All About the coconut Palm Author:John Ferguson General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1904 Original Publisher: Ferguson Subjects: Coconut Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com w... more »here you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: COCONUT CULTIVATION. The Reason For Writing. -- As my opinions on coconut cultivation are still in advance of the common practice, I propose, in a series of short papers, to do justice to my own views, in the faith, that, so far as they are consistent with sound principles, they will gradually be accepted by the growing intelligence of those interested in this product, which, so far as the native industries of the Southern and Western Provinces are concerned, holds the first place, I have already opened the subject by a slight sketch of the commencement and progress of coconut estate cultivation, and I now proceed to treat the subject from the beginning. Soils. -- There are two kinds of soil on which coconuts refuse to grow to any profitable purpose, namely, thin washed gravels overlaying solid cabook and stiff clays, both of which should be avoided; they will never pay for the labour; otherwise they are not particular. The richer the soil, they will grow the quicker and bear the earlier; and the heavier and, as a rule, the longer it takes to bear, the smaller will the crops be. The best of all soils for coconuts are deep alluvial loams, on the banks of rivers, subject to floods that overflow on the neighbouring lands; in such situations, the crops are enormous; indeed, a few arces of such land is a fortune to its owner, and, as the soil is particularly inexhaustible, jt may go on for a century bringing in annually an income of R300 or more. Such pieces of land are generally small in extent, and widely apart. The next quality of soil is the brown loams, ...« less