period, when there are showers, would answer for transplanting
them. I should say from the middle to the end of January would be
best, when they are placed in the nursery in October and November; and
in October when they are planted in June.

It is said that they should be allowed from 20 to 30 feet space apart,
but I will calculate their return when planted 27 feet apart every
way. This will give 58 coco-nut trees per acre. If manured, for the
first two years, with seaweed and salt mud, and supplied with water in
dry weather, there need be no loss, and the plants will thrive the
better. The land must be kept clear of weeds till the plants are
matured, in order to permit them abundance of air and light. In five
years, when well cared for, the flower may be expected, but the plants
will not be in full bearing before the seventh or eighth year. From 50
to 80 nuts are the annual crop of a tree; but I will calculate at the
lowest rate. One hundred nuts will yield, when the oil is properly
expressed, at least two gallons and a half. I shall not take into
account the making of jaggery sugar and toddy, or spirit from the sap,
as I do not consider that the manufacture would be remunerative; and
it must be attended with much trouble, besides requiring a great deal
of care and some skill.

Take the case now of a plantation of 100 acres in extent. This would
give us 5,800 trees, which, at 50 nuts per tree, 290,000 nuts, at 21/2
gallons of oil per hundred, would yield 7,250 gallons of oil, the
value of which any person may calculate, but which, at the low rate of
3s. over charges, would furnish, as the gross plantation return in
oil, a sum of L1,087 10s. sterling. If the cultivator, instead of
making his produce into oil, were to sell it in its natural state, his
gross return in the West Indies would be nearly L600 sterling, at the
rate of ten dollars per thousand.

Either of these sums would be a handsome return from 100 acres of any
land, _requiring no cultivation or care whatever, after the fourth
year, and yielding_ the same amount for upwards of half a century! But
this is not all. An outlay of a few pounds will secure other
advantages, and ought to enable the owner of a coco-nut plantation to
turn his gross receipts for oil into nett profits. The coir made from
the husk of the nut is calculated to realise nearly one-fourth of the
proceeds of the oil, but if we put it down at one-fifth, we shall
have, in addition to the va