6 
COCONUT INDUSTKIES. 
The increase in the coconut crop for the year 1914 was not 
repeated in the year 1915 and the reduction in the crop for the 
year under review is so large that much apprehension was felt 
in the Colony. The crop for 1915 is about the same as that for 
1913. The crop for 1914 was larger by about 5 million nuts. 
This is a great reduction indeed. 
There are unfortunately very few estates on which the 
records of the crops are carefully kept year by year and the 
amount of information at my disposal tends to show that the 
reduction was worse on worn out estates and negligible on 
estates on which the soil is rich. The crop for 1915 on a few 
of these latter estates is even larger than in 1914. Leaving 
aside these rich estates which form the exception in the Colony 
it is not easy to explain in a few words the cause of the reduc¬ 
tion on the other estates. 
I do not think external factors, such as climate, insect 
pests, prolificity of the variety cultivated, excessive rains, &e., 
can be invoked. There is one internal factor which is often 
lost sight of and which has probably showed its influence this 
year. I mean a period of under bearing following a period of 
over bearing which is common to all fruit treps cultivated either 
in temperate or in tropical countries. The crop for 1914 was 
a very large one and the coconut trees being unmanured, the 
balance in the physiological conditions of trees was upset. This 
should induce planters to manure their trees carefully if they 
want to avoid waves of depression in their crops. 
.Normally the crop is reduced from January to May by the 
fall of immature nuts. The same trees recover however in 
Jun< j and produce maximum crops in October. It is probable 
that climate factors such as heavy rainfall has something to do 
with the dropping of immature nuts which are not properly 
pollinated during heavy showers of rain. But the regular 
periodicity in the falling of immature nuts shows that coconut 
palms are disturbed by periods of different vegetative activity 
which react on the crops. 
1 had a few young trees put under observations all the 
year round and obtained the annexed tabulated statement 
showing results in the flowering and bearing powers of each 
individual tree. 
The flowering is more frequent and the shedding of imma¬ 
ture nuts less frequent in March and October and these two 
periods correspond to periods of greater vegetative activity. 
In order to show that the influence of the climate should not 
be overstated it is interesting to point out that these periods 
of vegetative activity and greater production are the same in 
widely different countries, as far as climatic factors are con¬ 
cerned. In Ceylon, for example, the rainfall is very heavy in 
May and short in February while in Seychelles it is qirfe the 
reveise, although the crops are much heavier in May in the 
4wo countries. It is difficult to avoid thinking that under 
these circumstances there is some internal or physiological 
factor which governs the flowering and bearing powers of coco¬ 
nut palms, independently of the more obvious external factors. 
These palms seem to contract the habit of flowering and fruit¬ 
ing more abundantly at certain periods of their growth and 
certain varieties are known to produce large crops at longer 
intervals : such as a variety of the King’s coconut in Ceylon 
which produces only one crop in two years, in spite of all artifi¬ 
cial measures adopted to make them fruit more frequently. 
The tree No 1 in our list is a King coconut from Java and its 
periodical flowering is also interrupced by long periods ot rest. 
There is only one way to get out of the difficulty ot short¬ 
age of crops and that is manuring. The fruiting of a tree is, 
after all, dependent on the quantity and quality of the food 
placed at its disposal, but it is a mistake to think that one can 
get rid of the habit contracted by the palms for geneiations 
of flowering periodically and for this reason alone the selection 
of varieties seems to be of paramount importance. Tnere is 
no plant which has been more left to itself in the past than 
the coconut. I gathered on one island, in May last, the fo low¬ 
ing very different varieties of nuts from trees growing on the 
same piece of ground, within a short distance of each other. 
