viii FOREWOED 



difficult to present adequately and fairly the out- 

 look without appearing to be unduly optimistic. 



The lay reader will be able to form some idea of 

 the gigantic strides made in the development of 

 the coconut industry when it is mentioned that 

 the value of the world's output for the year 1913 

 is estimated to exceed 70,000,000, or nearly double 

 the world's output of rubber. Moreover, the 

 market price of the principal product of the 

 coconut (copra the dried kernel) has nearly 

 trebled in price in the last few years, whilst at 

 the same time the cost of production owing to the 

 introduction of improved methods of cultivation 

 and machinery has been reduced. 



The latter point is indisputable evidence of the 

 profitable nature of the industry. If coconut 

 cultivation was profitable when the product was 

 sold at 10 to 12 per ton, what must be the profit 

 of the industry with the market price at over 

 30 per ton? And it may be here remarked 

 that many years ago, when copra was between 

 10 and 15 per ton, coconuts were christened 

 " The Consols of the East," owing to the safe and 

 profitable nature of the industry of coconut culti- 

 vation. 



That we are only on the fringe of gigantic de- 

 velopments in the industry is shown by the fact 

 that the existence of the food article which has 

 been mainly responsible for the expansion in the 



