Page:Tree Crops; A Permanent Agriculture (1929).pdf/314

 246 FACTS ABOUT CROP TREES

from the date in having starch instead of sugar for its main constituent. For months at a time the pejibaye is the chief food supply of the native peoples of southern Costa Rica and the lowlands of Colombia. Venezuela, and Ecuador. It was mentioned by the early Spanish travelers, has been in use ever since, and yet we have not even heard of it.

A RAW MATERIAL—KUKUI OIL—AN EXAMPLE

In the attempt to establish the idea of the fecundity of the tropical tree I have already mentioned a staple raw material, rubber, a staple food of the Old World, the date, and one of the New World, the pejibaye. Now I cite another industrial commodity, a paint oil, which we might make from the kukui or candlenut tree, whose oleaginous seeds make a brilliant flame that lighted Polynesia for an unknown period of time before the Standard Oil can brought a cheaper illuminant.

This tree grows or will grow, in many wet tropic lands. It has been officially reported* to produce five tons of nuts (analyzing 19.5 per cent, oil) per acre. It is a paint oil with

3"Kukui (aleurites triloba, or a, moluccana) is generally distributed throughout Polynesia. Malaysia. Philippines. Society Islands, India. Java. Australia. Ceylon. Bengal. Assam. China. Tahiti. Hawaii. It has been introduced into the West Indies. Brazil. Florida, and elsewhere. The tree has wide-spreading branches, attains a height of forty to sixty feet, and is characterized by large, irregularly lobed leaves of a pale green color and nuts about two inches in diameter containing one or two seeds. In Hawaii kukui is common on all the islands, being the dominant native tree of the lower mountain zone and easily recognizable at a distance by the pale color of its leaves.

"Every one knows that the ground under kukui trees is literally covered with nuts of which few are used for any purpose at present.

"At two hundred pounds of nuts per tree and eighty trees per acre there would be a yield of eight tons of nuts per acre. It has been found that algaroba yields from two to fourteen tons of beans per acre. A good stand of kukui will give a larger product per acre and a conservative estimate would be five tons of nuts. On 15,000 acres the annual crop of nuts would thus be 75,000 tons.

"We may probably assume 15,000 acres as a safe estimate of the kukui in Hawaii.

"From our experiments it appears easy for a man, woman, or child to pick up five hundred pounds of nuts per day. The nuts are, of course, to be