146 Coco-nuts The Consols of the East 



measures are necessary and should be passed 

 to cope with the matter. 



East African coco-nuts are rather small in 

 size, and it takes well over 7,000 to make 

 a ton of copra. This is entirely due to 

 close planting- and insufficiency of care. In 

 European plantations the trees yield full 

 averages of big fruit. All the copra is made 

 by native methods, and as there is copious 

 sunshine all the year round, there is not 

 much difficulty in the proceeding. But the 

 natives are so full of duplicity and crafty 

 guile that they frequently only half-dry the 

 copra in order to keep it heavy, so that 

 the merchants are generally forced to subject 

 it to a second drying on their own account, 

 with the result that the bulk mostly turns 

 out uneven, and of indifferent quality. Such 

 copra fetches but a low price, being only 

 fit for the lowest purposes of manufacture. 



Some years ago a healthy development in 

 European cultivation sprang up, when some 

 promising and extensive estates were formed. 

 But even their copra-making methods leave 

 very much to be desired. Although the 

 Deutsche Ost-Afrika Gesellschaft have always 

 owned the pick of the large estates, they some- 

 how have not been able to make them much 

 of a success, owing probably to the lack of 

 enthusiasm and the antiquated methods still 

 employed. It was unfortunate for the coco- 

 nut industry of this colony that eight or ten 



