MARKETING COCONUTS AND COPRA 155 



of plantations are under native control, but the 

 time is fast approaching when this important 

 industry will come more and more under the aegis 

 of European capitalists and companies, who will 

 work them on scientific lines under expert super- 

 vision, the increased cost of which will be amply 

 recouped by the additional acreage opened up and 

 the saving effected by efficient, honest management. 

 In this way estates, formerly cultivated on the 

 casual, native plan, will be developed out of all 

 knowledge. It is quite certain that not until this 

 change takes place can these valuable coconut 

 properties be made to yield their maximum results 

 in revenue and profits. 



A considerable proportion of the nuts and copra 

 exported is first handled by small dealers, who 

 collect it from growers who have anything from 

 50 to 1,000 trees to cultivate. A recent author 

 thus describes the methods of collection of the 

 coconuts from the natives : " The small husband- 

 man of the Moluccas and other Dutch East Indian 

 Islands has, as a rule, a couple of dozen coconut 

 trees to his name. Perhaps through marriage or 

 inheritance the family he is head and patriarch 

 of has brought more into the store, and then the 

 family is well off. The surplus of the nuts is 

 made into copra, bartered away at his own door 

 or taken with the lot of a neighbour to the 

 nearest trade depot. There is a gradual piling 



