358 Coco-nuts The Consols of the East 



one's while to trouble about copra, as with 

 New York, and Panama and the West 

 Indies ; and copra, as in the South Seas r 

 the Philippines, Southern India, &c., where 

 distance and the quantity of the nuts pro- 

 duced cause the making of copra to come 

 first. As regards oil, this is an industry at 

 the producing centre which at present shows 

 no signs of being of prime importance, unless 

 there is a local demand to be satisfied, as it 

 seems generally accepted as being easier, if not 

 more advantageous, to ship home the copra 

 and make the oil at the large consuming 

 centres in Europe and America. 1 But the 

 question of freight, and (let us add without 

 unreasonableness in these days of huge com- 

 bines) a stray chance of the vegetable-oil pro- 

 ducer following the lead of the petroleum 

 shippers, and shipping his oil in tank steamers 

 may yet cause oil and not copra to be the 

 main article of export, especially from the 

 Philippines, where, according to Mr. O. W. 

 Barrett, there are already 33,000,000 trees, so 

 that a billion 2 nuts should be there for export. 

 Therefore the shipment of oil in bulk may yet 

 come, although at the moment it is not feasible. 

 Here, again, is where science and organization 

 can turn an indifferent dividend into a sub- 

 stantial one. On a large coco-nut estate, with, 



1 Coco-nut oil has entirely disappeared as an export 

 from the Philippine Isles. Consular Report for 1910. 



2 An American billion is, we believe, 1,000,000,000. 



