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refuse of the copra after the oil has been extracted, is 

 a most excellent article for fattening cattle. This is, 

 at present, useless in Fiji, but it is of great value in 

 Europe, and enables the European merchant to give 

 more for the copra than the local oil manufacturer 

 could afford. 



But when Eiji is fully settled, and many coffee and 

 sugar cane plantations are in full working order, a 

 local demand for JPounac will arise, as in Ceylon 

 and elsewhere, for feeding draught cattle; it will 

 thus become more economical to make oil in Fiji than 

 to sell the copra. 



In Ceylon, Seychelles, &c, where the cocoa-nut tree 

 is grown on a large scale, small proprietors have mills, 

 worked by a bullock, for extracting the oil from the 

 copra, which they do to a certain degree of perfection. 

 These mills are sometimes hewn out of stone, but 

 more commonly they are made from the root end of a 

 large tree, of such tough hard wood as dilo or 

 vest. The introduction of these simple mills among 

 the natives of Fiji would be of great advantage. 

 They conld easily be made in the colony, but one 

 might be required as a sample. This the Government 

 of the colony might undertake. 



The fibre yielded by the husk of the nut is, as coir 

 yarn, of great mercantile value for making ropes, 

 matting, &c. The Fijians take so long a time in 

 plaiting fcheirsinnet or coir by the hand, that although 

 done in a superior manner, the amount which the 

 merchants can afford to give for it is disproportionate 

 to the labour expended on it ; consequently the natives 

 make it only for their own use. In Ceylon there arc 

 simple machines for twisting or spinning coir, worked 

 by the hand. With one of these a man, aided by one 



