Planting in Fiji 475 



island of Rabi, as far as I know. The copra 

 can be dried in that way in much shorter time 

 than by the ordinary method. I read in " The 

 Consols of the East " the other day that the 

 highest-priced copra was obtained by drying 

 it in the sun for six days. 



In cases where the copra and coir are sent 

 away, and the shell used for fuel, and conse- 

 quently nothing returned to the land, it becomes 

 absolutely necessary to apply some kind of 

 manure in order to maintain the productiveness 

 of the soil. 



It appears to me an anomaly that the owner 

 of one of the largest coco-nut plantations in 

 Fiji, on which is also a dairy of very consider- 

 able size, sends all his copra away, when he 

 might extract the oil, export that, and use the 

 poonac (coco-nut cake) for feeding the dairy 

 cows with. Denmark could not produce butter 

 of such superlative quality without using poonac 

 for the milking cows. An experiment has 

 shown that by adding 2 1 oz. of poonac to the 

 ordinary daily food of a cow which produced 

 28| Ib. of milk containing 16 oz. of fat, the 

 yield was increased to 35^ Ib. of milk (an in- 

 crease of 23-5 per cent.) containing 20 J oz. of 

 fat (an increase of 26*5 per cent.). It has also 

 been ascertained that the better keeping quality 

 of the Danish butter compared with that of 

 other countries is to a great extent due to the 

 poonac given to the dairy cows. 



Coming to the question of insects attacking 



