154 MARKETING COCONUTS AND COPRA 



whose practical experience of the coconut industry 

 ranges over thirty years, we gathered that the 

 methods of native planters in this respect are both 

 casual and irregular ; in fact, they are very much 

 on all fours with their general system of cultivation, 

 which, as we have already pointed out, is hopelessly 

 inefficient. Their views on the subject may be 

 gauged by the contention of one chief who recently 

 asserted with the greatest emphasis that coconut 

 trees never required watering, even in the driest 

 weather, because there was water already inside 

 the nut ! Naturally, accounts and bookkeeping are 

 practically unknown to them, and they anathema- 

 tise everything that savours of science as a device 

 direct from the evil one. In such circumstances it 

 is impossible for them to show anything approach- 

 ing an adequate result, and they are frequently 

 obliged to fall back upon the moneylender 

 usually a Chinaman in the Middle East who 

 advances cash for their immediate requirements 

 in return for a mortgage on the trees, with the 

 inevitable upshot : when they sell the crop they 

 find themselves between the devil and the deep sea, 

 in the shape of the moneylender on the one hand, 

 and the middleman, who takes advantage of the 

 situation to drive a hard bargain, on the other. 

 If they emerge with anything like a fair profit for 

 themselves they may be classed as very fortunate. 

 It must be remembered that, so far, the majority 



