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Coconut. Plate XXVII. Figs. 1011, 1012, 1014, 1015. The coconut, Cocos nucifera, is the most important of cultivated palms. Its nearest relatives, whether or not regarded as in the same genus, are natives of tropical America. For this and for other reasons which have been presented by Cook, it must be believed that the coconut is a native of America, and that it was carried westward across the Pacific in prehistoric times. While the nut will float and retain its power of germination for a considerable time, its propagation from island to island in known cases has practically always been the deliberate work of men, and it is probable that men were also responsible for its crossing the Pacific. It was a cultivated plant in Polynesia and Malaya, and in many places the chief crop, at the time of the discovery of this part of the world by Europeans. But it reached Ceylon recently enough so that its introduction is a matter of fairly reliable legend. It is now grown in all tropical countries except the interior of continents. Its cultivation extends somewhat beyond the tropics, both north and south, but its growth at these extremes, in Florida, India and Madagascar, is not thrifty enough to give it any industrial importance. Within the last two decades, the rise in the price of oils and the discovery of new uses for coconut-oil have caused a tremendous increase in the area devoted to the plantation and cultivation of coconuts.
Climatic conditions favorable for the coconut.
The coconut makes on the climate the characteristic demands of a typically tropical plant. It thrives where the mean annual temperature is 72° F. or higher, and where there are no great differences in temperature between seasons. Except where supply of ground water makes it independent of local rainfall, the coconut demands an annual rainfall of at least one meter (about 40 in.); and this precipitation should be well distributed through the year. In most of the best coconut countries, the rainfall is considerably more than one meter. The coconut can endure exceedingly drying conditions for short periods, and is accordingly adapted to the intense light of the seashore, to resisting strong winds, and to enduring salt water about its roots for short periods of time. Moreover, it will live through prolonged droughts. But long dry seasons cut down the crops; and the damage done by droughts lasts for as much as two or three years after the return of rain. A dry season of five or six months every other year will keep the crop at all times down to not more than 40 per cent of what it would be if the supply of water were constant. If there is an ample supply of soil-water, dryness of the atmosphere is favorable to the best production. Seacoasts usually have higher land back of them, and the ground-water from the higher country circulates through the soil toward the sea. Near the shore it comes near enough to the surface to be reached by the roots of the coconut. For this reason, coconuts thrive on the seashore under climatic conditions that prevent good development in the interior. This is the principal ground for the idea that coconuts thrive only near the sea. Around the bases of volcanoes in the interior, similar soil conditions are met with, and such localities are admirably adapted to this crop.
Propagation and cultivation.
The coconut is produced only by seed. Nuts for this purpose should of course be selected from conspicuously good trees. They are usually planted in seed-beds, although, on a small scale, there are various other local methods of handling them during germination. The best treatment is to take them from the seed-bed when the plumule is not more than 6 inches high, which will usually be after about six months. To avoid the expense of keeping the groves clean while the trees are small, it is common practice to leave the nuts for a longer time in the seed-beds, but the transplanting of older seedlings, even with the greatest practicable care, sets them back for several months. In the Jaffna district of northern Ceylon, the nuts are transplanted from the first seed-beds to others in which they have more room, and are not put in their permanent places until they are three or four years old.
