March 1, 1904.] TaH TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 635 
THE DISTRIBUTION OP CEYLON'S COCONUT 
PRODUCTS. 
In view of tlie growinR importance of the 
Coconut industry of the Island, both as 
regards che acreage under cultivation and 
the quantities of palm products sent out of 
the Island, the distribution of our exports 
is of interest. The increase in the quantity 
of Oil exported last year, was, we saw, on 
the 10th instant, phenomenal. Of the 665,3.57 
cwt. sent away (against 512,498 in 1902) 
nearly two-thirds went to the United King- 
dom ; and what is significant is that this 
proportion is higher, with reference to the 
outturn, than was the case in 1902, In that 
year, the Mother-country took 301 647 cwt. 
out of the 512,498 exported, or less than 
three fifths. It would be interesting to know 
how much of the 422,024 cwt. which found 
its way to England was entered for home 
consumption, and how luuch was distributed 
among other countries. With regard to Tea, 
there is no difficulty in distinguishing between 
the figures for home consumption and for 
exports -thanks to the industry and enter- 
prise of the Tea Firms wliich issue their 
weekly Reports. If similar figures are avail- 
able for Coconut products, we should like to 
have them from our Mercantile friends. They 
would be of special intere^^t, in view of the 
fact that almost every country which does 
take our Oil had it in greater abundance last 
year -America's 93,000 cwt. for 19o2, having 
run up to over 107,000 cwt , Austria's 24,000 
to 31,000 Germany's 13,000 to 22 000, France's 
238 to 13,262 and Italy's 5,9.55 cwt. to 17,201. 
On the other hand, Russia has been content 
with 42 cwt., in place ot the 181 of the 
previous year ; while India, the only other 
country which shows a drop, has receded 
from 64,370 cwt. in 1902 to 20,327. But 
whereas India, once a large importer of both 
Oil and Copra from here, has been content 
with 112 cwt. of Copra, Kussia has taken no 
less than 223.530 cwt , beicg second only to 
Germany with its 256 299 cwt. What is the 
explanation of the decadence of the trade 
with India ? 
It is, however, the enormous increase m the 
demand for Copra from European countries, 
which demands special attention, when con- 
sidering the products of the Coconut palm. 
It is not only that the Mother-country is 
vastly distanced by every European nation 
who takes the product save the Dutch- 
Sweden, the least, taking more than double 
—but that the quantities taken by Russia or 
Germany alone are far in excess of our total 
annual exports for any year up to 1898. It 
wag in that year we made a giant stride to 
506,000, which held the record till 1903 bounded 
up to 721,575 cwt,; and it is this growth m 
the European demand which is of interest 
to the statistician and the producer. The 
growth in the exports of both Oil and Copra 
is clearly connected with the increasing 
appreciation of Coconut Oil as an article of 
food. Local medical men have long since 
recognised its uourishing properties, and have 
recommended its use largely in curries, etc, 
to patients who cannot afford to take Cod 
Liver Oil, or who cannot overcome their 
dislike of that useful preparation. And the 
80 
natives have always been, of course, large 
consumers of Oil, both through the milk, 
which enters into almost every form of 
cookery, and through the home-made Oil, 
which is used in all frying processes, of sweets, 
as well as of meat and fish. But it is only 
recently that the European palate outside 
the Isl.'ind has learnt to appreciate palm 
produce as food — in the form of Cocotine, 
Coconut Butter and the desiccated nut in 
confectionery. But, as we asked before, 
does the United Kingdom do as much as 
it can (and, surely, as it should) in prepara- 
tions from Coconut Oil for the table ? It 
seems to us that she has allowed Continental 
brains and energy to steal a march on her 
in this matter. To the question we pro- 
pounded recently, why is nothing done 
locally to manufacture some of the food 
preparations which are sent back to the 
Island from its own Oil, Copra and Nuts ? 
— an answer seems forthcoming in the Report 
of the Planters' Association, from which we 
learn that " the manufacture of Coconut 
Butter is reported to be well under way, 
and it is hoped the enterprise will be suc- 
cessful." We heartily re-echo this hope, 
because the growth of the Coconut Industry 
is scarcely less important to the progress in 
prosperity of the Island, than is the Tea 
Enterprise ; and because its fullest develop- 
ment can best be assured by the wide en- 
listment of the products of the Nut, as 
articles of food. What the palm is to the 
Natives of the Island, only those who have 
lived among them, and studied their wants 
and habits, can fully realise. If it has in- 
duced in the peasantry a contentment which 
has inclined them to a rather listless life, 
there can be no doubt that it has contributed 
largely to their health and comfort, and 
even to the wealth of the more energetic 
and enterprising among them. It is chiefly 
in the inland districts, where water is scarce 
and the palm is unknown, that the people 
are sickly and emaciated, and are fallen 
victims to parangi. The extension of plan- 
tations is bound to exercise a very whole- 
some influence on these, and on the village 
population of the arid districts of the Island. 
Immense as the 566 million nuts, which we 
have computed as the equivalent of our 
exports last year, may seem, the local con- 
sumption of nuts can scarcely be less. What, 
then, should the consumption of the world 
amount to if butter and other preparations 
of the Coconut be popularised as they are 
being popularised ? It is, of course, the 
Ceylon Tea Plantations Company, to whose 
experiments and enterprise the Report of 
the Association refers. And we cordially 
wish it as full a measure of success in Coco- 
nuts as it has already secured in Tea. 
PROJECTED PEAliLING FLEET FOR 
QUEENSLAND. 
Mr T B Farquhar, a pearlshell buyer at 
Thursday Islaurl, has stated in the course of 
an interview, that an American lirni has beea 
buying shell at Thnrsiiay Island, but being 
unable to secure as mucli as it wanted, now 
intends to build a large (tleet of boats to start 
worK on its own accownt,— Australian paper, 
