after being 
sliced in desiccators, and packed in lead-lined 
boxes are sent to all parts of the world, including 
France, to be used for confectionery, &c. 
The above items, however, do not exhaust the 
list of the products of the coconut pahn sent away 
from the island. There is a trade in cadjans (or 
thatch) and mats made of the leaf, in coir mats 
and rugs made of t!ie hu<k, in laths nnd rafters 
raide of the wood, and in u variety oF ariicle*!, 
useful and ornamental, made of the shell. Alto- 
gether the value of the export* of the products of 
tlie coconut palm cannot be far short of 19 million 
