July i, 1903.] 
THE TROPICAL AaRiCtJLTURlST. 
63 
To the Editor. 
TREATMENT OF COCOA BY 
MACHINERY. 
Port of Spain, Trinidad, April 29. 
Dear Sir, — Having a good many friends 
in your island, I take the liberty of sending 
you the enclosed cutting which appeared in 
the Fort of Spain " Mirror " of April 2nd, and 
which, I believe, will greatly interest them. 
—Yours faithfully, H. SMITH. 
[The cutting appears on page 52,— Ed. T. 4.] 
ON FIBRES AND ECONOMIC CLEANING. 
Assam, India, May 10. 
Dear Sir,— I am in receipt of your notes on 
Fibre extraction and see in page No. 3S you 
mention, Marool fibre i.e., " Sanseviera 
Zeylanica " I am interested in " Sanseviera 
Trifasciat'a " a fibre plant something like 
S. Zeylanica. 
To clean " S Trifasciata " and to extract the 
fibre by machinery is my trouble, as I 
know of no machinery capable of cleaning 
or extracting the fibre. You say on page 
38 "a cultivation of the Marool on a scien- 
tific system, the fibres being extracted by 
' Benke's ' machines, would yield magnificent 
results &c., &c. VVould y&u kindly oblige 
me by giving rae the address of the makers 
of this fibre machine. Also any particulars 
or references to persons knowing the machine 
will much oblige, — I am, yours faithfully, 
S. 
[The cost of cleaning is always the rock 
on which experiments fail. In Ceylon a good 
deal of money has been spent in trying to 
get profitable returns ; the latest being by 
a Syndicate that took up a machine to 
deal with aloe fibre ; but the work was too 
expensive. In Mauritius on the other hand, 
the sugar planters with fibre cleaners 
attached to their powerful machinery and 
rich soil to grow the aloes, do a fair amount 
of export trade in fibre. As to the 
"Sanseviera" and our correspondent's re- 
ference, we would advise an inquiry of 
Burn & Co. or any of the big iron houses 
in Calcutta as to Benke's machines. Our 
remarks were based on West Indian in- 
fer mation. —Ed. T.A.^ 
"MADRE DEL CACAO." 
Botanic Gardens, Singapore, May li. 
Sir,— In the Tropical Ar/ricuUurist, April 1st, 
p. 716, you state under Occasional Notes 
that the Madre del Cacao of Colombo is 
Millettia atropurpurca, which was obtained 
from Central America, and is easily grown 
from cuttings. This seems to me very 
curious as "Millettia atropurpiu'ea " is a 
gigantic tree, common in our river-banks all 
over the peninsula. I have never attempted 
to grow it from cuttings and should not 
expect it to grow thus. The plants usually 
known as Madre del Cacao are Erythrinas, 
commonly tl. striata, which answer to your 
description as to cuttings and fiowers. The 
flowers of the Millettia are small deep- black 
purple with golden fur. It is a grand tree, 
but not very rapid in growth. We always 
grow it from seed. — Yours truly, 
HENRY N. RIDLEY. 
[The remark, which has brought tis Mr. 
Ridley's letter, occurs in the " Agricultural 
Magazine ' givea as a Siiriplcaient to the T.A." 
and Mr, 0. Diieberg, as Editor, has been at pains 
to trace the error an.l will give an explanation in 
his next number. The proper name fhould be 
" Lnnchocarpus "—not Erythiina — Ed. T. A-] 
COCONUT OUTTURN ;-OIL AND 
POONAC TO NUTS. 
Colombo, May 18. 
Sir, — With reference to the article on 
Coconut Exports appearing in the " Tropical 
Agriculturist " of February, I regret to say 
that I cannot follow your reasoning in con- 
nection with the Poonac expoi ts. 
rhe poonac is the refuse of nuts which have 
already been represented in the figures under 
oil, and it seeuis to me that you aie in error 
in adding to the nut equivalent in the way 
that you have done. If any adjustment of the 
tabulated figures under oil is necessary, it 
should probably be in the shape ot'.i reduction 
in the nut equivalent, as your estiaiaLe of 500 
nuts to a cwt. of oil is surely very high. As 
much is admitted in your remarks about the 
poonac exports, and the figures there indi- 
cated 375 to the cwt. are probably nearer 
the mark. Accepting the latter data, the 
number of nuts exjiorted in the shape of oil 
works out, therefore, at 192,186 750 against 
your estimate of 256,219,000 with an addi- 
tional 61, 924,25 J nuts for poonac. 
In this connection I would also inquire 
if the figures in the Coconut Planters' 
Manual (page 15) are correct. It is 
stated that 40 full grown nuts are re- 
quired to make a gallon of oil, and that 
2;^ gallons go to the cwt. Thnt means an 
outturn at the rate of 100 nuts per cwt. of 
oil worth at present R14. We have before 
us, therefore, three statements on this subject, 
and the question is which is nearest the mark 
100 : 375; or 500 per cwt. In the Eastern Pro- 
vince, outturns, I believe, vary from 28 to 
about 32 nuts per gallon — ^working with 
Chekkus, of course. — Yours faithfully, 
J. J. P. 
[Our correspondent raises an interesting 
question and one on which there is often 
considerable difCerence of opinion, justifiabki 
so far as the experience of different district*, 
yielding small or large nuts, goes. We 
cannot understand how the February state- 
ment, "J.J. P." corrects, passed into print. 
Our authoritative statement will be found 
on pages 114-115 of our " Handbook and 
Directory " for 1901 (it will be gone into 
carefully again for edition 1903-4) as fol- 
lows :— 
It require^i about 40 full-grown nuts, or a year's 
crop from a good tree, to ni ike 1 gallon of oil, 124 
of which (500 nuts) go to a owt. worth about K16. 
Copra requires from 170 to 200 nuts to the cwC. 
Desiccated coconut kernel for confectionery— 3 nuts 
to 1 lb.— is a reeent local manufacture of growing 