In the first years after the coconuts are transplanted, it is good policy to raise catch-crops between the trees. But these crops should be so chosen that they will not compete with the coconut for light or water; and from the profit they pay, a return should be made to the soil of fertilizers at least sufficient to replace what they have removed. By the time the grove is four years old, the coconuts will shade the ground and it will no longer be possible to raise catch-crops on a large scale. Then, but not before this time, it is good practice to use the grove for pasture. The returns from live-stock should be at least sufficient to pay for keeping the plantation in good condition and cattle will themselves do a large part of the work in keeping down the other vegetation. Pasturing of other live-stock in coconut groves is in general not to be recommended. It is not customary anywhere in the tropics to give to coconut plantations such cultivation as is given to orchards in temperate countries. It has ever been believed that any but the most shallow cultivation would be detrimental by destroying the roots near the surface, and that machine-cultivation was likely to be top expensive to be profitable, in view of the time that it would have to be kept up before the coconut begins to pay returns. Limited experience in the Philippines indicates that real cultivation produces very much the same results with coconuts as it does with other crops. Coconuts respond, as do other crops, to the application of manures containing potash, nitrogen, and phosphorus. So far as the very limited evidence shows, the demand for these three fertilizing elements is in the order given. With ordinarily good treatment, coconuts come into bearing in seven or eight years. Single trees of standard varieties will bear fruit in five years, while others will require ten. If the coconut is treated as a wild crop, which is by no means uncommon, and little or no attention is given it after the first three years, it will be ten or fifteen years, as a rule, before a full crop is produced and even then the crop will be an inferior one.
Pests.
With the increase in the industry in the tropical world, and with the increase in commerce, there have been created conditions favorable to the development and spread of pests. Twenty years ago, serious coconut pests were practically unknown, and only eight years ago, Prudhomme, in an excellent general treatment of the coconut industry, listed as serious pests only two or three insects and no other organisms. There are now known as serious pests various species of Rhynchophorus, known as palm weevils; Oryctes, called the rhinoceros beetle; a scale, Aspidiotus destructor, closely related to the San Jose scale; at least two fungi, and the organisms causing bud-rot. The latter have been determined in the West Indies to be Bacillus Coli, and in India to be a fungus, Pythium palmivorum. Besides these, there are a large number of minor or local pests, including weevils and other beetles, the larvae of moths and butterflies, insects of other groups, and fungi. Damage is also done in places by crustaceans, and by rats and other higher animals. Forests made up of one kind of tree practically do not exist in nature in the tropics; and when such forests are made, as has been done with the coconut, the prevention of devastation by pests will be accomplished only by greater care than is ordinarily demanded to protect the crops of temperate lands.
Varieties.
A very large number of varieties of coconuts is known in different parts of the tropics, but a careful comparative study of their merits has never been made on a large scale and with nuts from many different sources. The best experiment began less than a decade ago in Madagascar. In several localities in the Philippines, there are strains of very large nuts, of which, as a plantation average extending over years, 3,300 produce a ton of copra. In favorable seasons the production has been at the rate of a ton from 2,800 nuts. There are reports of similar large nuts from other countries, but no data as to their yield on a plantation scale. In the parts of the Philippines having the greatest coconut industry, it requires 5,600 to 6,000 nuts to produce a ton of copra, and the same figures apply to Ceylon and various other coconut countries. In still other places the nuts are so small that 7,000 are required to the ton. There are varieties characterized by shape and by color, but these characteristics seem not to be related to the yield either of copra or oil. The nuts of the Laccadive and Maldive Islands are reputed to produce a particularly good fiber. Throughout the eastern tropics, coconuts are locally used to produce liquor. For this purpose, early maturing varieties that are likely also to produce very small nuts, but numerous clusters, are selected. There are varieties in Ceylon and the Philippines which bear at the age of four years, while the varieties in extensive cultivation and used for the production of copra can none of them be relied upon to produce a crop in less than seven years and not in less than ten years unless properly treated. A Philippine variety known as Makapuno has the interior of the nuts completely filled with a soft, sweet tissue, used as a table delicacy. Such nuts sell locally for about 10 cents, while the ordinary nut is worth 2 or 3 cents.
Uses and products of the coconut.
The local uses of the coconut are almost unlimited. Besides being of practical utility in a very large number of ways to the people of the Malay-Polynesian region, it has, as a result of its practical importance, acquired a prominent place in the rites and superstitions of the people of this part of the world. Thus Murray tells of a tribe of Papuans, among whom it is not proper for a man to eat a person whom he has killed, this privilege being reserved for his associates; but a man may eat the heart of his own victim if he sits on one coconut and balances himself with his feet on two others while he prepares and devours it.
