Second year's expenditure: ploughing land, or hoeing it twice, watering plants, manuring, repairing fences, and supplying plants, say hire of eight men for six months, about £150 sterling. The same for the third.
Fourth year's expenditure: hire of six hands for three months, cleaning land, and manuring plants, about £60 sterling, and the like, at the cultivator's option, for the fifth year.
| SUMMARY OF EXPENSES. | ||
| £ | ||
| First year | 460 | |
| Second year | 150 | |
| Third year | 150 | |
| Fourth year | 60 | |
| Fifth year | 60 | |
| Total expenditure | 880 | |
| Add for buildings | 80 | |
And we have a grand total of £960 sterling expended; for what purpose? To secure a net income of at least £1,200 sterling per annum for at least 50 years!
In the first year's expenses many items might be cut down, but I leave the calculation as one to be considered by a party with small capital, intending to establish a coco-nut plantation. I have allowed nothing for the cost of land, as it is impossible to compute that. In general it would cost next to the nothing mentioned. I have, by careful calculation, arrived at the conclusion that by combining the cultivation of provisions with the gradual but steadily progressive establishment of a coco-nut plantation, any man of energy and perseverance may, with the aid of but four hands, clear, fence, and plant, in a favorable locality, 50 acres of coco-nuts within the year, yet have a balance in his pocket at its close. Such a person would, ere doing anything beyond putting in his nursery plants, establish a provision ground, of considerable extent, for the purpose of supplying himself and his laborers with bread kind, and vegetables, and of enabling him, by the disposal of the surplus produce in the market, to raise a sufficient sum of money to furnish the wages and rations of the men. I need not enter into a calculation to show how this could be done, as every one must be aware of an easy method of following out so simple a suggestion. Of course he would have to bear in mind that the provision ground is of secondary importance, and limit his exertions in that line accordingly; devoting to the coco-nut plantation the strictest daily attention.
The cultivation of this tree deserves much more attention than has hitherto been paid to it, particularly in the East, where it not only forms part of the daily food of all classes of the community, but is an exportable article to neighbouring regions, the oil which it yields having of late years become in great demand in England, for the manufacture of composite candles and soap, and there is no doubt of its continually extended application to such purposes. Supposing, nevertheless, the result of an increased cultivation of the coco-nut should be such as to cause a fall in price, and sink the nett return in England to 2s. per gallon; this being clear profit, would make this kind of plantation a safe and sure investment for both capital and labor in the Colonies.
A kind of sugar made from the sap is called "jaggery," and the sap when fermented forms an intoxicating beverage known as toddy. The fibrous outer covering, or husk of the nut, when macerated and prepared, is termed "coir," and is spun into yarn and rope. It is extensively shipped from Ceylon, in coils of rope, bundles of yarn, and pieces of junk.
The coco-nut is usually planted as follows:—Selecting a suitable place, you drop into the ground a fully ripe nut, and leave it. In a few days a thin lance-like shoot forces itself through a minute hole in the shell, pierces the husk, and soon unfolds three pale green leaves in the air; while, originating in the same soft white sponge which now completely fills the nut, a pair of fibrous roots pushing away the stoppers which close two holes in an opposite direction, penetrate the shell, and strike vertically into the ground. A day or two more, and the shell and husk, which in the last and germinating stage of the nut are so hard that a knife will scarcely make any impression, spontaneously burst by some force within; and, henceforth, the hardy young plant thrives apace, and needing no culture, pruning, or attention of any sort, rapidly arrives at maturity. In four or five years it bears; in twice as many more it begins to lift its head among the groves, where, waxing strong, it flourishes for near a century. Thus, as some voyager has said, the man who but drops one of these nuts into the ground, may be said to confer a greater and more certain benefit upon himself and posterity, than many a life's toil in less genial climes. The fruitfulness of the tree is remarkable. As long as it lives it bears, and without intermission. Two hundred nuts, besides innumerable white blossoms of others, may be seen upon it at one time; and though a whole year is required to bring any one of them to the germinating point, no two, perhaps, are at one time in precisely the same stage of growth.
Coco-nuts form a considerable article of export from many of the British colonies: 375,770 were exported from Honduras in 1844, and 254,000 in 1845; 105,107 were shipped from Demerara, in 1845; 3,500,000 from Ceylon in 1847.
They are very abundant on the Maldive Islands, Siam, and on several parts of the coast of Brazil. Humboldt states, that on the south shores of the Gulf of Cariaco, nothing is to be seen but plantations of coco-nut trees, some of them containing nine or ten thousand trees.