March 1, 1904.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 595 
COCONUT TEODUCTS IN 190.3. 
CEYLON'S OUTTURN. 
Our annual review ot the outturn of Coco- 
nut products exported from the Island h:is 
been unavoidably delaj'ed, but it will have 
been seen from our comments ou our exports 
generally, that 1903 was a year of excep- 
tionally heavy shipments. Oil still con 
tinues, and will probal^ly continue, to take 
the lead, as the product which absorbs 
the largest quantity of nuts, and which is 
of the greatest importance to the palm 
industry. Last year it secured for itself quite 
a unique position, having not only distanced 
the year of highest exports of twelve years 
ago, but having also stepped altogether to 
a higher range of figurea. Since 1892, when 
550,977 cwt. were sent away, we relapsed to 
three and four hundred thousands which 
had never before been exceeded, and only 
managed jus^t to exceed the half million in 
1902, when 512,498 csvt. was reached. Last 
year, iiowever, a big stride was taken to 
665 357. Whether this phenomenal outturn 
of oil is to be maintained, contrary to the 
experience of past years, when a drop im- 
mediately followed a big rise, remains to be 
seen ; but the signs are favourable. Two 
successive years of abundant rainfall should 
enable the trees to yield a crop above the 
average, while the demand for oil continues 
active, and America, as the trade report we 
published last week shows, promises to be 
a good customer. It is not only in Europe 
that improvements in refineries are putting 
an increasing quantity of Coconut Od, in 
various shapes, on the market, as food. 
American enterprise is developing the trade 
— albeit on the usual narrow and protective 
lines ; and recently, so great was the de- 
mand, that Ceylon Oil, which generally goes 
into consumption for soap in America, was 
competing with Cochin Oil for culinary 
preparations, and, mirabile dictu, was selling 
at about the same price ! Surely thexe is 
a call here for the clean drying of Copra 
so that a clean white Oil might be mauu- 
factured locally— fipart from what may be 
warned for Koap making— so that the pre- 
eminence of Ceylon might be establish ed in 
this product, too. The subject was discussed 
in our columns two or three years ago, 
when leading Planters complained that clean 
drying was thrown away, as the local 
mills and exporters gave no better prices 
for white Copra than for black, mouldy stuff 
of the same driage. Does the same lack of 
discrimiuation still subsist ? 
But to proceed, in Copra, too, as we saw 
in a recent article, last year has established 
a record— and even a more remarkable one. 
The year of largest outturn had been 1898 
when, per saltum. the exports rose to 506,277 
cwt. from about one-fifth that quantity 
which had been the highest record. Since 
then the figures never rose above threes and 
fours ; but last year g;\ve even sixes the 
slip, and mounted to 721,575. And for Copra 
too, the demand remains active and is 
promising for tlie same reasons which render 
75 
the outlook for Oil hopeful. The countries 
m which refineries have been established 
are not content with the manufactured 
article, but have added mills for the extraction 
of Oil to their industries, with a view to 
providing themselves with fresh Poonac ou 
the spot for their stock. In connection with 
these new industries two questions arise : — 
(I) Why are no efforts made to manufacture 
the food products locally— as is done so 
successfully with Cocoa in the Ukuwela 
establishment run by the Messrs. B;u-ber— 
instead of our importing Cocotine, Marga- 
rine and cooking butters from Europe ? (2) 
Why is it thac the mother-country has not 
followed the example of the foreigner and the 
cousin across the pond m establishing mills 
for crushing Copra and developing the con- 
nected industries? We read of languishinsr 
ti'ades, of foreign dumping, of armies of 
emigrants and unemployed through obsolete 
fiffcal regulations. But there is no let or 
hindrance to the free importation of Copra 
and Coconuts, which are chiefly grown within 
the Empire, and to competition with others 
in the nianufacture of wholesome food 
products for man and beast. Is this not one 
of the ways in which Great Britain allows 
herself to be beaten or anticipated by the 
foreigner ? Hostile tariffs have unquestion- 
ably prejudiced the land of free trade in 
many ways ; but it cannot be too often 
repeated, that industrial and commercial 
supremacy is not a question of tariffs alone. 
Education, industry, sobriety, thrift, enter- 
prise are all important factors ; and it is in 
these that British Master and Serrant alike 
have to realise the need of fresh effort. 
Desiccated Coconut, too, has been sent 
away in larger quantities than ever before, 
aggregating 17,485,169 1b, against 16 227,585 
which was the outturn for 1902, the previous 
record year ; bub in Coconuts in the shell, 
numbering 13,129,349, last year has to take 
a back place— the number having been ex- 
ceeded on four occasions, but never by even 
two million nuts, as 15 rniUioiis have yet 
to be reached in our exports. The deficiency 
is easily explained and is much more than 
covered by the excess under other heads as 
will be seen when we sum up as usual, 
the exports reduced to nuts. We adhere to 
the same basis of calculation as in past years, 
though we admit that it is faulty in some 
respects. Averages are difficult to compute 
with Coconuts— more than, perhaps, with any 
other staple of ours -owing to the difference 
in the size of nuts according to the 
several varieties and in the thickness 
of kernel according to cultivation ; 
while even from the same tree the weight 
of kernel differs according to the season, the 
nuts being generally heavier during the 
three snuill crops than those picked for 
the three big crops, between April and 
September. Besides, a different basis of cal- 
culation would render comparison with the 
output of past years impossible. We, there- 
fore, adhere to the computation which has 
done service for years, of 500 nuts to one cwt. 
of oil, 250 nuts to a cwt. of copra, and 3 nuts 
to one lb. of desiccated kernel. 
