( 20 ) 
The trees commence bearing in about four years 
from planting, when a small crop of perhaps fifty 
pods per tree might be expectsd. Thereafter the 
increase in crop is very rapid. Fruiting takes place 
once annually, January — May. At this season the 
leaves drop off and for three or four months the 
tree is without foliage and is ripening its fruit. A 
plantation of about eight years would probably give 
an average of 400 pods per tree. The life of the 
tree, planted from seed, may be as much as fifty 
years. The writer has seen trees of 35 years of 
age yielding over 1,000 pods per annum, and under 
plantation conditions such yields should be quite 
possible in younger plantations. 
The pods should be plucked when ripe, and not 
allowed to fall when overripe, as is the practice in 
-Java and Malaya. The average composition of the 
pods is as follows: — 
Husk and Placentas 
. . 44% 
Seeds 
. . 35% 
Floss 
. . 21% 
It is generally estimated that one hundred pods 
will produce 1 lb. of clean kapok. 
Kapok seed contains over 20 per cent, of oil. Large 
quantities of seed are exported annually from Java. 
In 1912, nearly 300,000 piculs of seed were exported 
from Java, valued at about $600,000. The oil is 
employed in soap making and as an adulterant of 
other oils. The cake or meal, after expression of 
the oil from the seed, is a useful cattle food or 
fertilizer. 
Much of the kapok from Java is cleaned or partly 
cleaned by hand; but in order to obtain first class 
floss, its subsequent treatment by machinery is 
