CHAPTER I. 

 THE COCONUT AND ITS USES. 



THE coconut is perhaps the most popular and best 

 known of all the valuable oil-bearing plants ; but although 

 so well known, it is only quite recently that its value in 

 making butter and other edible fats was discovered. 

 Perhaps it was due to the Right Hon. Lord Leverhulme 

 that the boom in this commodity, which has not yet 

 reached its zenith, was first foreshadowed, if not begun. 

 That great soap magnate and philanthropist recorded his 

 opinion that " there is no field of tropical agriculture so 

 promising, and no industry in the whole world offering so 

 lucrative an investment of time and money as that of 

 coconut cultivation." Every year about ten thousand 

 million coconuts are cultivated, besides the vast numbers 

 which grow wild. 



In 1914 the value of the world's exports of copra and 

 coir fibre (two products of the coconut) was estimated 

 to be nearly 50 per cent, greater than the value of the 

 world's output in rubber, and only 40 per cent, less 

 than the world's output of gold; and companies, 

 whose speciality is coconut butter, have paid as 

 much as 200 per cent, dividend. Hence the coconut 

 deserves a first place in a book of this character. 

 Further, unlike many oil-bearing trees, it is found on 

 most of the islands and coastal regions of the tropics 

 up to 20 or 25 north and south of the Equator. Its 

 greatest successes have been achieved in New Guinea, 

 Malay, Sumatra, Panama, Java, the Philippines, Ceylon, 



