The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom Part 81

I have omitted to notice, in the foregoing observations, a very mistaken notion which prevails in many quarters, that it is best to let the trees drop their fruit, and not to pick the nuts when ripe.

Nature directs differently. As soon as the husk of the nut is more brown than green it should be picked. It then makes better oil and better coir, than when left to shrivel up and fall from the tree.

Colonel Low, in his "Dissertation on Pinang," gives some interesting details and statistics on coco-nut planting:--

On a rough estimate--for an actual enumeration has not been lately taken--the total number of _bearing trees_ in Pinang may be stated at 50,000, and those in Province Wellesley at 20,000; but very large accessions to these numbers have of late years been made. The tree is partial to a sandy soil in the vicinity of the sea, and Province Wellesley offers, therefore, greater facilities, perhaps, for its cultivation than Pinang does, as its line of clear beach is longer, and has many narrow slips of light or sandy land lying betwixt the alluvial flats inland. There are several kinds of this tree known here; one has a yellowish color, observable both on the branches and unripe fruit; its branches do not droop much. A second has green spreading branches, more drooping than the former, the fruit being green colored until ripe; this is, perhaps, the most prolific; it also bears the soonest, if we except the dwarf coco-nut, which fruits at the second or third year, before the stem has got above one foot high. This last kind was brought from Malacca; it attains in time to the height of the common sort. Its fruit is small and round, and of course less valuable than the other sorts. There is also a coco-nut so saturated with green, that the oil expressed from its kernel partakes of that color.

It is a mistaken supposition that the coco-nut tree will flourish without care being taken of it. The idea has been induced by the luxuriant state of trees in close proximity to houses and villages, and in small cove's where its roots are washed by the sea. In such circ.u.mstances, a tree, from being kept clear about the roots, from being shaded, and from occasional stimuli, advances rapidly to perfection; but in an extended plantation, a regular and not inexpensive system of culture must be followed to ensure success.

The nuts being selected, when perfectly ripe, from middle-aged trees of the best sorts, are to be laid on the ground under shades, and after the roots and middle shoots, with two branches, have appeared, the sooner they are planted the better. Out of 100 nuts, only two-thirds, on an average, will be found to vegetate. The plants are then to be set out at intervals of thirty or forty feet--the latter if ground can be spared--and the depth will be regulated by the nature of the soil, and the nut must not be covered with earth. The plants require, in exposed situations, to be shaded for one and even two years, and no lalang gra.s.s must be permitted to encroach on their roots. A nursery must be always held in readiness to supply the numerous vacancies which will occur from deaths and accidents.

The following may be considered the average cost of a plantation, until it comes into bearing:--

FIRST COST--100 ORLONGS OF LAND.

Spanish dollars.

Purchase money of land, ready for planting 1,000 7,000 nuts at 1 dollars, per 100 105 Houses of coolies, carts, buffaloes, &c., &c. 100 ----- Spanish dollars 1,205

YEARLY COST OF SEVEN YEARS.

First year, 10 laborers at 3 dollars per month, including carts, &c. 360 Wear and tear of buildings, carts, and implements 50 Overseer, at 7 dollars per month 84 Quit rent, average 50 Nursery and contingencies 50 ----- Total per annum 594 Seven years at the rate will be 4,158 ----- Total, Spanish dollars 4,752

To this sum interest will have to be added, making, perhaps, a sum total of 6,000 Spanish dollars, and this estimate will make each tree, up to its coming into bearing, cost one Spanish dollar at the lowest. The young tree requires manure, such as putrid fish and stimulating compounds, containing a portion of salt. On the Coromandel coast, the natives put a handful of salt below each nut on planting it.

The cultivators of Kiddah adopt a very slovenly expedient for collecting the fruit. Instead of climbing the tree in the manner practised by the natives on the Coromandel coast, by help of a hoop pa.s.sing round the tree and the body of the climber--and a ligature so connecting the feet as will enable him to clasp the tree with them--the Malays cut deep notches or steps in the trunk, in a zig-zag manner, sufficient to support the toes or the side of the foot, and thus ascend with the extra, aid only of their arms. This mode is also a dangerous one, as a false step, when near the top of a high tree, generally precipitates the climber to the ground. This notching cannot prove otherwise than injurious to the tree. But the besetting sin of the planter of coco-nuts, and other productive trees, is that of crowding. Coco-nut trees, whose roots occupy, when full grown, circles of forty to fifty feet in diameter, may often be found planted within eight or ten feet of each other; and in the native campongs all sorts of indigenous fruit trees are jumbled together, with so little s.p.a.ce to spread in, that they mostly a.s.sume the aspect of forest trees, and yield but sparing crops.

The common kinds of the coco-nut, under very favorable circ.u.mstances, begin to bear at six years of age; but little produce can be expected until the middle or end of the seventh year. The yearly produce, one tree with another, may be averaged at 80 nuts the tree; where the plantation is a flourishing one--a.s.suming the number of trees, in one hundred orlongs, to be 5,000--the annual produce will be 400,000 nuts, the minimum local market value of which will be 4,000 Spanish dollars, and the maximum 8,000 dollars.

