4 BULLETIN 3 4, PORTO RICO EXPERIMENT STATION 
NUT PRODUCTION 
In vigorously growing young trees the crown is much less compact 
than in older trees, and the bunches of nuts are much less securely 
supported. Consequently, in the early fruiting period of a tree 
numerous well-developed nuts drop before reaching maturity. No 
distinction is made here between nuts that drop prematurely and 
nuts that mature before they are picked, because the production 
tendency rather than the actual number of salable nuts produced 
is the main point of interest. 
Prior to the beginning of production the thrifty appearance of the 
palms in plat No. 1, receiving salt alone, was noted. 
By January, 1920, six years after planting was done, 10 of 90 
palms had blossomed and 25 had flower buds. Six months later, 
47 palms had blossomed and 3 additional palms were budded. At 
that time 10 palms, or all in plat No. 9, and 9 palms in Plat No. 1 had 
blossomed. In each of the other fertilized plats 4 to 6 palms had blos- 
somed or were budded, whereas in the check plat only 2 had 
blossomed and none of the others showed buds. This appeared to 
indicate that fertilization tended to bring the palms into production 
slightly earlier than would have been the case with unfertilized 
palms. By January, 1921, all palms had blossomed but one, and it 
blossomed prior to July, 1921. The average production per palm by 
plats is given in Table 1. 
All treated plats exceeded the check plat in yield, apparently indi- 
cating that some benefit had been derived from the materials applied. 
This assumption is further borne out by the preponderance of low 
producers among the palms of the check plat and the fact that it 
included none of the high producers. The rank of the highest- 
yielding palm in this plat was thirty-fifth from the top. 
From a hasty glance at Table 1 it might be inferred that since 
plat No. 2 gave the highest production, the application of nitrogen 
and phosphoric acid was the most effective of the treatments used. 
But plat No. 6, which received the same amounts of nitrogen and 
phosphoric acid as plat No. 2 and potash in addition produced much 
less than plat No. 2. Plat No. 7, which received twice the quantity 
of the same fertilizers as plat No. 6, produced annually only one- 
fourth nut more per palm than did plat No. 6, and included three 
palms of low yield, whereas plat No. 6 included but one. Plat No. 
1, to which neither nitrogen nor phosphoric acid was applied, pro- 
duced almost as many nuts as plat No. 2, and more than any of the 
other four plats to which nitrogen and phosphoric acid in one form 
or another were applied, and contained more palms of high yield 
than any other plat. Clearly the wide variation in production was 
not correlated principally with the application of any one, two, or 
three fertilizing elements, but was due in a greater degree to some 
factor more potent than the fertilizers applied. 
Figure 1 shows graphically the individual production of the 
palms as they stood in the field. The differences in production be- 
tween palms which received identical treatment and which were 
growing in apparently uniform soil were very pronounced. Palms 
Nos. 23 and 33 with those on both sides of them furnish notable 
examples. It is also worthy of note that the most productive palm 
in the field, No. 23, stood adjacent to, and within 33 feet of the 
