Of the whole number of nuts on these trees a few would have failed to develop, owing to lack of room, but it is fair to suppose that the first would have ripened three hundred fifty nuts and the second two hundred seventy-five. Actual observation has shown that it takes nuts two hundred thirty-eight to two hundred fifty-nine days to mature in Mindanao.
Coconut trees attain a great age, and a producing plantation in the Agusan valley would be a mine of wealth.
The time required for the trees to come into bearing varies from five to seven years with differing conditions of soil and climate, and with the altitude above sea-level. I have seen individual trees heavily loaded with nuts at four and a half years. The owner of a coconut plantation must wait for his returns, or grow something else meanwhile. Quick growing catch crops may at first be raised between the rows if soil conditions are favourable, but it must be remembered that coconut trees thrive on soil so sandy that it will produce little else of value. They require abundant water and plantations should be well open to the breeze. Such conditions are frequently found along the seashore, which doubtless explains the belief so common among natives throughout the tropics that the coconut will not grow where it cannot “hear” or “see” the sea. The trees do equally well on open inland plains.
They have few enemies or diseases in the Philippines, the bud rot which has caused such destruction in other countries being almost unknown there. They resist wind storms admirably, and even typhoons seldom uproot them, but violent gales injure the leaves and blow down the fruits, thus temporarily checking production. While coconut growing is profitable on suitable soil throughout the islands, it can be carried on most safely to the south of the typhoon belt.
At present practically all Philippine copra is either sun-dried or smoked. The latter process hardens the outer layer of the meat before it is thoroughly dried within, and also causes the deposit of more or less creosote. The resulting product moulds and decays readily, and has given Philippine copra an evil name, but this will not seriously interfere with the sale of a good article from the islands, as its quality will be readily determinable.
Until within a very short time the crudest and most antiquated hand machinery has been used in the local manufacture of coconut oil. Soon after the American occupation a modern oil mill was established at Manila. It prospered until it burned, which it rather promptly did for the reason that it was constructed of Oregon pine, which speedily became soaked with coconut oil, and was ready to flash into flame at the touch of a lighted match or of a cigarette butt.
A new mill of iron, steel and reënforced concrete has now been erected. It is equipped with the latest machinery and labour-saving devices, and is reported to be operating on a wide margin of profit.
The market for coconut oil seems to grow more rapidly than the supply increases. There is abundant room for more oil mills in the Philippines, especially as the machinery used in extracting coconut oil is equally well suited to the milling of castor beans, peanuts and sesamum, all of which can be produced in any desired quantity.
Modern drying apparatus is just beginning to be imported for copra making.
Sugar and tobacco are the remaining principal agriculture products. Both can be very advantageously grown. All that has been said relative to primitive methods in rice, hemp and coconut production can be repeated with emphasis in discussing sugar culture. The machinery and methods employed might almost be called antediluvian, and it is a wonder that sugar could ever have been produced at a profit under such conditions as have prevailed. Deep ploughing was unknown. There was not an irrigated field of cane in the islands. The most modern of the estates was equipped with a three-roll mill, and with some vacuum pans which the owner did not know how to use. The soil was never fertilized, and no sugar grower dreamed of employing a chemist. Forty to sixty per cent of the sugar in the cane was thrown out in the bagasse, and that extracted was full of dirt and promptly began to deliquesce.