The products of great industrial importance are toddy and its derivatives, coir, and copra and its products.
Toddy is an usual English name of the fresh beverage obtained from the unopen flower-clusters. In the Philippines it is known as "tuba." The mode of securing it differs somewhat in the three countries in which it is secured on an industrial scale, the Philippines, Java and Ceylon. In all of them, the spathe is bent down gradually and the tip is then cut off. A thin slice is afterward cut off with a sharp knife, usually twice a day. After a few days of this treatment, the irritation results in a flow of sap from the cut surface. This sap falls into a jar or bamboo tube from which it is collected, as a rule twice a day, and a very thin slice is removed from the end at each time of collection.
This continues until the whole inflorescence has been removed by the series of slices. The amount of toddy collected depends on the vigor of the tree, on the weather, and on the skill of the workman. Under fairly favorable conditions, a good workman will secure a quart or more a day from one inflorescence. The technique of this business seems to be better developed in the Philippines than elsewhere, with the result that more toddy is secured in a given time from the tree. The toddy is used as a fresh beverage or as a source of alcohol, or less frequently of sugar, or still more rarely of vinegar; it is also a common source of yeast in the East Indies. The toddy, as it falls from the cut branch, contains about 16 per cent of sucrose. This inverts very rapidly if permitted to do so, and the invert sugar is in turn rapidly fermented to alcohol. In parts of the Philippines, the production of strong liquor in this way is a business of some importance. If sugar is to be produced, care is taken to keep the vessels clean and approximately sterile, and the inversion is often prevented by the use of tanbark from one of the mangroves, usually Bruguiera. If alcohol is the product desired, the same bamboo tubes are used over and over without cleaning. In the Philippines it is common practice to connect the trees used for this purpose with bridges of bamboo on which the collectors pass rapidly from tree to tree. In other countries each tree is climbed by itself.
Coir is produced for local use in many parts of the world, but as an article of commerce comes chiefly from Ceylon. This fiber was the old staple cordage material of the Polynesian region. As a fiber material, it is conspicuous for its elasticity, being able to stretch 20 or 25 per cent without exceeding the limit of elasticity. It is also remarkable for lightness, for resistance to decay, and for the short length of the individual cells. It is accordingly a valuable fiber for use in ropes subject to abrupt strains, for calking boats, and for a stuffing fiber. Its stiffness and durability make it especially serviceable for the manufacture of mats, and this is its chief commercial use.
Copra.—The principal coconut product exported from most producing regions is copra, which is the dried meat or hard endosperm of the fruit. To produce the best copra, nuts should be thoroughly and uniformly ripe, and this condition is best guaranteed by permitting them to ripen on the trees until they fall, and then to collect and use them at frequent intervals. However, it is far more common practice to harvest them before they fall, going through the groves at regular intervals. This is most commonly done every three months. The nuts are cut down in various ways. The simplest method is the use of a long pole made of detachable joints of bamboo and bearing at the top a sharp and recurved knife. A nut-gatherer then goes from tree to tree and cuts down the nuts that are ready, without leaving the ground. This method is the local one used in certain parts of the Philippines. Elsewhere in the Philippines and in many other places, the practice is to climb each tree, using notches cut at convenient heights for this purpose. If these notches are cut with sufficient care, it probably can be done without real damage to the tree, but in practice such care is not usually taken, and the notches are very often centers from which decay of the trunk begins. In other places the nut-gatherers climb the trees without notches. To do this easily, they usually bind their ankles together with a thong, or pass a rope around the hips and around the tree, or use both of these devices. The old story of the harvesting of coconuts by the use of monkeys is not altogether a myth. In the Sunda islands and in Sarawak, monkeys are sometimes trained for this purpose; and from Sarawak, these trained monkeys are occasionally exported to the Straits settlements. In some of the islands of the south seas, the entire nuts, husk and all, are split into halves with an axe, and in Ceylon a machine for this purpose has come into limited use. Elsewhere, the first step in the preparation of copra is the removal of the husks. This is usually done with the aid of a piece of iron, three cornered and moderately sharp, mounted on an erect stick and standing at about the height of the knee. This implement is in universal use in the Philippines, and elsewhere in the East, and has of late years come into use in the tropics of the New World. A machine to remove the husks has also been invented, but the most that is claimed for it is that a workman can husk a thousand nuts a day, and this is only the standard day's work for a nut-busker in the Philippines by the old method. After the removal of the husk, the nut is split into two halves by a sharp blow with a heavy knife. The water is allowed to run out on the ground.