From either of these sums 6 per cent. must be deducted for the cost of collecting, and carriage, &c. The quant.i.ty of oil which can be manufactured from the above number of nuts will be, as nearly as possible, 834 piculs of 133-1/3 lbs.

The average price of this quant.i.ty, at 7 dollars per picul 5,838 Deduct cost of manufacturing, averaged at one-fourth, and collecting, watching, &c 2,059 ----- Profit, Spanish dollars 3,779

The Chinese, who are the princ.i.p.al manufacturers of the oil, readily give a picul of it in exchange for 710 ripe nuts, being about 563 piculs of oil out of the total produce of the plantation of 100 orlongs. The price of coco-nut oil has been so high in the London market as 35 per tun, or about an average of ten dollars per picul.

It is said that English casks have not been found tight enough for the conveyance of this oil to Europe, but if the article is really in great demand, a method will no doubt be discovered to obviate this inconvenience.

So long, however, as the cultivator can obtain a dollar and a half, or even one dollar for 100 nuts, he will not find it profitable to make oil, unless its price greatly rises.

Soap is manufactured at Pondicherry from this oil, but it is not seemingly in repute; the attempt has not been made in Pinang with a view to a market.

There is scarcely any coir rope manufactured at this island, so that the profit which might (were labor cheaper) arise from this application of the coco-nut fibre, is lost. The sh.e.l.l makes good charcoal; the leaves are scarcely put to any purpose, the nipah or attap being a superior material for thatching.

The coco-nut tree is extremely apt to be struck by lightning, and in such cases it is generally destroyed. It is a dangerous tree, therefore, to have close to a house. If the trees are widely planted, coffee may be cultivated under their shade. It is generally believed that the extracting of toddy from this tree hastens its decline. The Nicobar and Lancavi Islands used partly to supply the Pinang market with this indispensable article; but their depopulation has greatly reduced the quant.i.ty.

On the whole it may be said that there is no cultivation which insures the return of produce with so much certainty as that of the coco-nut tree; and as Rangoon, the Tena.s.serim coast, and Singapore will, probably, always remain good markets for the raw nut, there appears to be every chance of the value of the produce affording ample remuneration to the planter.

_Coco-nut beetle._--The chief natural enemy of this tree is a destructive species of elephant-beetle (_Oryctes Rhinoceros_), which begins by nibbling the leaves into the shape of a fan; it then perforates the central pithy fibre, so that the leaf snaps off; and lastly, it descends into the folds of the upper shoot, where it bores itself a nest, and if not speedily extracted or killed, will soon destroy the tree. At Singapore, on account of the depredations of this beetle, the difficulties have been considerable.

In Pinang and Province Wellesley it has only been observed within the last two years, and it is believed to have come from Keddah. A similar kind of beetle is, however, found on the Coromandel coast. The natives of Keddah say that this insect appears at intervals of two, three, or more years.

Its larvae, which are also very formidable insects or grubs, about three inches long, with large reddish heads, are found in decaying vegetable matter. It is when the tree has made considerable progress, however, that the parent insect does most mischief. When they are from one to two years old, throwing out their graceful branches in quick succession with the greatest vigor, and promising in three or four years more to yield their ruddy fruit, this destructive enemy begins to exercise his boring propensities; and, making his horn act as an auger, he soon penetrates the soft and yielding fibre of the young tree, and if not discovered in time, destroys the leading shoot or branch. The only remedy which has been adopted in Ceylon, is the following:--Several intelligent boys are provided each with an iron needle or probe, of about a foot long, with a sharp double barbed point, like a fish-hook, and a ring handle; they go through the plantation looking narrowly about the trees, and when they perceive the hole in the trunk, which indicates that the enemy is at work, they thrust in the barbed instrument and pull him out. Sometimes he may only have just commenced, when his capture is more easily effected, but even should he have penetrated to the very heart of the tree, the deadly needle does not fail in its errand, but brings the culprit out, impaled and writhing on its point. This is the only known way of checking the ravages of this beetle, except destroying its larvae. Some cultivators, however, think pouring salt water or brine on the top of the tree, so as to descend among the folds of the upper shoots, a good plan to get rid of the larvae.

Nearly two million coco-nuts are shipped annually from Bahia.

From Ceylon, 114,600 coco-nuts were shipped in 1851, and 70,185 in 1852.

Coco-nut oil; 98,159 gallons were shipped from Ceylon in 1852; 359,233 gallons in 1851.

The prices of Ceylon oil have ranged from 31 to 33 10s. per tun; of Cochin oil, 34 to 35, within the last two years. The price per leaguer in Colombo, without casks, has been 8 10s. to 9.

_Copperah_ is the name, given by the natives to the kernel of the ripe nut after it has been exposed to the sun on mats, until it has become rancid and dissolved. It has recently been shipped to England in this state for the purpose of converting into oil. The exports of copperah from Ceylon were, in 1842, 115 cwts.; in 1843, 2,194; in 1844, 2,397; and in 1852, 39,174 cwts.

