William Scrugham Lyon

“ But there are expedients to which the planter may have recourse which, if utilized, may return every dollar of cultural outlay. By the use of a wise rotation he can not only maintain his land in a good productive condition but realize a good biennial crop that will keep the plantation from being a financial drag. The rotation that occurs to me as most promising on the average cocoanut lands of these Islands would be, first, a green manure crop, followed by corn and legumes, succeeded by cotton, and then back to green manures. ”

“ Copra and Cocoanut Oil. Until very recent years the demand for the “meat” of the cocoanut or its products was limited to the uses of soap boilers and confectioners. Probably there is no other plant in the vegetable kingdom which serves so many and so varied purposes in the domestic economy of the peoples in whose countries it grows. Within the past decade chemical science has produced from the cocoanut a series of food products whose manufacture has revolutionized industry and placed the business of the manufacturer and of the producer upon a plane of prosperity never before enjoyed. ”

“ The next step in our suggested rotation is the cotton crop. Here, too, limitations are imposed upon the planter who is without abundant manurial resources to maintain the future integrity of his grove. He may sell the lint from his cotton, but he can not dispose of it (as is frequently done here) in the seed.
If the enterprise be not upon a scale that will justify the equipment of a mill and the manufacture of the oil, he has no alternative but to return the seed in lieu of the seed cake, wasteful and extravagant though such a process be. ”

“ The progressive German colonist of Kamerun, German East Africa, and the South Pacific Islands, as well as the French in Congo and Madagascar, are vigorously practicing conventional, modern orchard methods in the treatment of their cocoanut groves, and it is amazing to read of discussions between Ceylon and Indian nut growers as to the best method of tethering cattle upon cocoanut palms in pasture, so as to obtain the most benefit from their excreta. ”

“ Perhaps the most serious difficulty the oil maker has to contend with is the continuous discouragement he encounters from the agent of foreign factories, who buys in the open market and, bidding up to nearly the full oil value of the copra, finds an ample manufacturer’s profit paid by the press cake, so valuable abroad, but, unfortunately, practically without sale or value here. The residue from the mill may be utilized both for food and for manure by the oil maker who is a tree owner and who maintains cattle. ”

“ This stage of the cultural story brings us once more face to face with the principle contended for at the beginning of this paper, namely, that there can be no permanent prosperity in this branch of horticulture until the crop is so worked up into its ultimate products that none of the residue of manufacture goes to waste. ”

“ A tree-nesting rat, which nibbles the young nuts, is also a source of considerable loss. The rat is best overcome by frequent disturbance of his quarters. This involves the removal of the dead leaves and thatch that form constantly about the base of the crown. But the wisdom of this recommendation will depend entirely upon circumstances. As the planter may find that rats or the rhinoceros beetle are the lesser evil, so should he be governed.
There are localities in the Archipelago where the plague of rats is unknown and where the beetles abound. ”

“ The fall from a lofty tree not infrequently cracks the inner shell, without giving any external evidence of the injury. A seed so injured will never sprout and therefore is worthless for seed purposes.
Freshly collected seed nuts contain in the husk more moisture than is required to effect germination, and if planted in this condition, decay is apt to set in before germination occurs. To avoid this the natives tie them in pairs, sling them over bamboo poles where they are exposed to the air but sheltered from the sun, and leave them until well sprouted. ”

“ Marked increase in crop has followed a heavy thinning out of trees upon the Government cocoanut farm at San Ramon, Mindanao. The improvement that a freer circulation of air and abundant sunlight have effected is very marked. Where it can be done, plowing is also sometimes feasible and should be followed by immediate crop improvement. The average native plow is not so well adapted for working over an old or neglected grove as it is for original soil preparation. ”

“ It remains for the planter to determine if the crop thus grown is to be plowed under, or if he will use it to still better advantage by partially feeding it, subject, as previously stated, to an honest return to the land of all the manure resulting therefrom.
He may utilize it in any way, even to selling the resulting seed crop, provided all the remaining brush is turned back to the land and a portion of the money he receives for the seed be reinvested in high-grade potash and phosphatic manures. ”

“ An examination of the roots of an overthrown tree in such a locality will show that all of those in the submerged zone have perished and rotted away, but that such is the vitality and recuperative energy of the tree that it has thrown out a new feeding system in the dryer soil of the mound immediately surrounding the stem, which has been sufficient to successfully carry on the functions of nutrition, but altogether ineffective to anchor the tree securely, or to prevent its prostration before the first heavy gale. ”

“ The attacks of all species are confined to the growing point and as far downward as the wood is tender and susceptible to the action of their powerful mandibles.
The black beetle makes its attacks when fully mature, eating its way into the soft tissues and generally selecting the axil of a young leaf as the point of least resistance. Others simply deposit their eggs, which hatch out, and the resulting grub is provided with jaws powerful enough to do the same mischief. ”

“ As a matter of fact every grain of sand in excess of that required to secure a condition of perfect permeability is a positive disadvantage and must be paid for by a correspondingly larger area of cultivation and by future soil amendment. For the rest, the richer and deeper the soil the less the expense of maintaining soil fertility. ”

