Preliminary to planting the very important question of seed selection
calls for close scrutiny on the planter's part.
The small native planter is often familiar with the individual
characteristics of his trees. Owners of small estates in Cuyos and
about Zamboanga have pointed out to me trees that have the constant
fruiting habit confirmed, others that will fruit erratically, and
others that flower yet rarely bear fruit. The fruitfulness of the
first class is undoubtedly a result of accidental heredity, for the
planter has in the past made no selection except by chance, nor is the
characteristic in any way due to his cultural system, which consists
in planting the nut and letting nature and heredity do the rest. One
tree in Zamboanga, the owner assured me, had never produced less than
200 nuts annually for fully twenty-three years. Asked as to the bearing
of all of his trees (of which he owned some three hundred), he stated
that from the lot he averaged 20 nuts at a picking, five times a year,
a total of 100 nuts; that the crop of these was very fluctuating,
some years falling to 60 nuts, again running as high as 130. The
especially prized tree did not vary appreciably. In very dry seasons
the nuts shrunk somewhat in size and the copra in weight, but the yield
of nuts never fell below 200, and only once had amounted to 220. He
had raised a great number of seedlings, but it had never occurred to
him to select for planting the nuts from that particular tree.