—Methods of drying copra fall under three heads: sun-drying, grill-drying, and kiln-drying. Centrifugal dryers have also been tried and are said to give good results. Sun-drying is the oldest method, and is a good one where the climate is such that the drying can be trusted to go on without interruption. Under favorable conditions it produces the finest grade of copra, Cochin sun-dried being the standard of excellence. Most Philippine copra is grill-dried. A hole is dug in the ground on which is placed a grating usually made of bamboo, and the whole protected by a roof. Coconut husks and shells are used for fuel. The heat and smoke rise directly from the fire to the coconuts. Sun-drying takes usually five to nine days; if more than this is required, the method is unsafe. Smoke-drying is finished as a rule in a single day or hi parts of two days. Smoke-dried copra is unsuited for 'the manufacture of food products and accordingly sells at a lower price than the best copra. It is a good way of making poor copra; for if any copra is imperfectly dried or is even in part the product of unripe nuts, it ferments with a considerable loss of oil, and this fermentation is decidedly checked by smoking. Kilns for drying coconuts are of various patterns in different countries, and if properly handled always produce a high grade of copra. There is one kiln in the Philippines which handles more than three tons of copra at a charge, and dries it in six or eight hours. By all methods, it is customary to make two stages of the drying, one immediately after the nuts are opened, and the other after the meat has shrunk enough to be easily removed from the shells. The ultimate use of copra is the manufacture of oil, an industry which has been developed to the greatest extent in France. In all coconut countries there is a local business in manufacturing oil. This is done by various primitive methods, some of which produce a food or toilet product of the highest possible quality. In the manufacture of such oil, the utmost care is taken and the product is of purely local use. Oil for wider distribution is manufactured with less care, by methods characteristic of the different countries. To prepare oil for world commerce, such establishments as have long been used in European countries, and to a less extent in the United States, have more recently been founded in the producing lands. The oil has a variety of uses. It was formerly consumed almost entirely in the manufacture of soap and candles. Principally during the last decade, methods of refining and separation have been developed, by which excellent butter-substitutes are made. As the butter produced in this way is palatable and most digestible, and is cheaper than real butter, these products have found a ready sale, with the result that there has been a great increase in the demand for good grades of copra and a consequent improvement in the general quality produced in most countries, and an increase in the price of all grades. It seems probable that the market will for some time continue to increase more rapidly than the supply.
Other products.—A well-known product is desiccated coconut. Among producing countries, Ceylon is the only one which has taken up the manufacture of this article. It is prepared directly from the fresh meat of ripe nuts. Very large numbers of coconuts are also put upon the market of temperate countries as "coconuts, usually after the removal of the husk. The United States is the chief market for these nuts and the export of them is accordingly a conspicuous feature of the business in lands situated where delivery in the United States is economically possible, that is in the West Indies and to a much less extent in the islands of the Pacific. An exportation of this kind is also assuming large proportions with Australia as a market. For all kinds of coconut produce, Ceylon long held first place and the business of producing coconuts, copra and oil, as well as coir, and desiccated coconut, has reached a better development in Ceylon than anywhere else. However, during the last few years, the Philippines have far outstripped Ceylon in the production of copra. The export from the Philippines in the year ending June 30, 1912, was more than 160,000 tons. In this year, copra was for the first time the foremost export of the islands, taking from abaca the place which it has held almost without interruption for the last fifty years. E. B. Copeland.
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