417 
copra is particularly rich in oil, and I see no reason why the more 
usual system of sun-drying should not be resorted to. From the 
natives’ point of view smoke-drying is less trouble and they have 
become wedded to the practice, but should cocoanut-planting 
under white management be entered upon, it is not to be supposed 
that any system but sun-drying, or perhaps even the superior one 
of kiln-drying, would be followed 
“The output of pi bon uk nari NE might be very 
largely increased. I have no hesitation in ing that with the 
existing trees at least double the quantity of Eh iai ye copra 
might be produced, and this without in any bj stinting the 
natives in the.quantity they require to use food, The 
quantities of POTE and giay nuts that may be noticed at 
any time under a cocoanut grove in the Solomons is such as 
would PEA the mouth “Of a Samoan or Fijian water with envy. 
The fact is, however, that the natives have so few wants, and 
these are a "easily senate that a small proportion only of the 
crop of nuts suffices to satisfy them, and the remainder is allowed 
to go to waste. I consider that of all the natives of the Western 
Pacific with whom I have come in contact the Solomon Islanders 
of the British Protectorate are able to supply their demand for 
articles of foreign trade with the least exertion. 
n preparing the copra for sale to the traders the natives cut the 
nuts in half and the divided nuts are then smoked in a fire 
hen sufficiently dry the cup-shaped kernels come away gin 
the shell. ese are strung upon strings supposed to contain 
10 nuts each, or rather 20 abs soit The price for a string o 
the f nu when tobacco is the purchasing medium. 
During my previous residence i omons, from 1886 
to 1889, strings containing 16 o im half nuts were considered 
very good, but during the present r I saw a string containing 
so few as seven half nuts tendered pd accepted as a full string. 
In fact the natives are supplying their wants too cheaply, and the 
better class of traders have admitted to me that the imposition of 
duties or trading licenses will actually benefit the trade by forcing 
them to raise the price of their goods and so compelling the 
natives to make more produ 
t the present price of copra in Sydney I consider that if a 
tiie makes 2/. a ton profit upon the copra collected by him he 
has done very well, and off this must be taken the expenses of 
collection. 
Ivory NUTS. 
“ These nuts are the fruit ^s a palm (Mets ‘oxylon Amicarum), 
one - the sago-yielding palms. The species is, I believe, peculiar 
to the Solomons, and sees wild throughout the group in 
bidshaustibic quantity. The nuts are exported as vegetable ivory 
and are used for making buttons and sem small articles. 
Some years ago I made inquiries in London as to the market for 
these nuts, and ascertained that ae bee known i in the trade as 
‘apple nuts, and that three Birmingham firms occasionally used 
them. I was informed that the mm eint to them was the 
