Samoa and New Guinea 129 



animals, the results evidently are satisfactory, as 



about three head can go to the acre. In spite 



of this, although the Deutsches Handel and 



Plantagen Gesellschaft owns for this purpose a 



herd of 2,500 head, to their total area of about 



7,000 acres, it has been said that a great deal 



of their cleaning has still to be done by hand, 



which is expensive. To use cattle, therefore, 



to effectually keep down the weeds a large 



number is necessary. But still, even a few cattle, 



such as one can afford to buy at the start, is 



better than the dilemma of some of the Pacific 



Isles, where the insidious lalang grass grows and 



shoots up in the course of a few weeks to the 



height of three or four feet. The roots of this 



grass also " felt-up " the surface and impoverish 



the soil very considerably, 1 and while full-grown 



cacao and rubber trees do not allow it to 



grow under their dense shade, coco-nuts, 



even when full grown, are too far apart to keep 



it down, and it is extremely costly in many 



places to eradicate. In some localities, where 



the ground is fairly level, the grass is actually 



kept down by mowing machines, and elsewhere 



by repeated ploughing, but this latter is said to 



damage the coco-nut roots, and the appearance 



of the palms soon shows this. Ploughing, 



however, is probably the lesser of two evils 



and is recommended in the Philippines. At 



1 Barrett in his " Coco-nut Culture," p. 12, claims that 

 the poisonous effects of cogon grass and difficulties of 

 soil ventilation retard the profit-yielding age of palms. 



