68 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VIII. 
The yield of fibre is estimated by Robinson at one pound of coir from each 
10 nuts, giving 35 fathoms of yam. He adds* that “ 2 lbs. of such yarn, 
“ measuring from 70 to 75 fathoms, are made up into soodies, of which there are 
“ fourteen to a bundle, averaging about a maiuid of 28 lbs. A Mangalore candy 
“ of 560 lbs. will, therefore, be the produce of 5,600 nuts, and should contain 
“ about 20,000 fathoms of yarn.” 
In contrast with this yield, Robinson mentions that it takes only tliree of the 
large coarse coast nuts to yield a pound of com, but that this coir will only 
produce 22 fathoms. A ton of Laccadive coir will thus produce 80,000 fathoms 
of yarn as against 50,000 yielded by a ton of Malabar com. 
By Mr. Robinson’s figimes, it will take over 20,000 nuts (22,400) to yield a 
ton of coir, which should produce 784,000 fathoms of yam. Mr. Hume (Stray 
Feathers, iv, 440) says it takes about 30,000 nuts to yield a ton of com. 
It is clear from what has been w’ritten regarding the Laccadives that they 
yield by far the best coir produced in India, and it will be equally evident from 
what has been said here that their superiority lies altogether in the facilities for 
sea-soaking offered by their lagoons. Yet from all the information that a 
consultation of the ordinary trade retmiis will yield, an enqumer into them 
might, as Watt remarks,! conclude that the Laccadives export no com. In trade 
retimis the Laccadive com from British Islands is given along with that from 
the Malabar Coast, and in European markets the best Malabar or Indian coir 
is spoken of as Cochin com. As a matter of fact, httle coir comes from Cochiu, 
and it does not present any features peculiar to itself or superior to those of com 
from other parts of Malabar. What the Em’opean merchant means by Cochin 
coir is pretty certainly Laccadive coir. Even when the coir is known to be from 
theLaccadives,some misunderstanding is produced by its bemg spoken of asEaltan 
coir or Ameni coir. As a matter of fact, Kiltan com has not quite the local 
reputation of either Chitlac or Kadamum coir, whereas Ameni coir is distmctly 
inferior to that produced in any of the other British islands. The application of 
the term Ameni com to the best quafities arises from two cmcumstances—the fact 
that the island of Ameni is one of the largest and often gives its name Amendivi 
to the whole group, and that, till quite recently, the lower caste people of 
Kadamum, where excellent coir is produced, were in some degree subject to 
their higher caste neighboims of Am6ui, and were compelled to ship their 
produce to the mainland in Ameni boats. 
Besides coir manufacture, a certain amount of coarse sugar (jaggery) manm 
facture is carried on, not at all extensively, however, in the British islands, since 
* Eobinson, Madras Journal, n. s., xiv, 16. 
t Diet. Econom. Products of India, ii, 421. 
368 