“ The fruitfulness of the first class is undoubtedly a result of accidental heredity, for the planter has in the past made no selection except by chance, nor is the characteristic in any way due to his cultural system, which consists in planting the nut and letting nature and heredity do the rest. ”

“ The success that has followed cocoanut growing in Cochin China, remote from the seaboard, in Annam and up the Ganges basin one hundred or more miles from the coast, and in our own interior Province of Laguna, definitely proves that immediate contiguity to the sea is not essential to success. ”

“ When land transportation has to be considered, the lack of good roads still further impedes the oil maker. He can not change the size and weight of his packages from day to day to meet the varying passability of the trail. On the other hand, packages of copra may be adjusted to meet all emergencies, and the planter can thus take advantage of the market conditions which may be denied to the oil maker. ”

“ In addition to this, he must still make good whatever drains the corn will have made upon this element of soil fertility.
Cropping to corn attacks the cocoanut at a new and vulnerable point, against which the careful grower must make provision. It will be remembered [30] that an average corn crop makes very considerable drafts upon the soil supply of phosphoric acid; but, if the grain is used for fattening swine, whose manure is much richer in phosphates than most farm manures, and the latter is restored to the land, serious soil impoverishment may be averted. ”

“ In India, Ceylon, the Penang Peninsula, and Cochin China, where the tree has been cultivated for generations, the most that was ever attempted until very recently was to throw a little manure in the hole where the tree was planted, and for all future time to depend on the inferior, grass-made [26] droppings of a few cattle tethered among the trees, to compensate for the half million or more nuts that a hectare of fairly productive trees should yield during their normal bearing life. ”

“ It is probably true that, except on very sandy soils, continued surface irrigation would aggravate the superficial root-developing tendency of the tree; and to what extent, if any, occasional laceration by deep shovel tooth cultivation would injure the tree remains to be seen. There are, however, few economic plants that so quickly repair root damage as the Palmæ, and, unless the seat of injury extends over a very large area, it is probable that the resulting injury would be of no consequence, as compared with the general benefits that would result from irrigation. ”

“ Annual plowings should not be dispensed with during the life of the plantation. These plowings may be relatively shallow, sufficient to cover under the green manures and crops that are made an indispensable [25] condition to the continued profitable conduct of the industry. Nothing is to be gained by the removal of the earliest flowering spikes. Flowering is the congestion of sap at a special point which, if the grower could control it, he would wish to direct, in the case of young plants, to the building up of leaf and wood. ”

“ Time and again native growers have told me of the large and uniformly continuous crops of nuts from the trees immediately overshadowing their dwellings and, although some have attributed this to a sentimental appreciation and gratitude on the part of the palm at being made one of the family of the owner, a few were sensible enough to realize that it came of the opportunity that those particular trees had to get the manurial benefit of the household sewage and waste. ”

“ Such nuts, of course, are entirely worthless for the manufacture of oil or copra, and even the husk has depreciated in value, the finest coirs, in fact, being derived only from the fruits that have not attained full ripeness. In any case, the nuts should be picked and the crop worked up before any considerable enlargement or swelling of the embryo occurs. ”

“ To make the first green crop effective as a manure, both lime and potash are essential—the former to make available the nitrogen we hope to gather, and the potash in order to secure the largest and quickest growth of the pulse we are to raise for manurial purposes. ”

“ The labor situation is bound more seriously to affect the small planter, wholly dependent upon hand labor, than the estate conducted on a large enough scale to justify the employment of modern machinery.
8. In view of an ever-expanding demand for cocoanut products, and in the light of the foregoing conclusions, the industry, when prosecuted upon a considerable scale and subject to the requirements previously set forth, promises for many years to be one of the most profitable and desirable enterprises which command the attention of the Filipino planter. ”

“ All modern cocoanut-oil mills are supplied with a decorticator armed with revolving discs that tear or cut through the husk longitudinally, freeing the nut from its outer covering and leaving the latter in the best possible condition for the subsequent extraction of its fiber. This decorticator is fed from a hopper and is made of a size and capacity to husk from 500 to 1,000 nuts per hour.
Rasping and grinding machinery of many patterns and makes, for reducing the meat to a pulp, is used in India, Ceylon, and China ”

“ The orchard should be securely protected from the invasion of cattle, etc. It is sometimes impossible to protect orchards against entry of these animals. If the success of these precautions can not be assured, then the nuts had better be grown in a closely protected nursery until about a year old, when the albumen of the seed will be completely assimilated and will therefore no longer attract vermin, and when the larger size of the plant will give it more protection from stray cattle. ”

“ These roots are fleshy (not fibrous) and can not thrive in any soil through which they may not grow freely in search of sustenance. It then becomes obvious that stiff, tenacious, or waxy soils, however rich, are wholly unsuitable. All very heavy lands, or those that break up into solid, impervious lumps, and, lastly, any land underlaid near the surface with bed rocks or impervious clays or conglomerates, are naturally excluded. All other soils, susceptible of proper drainage, may be considered appropriate to the growth of the palm. ”