The holes into which the shoots are transplanted should be 12 yd. apart on backwaters; but where a deep alluvial soil is found, 8-10 yd. are enough. In a level, loose soil, the hole should be a cube of 1 yd. ; on hill-sides, 2-2i yd.; in low grounds, I-I yd. deep, and 1 yd. sq. If the holes are not sufficiently wide and deep, the roots soon appear above the surface of the ground, their hold upon the earth is weak, sufficient nourishment is not obtained, and the monsoon storms will overturn the tree. In a cold clay, the holes are filled with sand, and the plant is deposited in it. In low marshes, banks or terraces should be thrown up and consolidated previous to planting. If, in any of these cases, plants 2-3 years old are used, the holes must be at least 21i yd. every way. They should be dug 2-6 months before the planting, and be prepared first by having heaps of fuel and weeds burned in them, and subsequently by manuring. In low situations, new holes and quick planting may be preferred. No time should be lost in the removal from the nursery to the holes; indeed the day should net pass, in which case new roots and fronds may be looked for within the month ; but where this proves impracticable, if the plants are kept cool and in shade, 4-8 days have been known to intervene, but to ba followed by very great loss in the number of successful trees. Inside the holes, smaller ones are made, and filled with salt and ashes mixed with mould, in which the young plants are deposited, with the nuts just covered by the compost. Some shade must be afforded, and care taken that the plants are not shaken or removed from their first position; occasionally water should be sprinkled over them. The above compost must be used when there is but a small proportion of sand in the soil. Ashes will suffice on the sea-shore; and sand, in marshy and loamy soils. The broken roots of a plant under a year, and, according to many planters, all found on the nuts in the nursery, should have their ends cut, as new ones are supposed to be hastened by the process. Turmeric and arrowroot are often planted in the same pits with the coconut. After the plants are in, little pandals, or sheds, made of twigs and branches, should be erected to protect them, for the next six months, from too great sun-heat ; this prevents the withering of the leaves and any check to the growth of the roots. On dry soils, the plants are watered twice a day for the first month, once a day for the next five, or until the monsoon showers come on, and once every 2-3 days during the dry seasons of three following years, according to circumstances. On hill-sides, it is usual to water during the het weather, even till the first buds appear ; on sandy plains on the sea-coast, when the trees are in full bearing, 8-10 ft. of bamboo (with the divisions at the joints broken to form the pipe) is often driven down by the aide of the tree, and cool water from weed-covered tanks is poured down to refresh the roots and lower soil. The soil round the young plant is often kept damp by a bed of leaves, particularly such as will not be eaten by white ants. If the soil is naturally poor, or of a hungry nature, salt, ashes, paddy-husks, goats'-dung, and dry manures may be applied for the first year ; but in after seasons, oil-cake, fresh ashes, decayed fish, and other refuse, are preferable.
If the soil at the foot becomes too rich, a large grub with a reddish-brown head, soon finds its way to the roots and into the stem, and though the foot of the tree may enlarge, the stem does not develop itself, the now leaf-spike at the crown becomes yellow, fades, and is not replaced, and does not open out into the usual frond, and in 2-3 months the whole tree-top is affected and drops to the ground. It would appear that fear of this evil is the reason why ashes alone are recommended by so many cultivators. As soon as the new fronds have divided into the long aide leaflets, or lost their connected form, which is at the end of the first year, the soil should be dug up, and ashes be applied about once a month. When the tree is two years old, and henceforward at the commence ment of every monsoon in May-June, the whole of the soil, for 1-2 yd. around the stem, must be
opened out, and ashes and dry manure be applied and left open to the air ; in October, when the rains have ceased, this freshened earth should be replaced and levelled. As the tree gets older, and the depression at the foot is gradually filled up, it may not in after years be necessary to dig so deep as for the earlier growths. If the opening-out of the roots, and the manuring, be thus annually attended to, the tendency to form a sort of bulb on the surface, and throw roots above the soil, will he checked ; the old worn-out rootlets are cut away, strong roots from other trees and all weeds are removed, and the process acts both as a " wintering" and a " pruning." Cattle are most destructive during the first two years, in eating off the ends of the fronds, and stripping the leaflets; if the plants suffer often in this way, the growth is entirely stopped; sometimes the new leaf-spike is pulled out, and the tree dies. Should the heart of the stem and top not be injured, the tree will still remain unsightly, and often entirely profitless.
From the time when the leaflets become fully developed and distinct from each other, till the period for the spathes (or covers to the flower) to make their appearance, the fronds should be shaken and weighed or pressed downwards each month, so as to keep them from each other and make them spread ; and careful and frequent examination should be made, lest rats, beetles, or worms have made nests upon the head, or bored into the cabbage heart of the palm. Some planters sprinkle ashes and salt about the spike-shoots to keep insects away. The dried fronds, old spathes, fruit- and blossom-stalks, and ragged fibres, should be removed at stated periods of perhaps a month, or as often as the nuts may be gathered. The application of salt and ashes to the tree-tops is usual at least in March and October, to keep off the swarms of insects, particularly red ants, which live upon the juices of the tree, and render them fruitless.
The tree is all its life endangered by the attacks of enemies. One beetle bores into the tender shooting leaf, and lays its eggs there, to be hatched into grubs which will eat their way in all directions ; another bores round holes into the stem itself and lives there; rats climb up and make their nests in the hollows of the branching fronds, and eat the cabbage itself, or feast upon the young kernels ; the common flying-fox or rousette (Pteropus) gnaws round holes through husk and shell of the mature nut, and will attack the young nut, biting away large pieces from the tender part under the capsule ; the flying squirrel (Pteromys) al-o makes its abode in near woods or forest trees, and at nightfall attacks the nuts; the common striped palm-squirrel is also sometimes found destroying the nuts and blossom ; while red ants and parrots attack the blossoms only. The most effective methods of obviating these evils are to shoot the flying-foxes and squirrels by moonlight, and to poison the others by a mixture of arsenic with grated coconut pulp, or of pounded glass, oil, and black sugar, in coco-nut-shells, left in the tree-tops. Rats may be taken in trap-falls. The red aut's nest should be sought out and destroyed. A large wasp will attack the very small nut, taking it for the material of its nest. When the spathe is cut for drawing toddy, the frequent visits of the men will tend to keep some intruders away, but the smell of the toddy is said to invite others. Grass should he kept down by feeding off with goats and cattle; in marshy lands, cattle are apt to make deep tracks, and break down the margins of the terraces, hence goats or calves only are allowed. The undergrowth may be annually cut for repairing paddy-fields, and this is another source of profit. Planting jack, mango, tamarind, coffee, and other trees close to the palm, is thought to be detrimental, as is also allowing pepper and betel vines to climb the tree, and even the sowing of maize, gram, or any of the dry pulses under the shade. But areoa-nut trees and all other palms may be planted, and the ground may be dug, and various kinds of yams and tuberous roots cultivated with advantage.