The returned value of the copperah or kernels exported from Ceylon, as entered in the Custom House books, is--

1840 2,508 1841 1,460 1842 3,022 1843 5,795 1844 6,194 1845 3,282 1846 5,517 1847 6,503 1848 12,639 1849 7,819 1850 4,166 1851 9,678 1852 13,325

632 cwts. of poonac (being the refuse or cake, after expressing the oil) were exported from Ceylon in 1842. It is worth there about 10 the ton.

The oil from the nut is obtained for culinary purposes by boiling the fresh pulp, and skimming it as it rises. That for exportation is usually obtained by pressing the copperah in a simple press turned by bullocks. Recently, however, steam power has been applied in Colombo, with great advantage. About 2 gallons of oil per 100 nuts, are usually obtained. It is requisite that care should be taken not to apply too great and sudden a pressure at once, but by degrees an increasing force, so as not to choke the conducting channels of the oil in the press.

In many of the colonies the oil is expressed by the slow and laborious hand process of grating the pulp.

The quant.i.ty shipped from Ceylon was 2,250 tuns, in 1842; 3,985 in 1843; 2,331 in 1844; 1,797 in 1845. The quant.i.ty in gallons shipped since, was 101,553 in 1846; 197,850 in 1847; 300,146 in 1848; 867,326 in 1849; 407,960 in 1850; 442,700 in 1851; and 749,028 in 1852.

The duty on importation is of and from British possessions, 7d. and 7/8ths. per cwt.; if the produce of foreign possessions, 1s. 3 d, per cwt. In the close of 1852, the price of coco-nut oil in the London market was, for Ceylon, 32, 33, to 33 10s. per ton; Cochin, middling to fine, 34 to 35.

The following return shows the Custom House valuation of the oil shipped from Ceylon for a series of years, and which is of course much below its real value:--

1839 26,597 1840 32,483 1841 24,052 1842 34,242 1843 43,874 1844 24,067 1845 15,945 1846 7,939 1847 19,142 1848 24,839 1849 34,831 1850 35,035 1851 31,444 1852 58,045

Among the coco-nut oil exported from Ceylon, in 1849, there were 47,427 gallons, valued at 3,595, the whole of which, I believe, was Cochin oil; the raw material of this kind not being, like the copperah generally in Ceylon, subjected to the action of fire, the product is finer, and fetches a better price in the London market.

Amongst the imports from British possessions in Asia, were 2,600 cwts., of copperah (dried coco-nut kernels, from which oil is expressed), valued at 1,100; amongst the imports re-exported to Great Britain, we find 870 cwts. of the same article, valued at 300. Of the oil exported a quant.i.ty of 11,000 gallons was shipped for the United States. About 600,000 piculs of coco-nut oil are annually exported from Siam.

A large quant.i.ty of oil is made in Trinidad, chiefly on the east coast, where, in one locality, there is an uninterrupted belt of coco-nut palms fourteen miles in extent. They usually bear when five years old.

The cultivation of the coco-nut in a proper soil presents a very profitable speculation for small capitalists. Whether sold at the rate of a dollar per hundred in their natural state, to captains of ships, who freely purchase them, or manufactured into oil, they are a very remunerative product. Each tree in the West Indies is calculated to produce nuts to the value of one dollar yearly. There is one thing to which we would draw the attention of chemists and other scientific men.

For twenty-four or even forty-eight hours after its manufacture this oil is as free from any unpleasant taste as olive oil, and can be used in lieu of it for all culinary purposes, but after that time it acquires such a rancid taste as to be wholly unpalateable. If any means could be discovered of preventing this deterioration in quality, and preserving it fresh and sweet, it could compete with olive oil, and the price and consumption would be largely raised.

COCO-NUT OIL IMPORTED INTO THE UNITED KINGDOM.

Imports. Retained for home consumption.

cwts. cwts.

1835 19,838 14,015 1836 26,058 26,062 1837 41,218 28,641 1838 -- 38,669 1839 -- 15,153 1840 -- 37,269 1841 -- 26,528 1842 -- 26,225 1843 -- 29,928 1844 -- 42,480 1848 85,453 54,783 1849 64,451 14,622 1850 98,040 46,494 1851 55,995 2,333 1852 101,863 27,112

A London coco-nut oil soap was found, on a.n.a.lysis by Dr. Ure, to consist of:--

Soda 4.5 Coco-nut lard 22.0 Water 73.5 ----- 100.0

This remarkable soap was sufficiently solid; but it dissolved in hot water with extreme facility. It is called marine soap, because it washes linen with sea water.

Of the six princ.i.p.al vegetable oils, namely--palm, coco-nut castor, olive, linseed, and rape, the first four are imported in the state of oil only; the two last chiefly as seed. The proportion in which they were imported is shown in the following tables; and if to these quant.i.ties are added about a million and a half cwt. of tallow, and nearly twenty thousand tuns of whale oil and spermaceti, they will nearly represent the total quant.i.ty of oil imported into Great Britain.