1382 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 
weeds are getting ahead of my corn.” And when lime is needed, the 
native to whom one is directed may say: ‘After I have finished 
gathering my coconuts for copra I will get my boys to cut wood and 
gather limestone to make a kiln. Never fear, Sefor, you shall have 
your lime within six weeks.” On one occasion a blacksmith was 
delayed two weeks in making a plow, owing to the fact that the man 
from whom he got his charcoal had heen so busy supplying visiting 
vessels with fruits and vegetables that he could not find time to burn it. 
ABSENCE OF POVERTY.—The result of this condition of society is 
that when a father dies the wife and children are not left Gestitute, 
as would be the case if they depended on the results of his handiwork 
alone. The crops continue to ripen and are gathered in due time by 
the family; the weeds and worms are kept out of the tobacco; the 
coffee bushes bend each year under their weight of berries; the coco- 
nuts, as usual, yield their annual dividend. Indeed, in most cases the 
annual income in provisions is amply sufficient to keep the family 
supplied with its simple clothing, some flour and rice brought by the 
traders from Japan or America to exchange for copra, and perhaps a 
few delicacies, a ribbon or two, or a kerchief to go over the head, and 
a new saint to place in the little alcove of the side room, where the 
light is always kept burning. 
ABSENCE OF WEALTH.—Very few of the natives have accumulated 
money or property of value. Some of them own fine coconut groves, 
rice fields, and coffee plantations, and a few own small herds of cattle 
and buffalo. At first sight it seems an impossibility that poverty 
should exist where food can be produced in such abundance; and 
indeed were it not for the frequent hurricanes which sweep the islands 
there would be little necessity for accumulating capital. In spite of 
the dearth of food which invariably follows hurricanes, the majority 
of natives are not inclined to cultivate larger crops than are absolutely 
necessary for the immediate subsistence of their families. They say 
that corn and rice will become moldy and spoil, or will be infested by 
weevils if kept a long time, and that all their extra labor in planting 
and reaping will be lost. This demonstrates the necessity for capital, 
and capital not in perishable rice and corn, but in the shape of good 
indestructible and divisible money having intrinsic value. In this 
way surplus food could be converted into money at the end of a good 
harvest and reconverted into food (imported rice or flour or tinned 
meats) in times of scarcity. As it is, when crops are ruined and the 
natives see starvation staring them in the face, the traders will not 
furnish them with supplies in return for the superfluous rosaries and 
trinkets they have accepted in exchange for their copra and other 
marketable products, and they have to go to the woods for eycas nuts 
and wild yams in order to keep themselves alive until succor comes 
from abroad. 
