142 THE COCO-NUT 



CHAP. 



qualifications, and often only with certain treatment, 

 or by using the roots for the manufacture of starch or 

 alcohol. This is not the place to discuss these industries. 

 They are distinct and separate from coco-nut culture, 

 and must be understood both in their industrial and 

 their market relations before they can safely be 

 undertaken. Where market conditions are satisfactory, 

 it is practically certain that the production of manioc 

 starch or alcohol can be made in two crops to pay for 

 the necessary manufacturing equipment, for the clearing 

 of the land, planting of both crops, and the cultivation 

 needed by the land, and the return of fertilizers, and 

 still leave a good profit from the operation of establish- 

 ing the plantation. 



There are various crops, of the garden rather than 

 of the field, with which this can be done on a small 

 scale, but there is no other which makes such slight 

 demands upon labour, nor which can safely be under- 

 taken on so large a scale, the reason for the last 

 statement being that the manufactured products from 

 the manioc are not perishable, and are marketable on 

 the world's markets. 



There is a superstition, or it might be more 

 respectful to say belief, that manioc is an exceedingly 

 hard crop on the soil. This is caused by the practice 

 formerly common in the Malay Peninsula, of clearing 

 land for manioc, and abandoning it, to return to grass 

 or brush, after harvesting two or three crops. There is 

 no doubt that land treated in this way deteriorates very 

 rapidly. In the Philippines land is very commonly 

 treated in exactly the same way, except that the crop 

 temporarily raised on it is usually rice. Still nobody 

 believes that rice is distinctly a hard crop on the soil ; 

 and neither, as a matter of fact, is the manioc. The 

 soil would deteriorate almost as rapidly if the rice or 

 manioc were ploughed under and nothing at all taken 

 away from the ground. Observation has given me 

 considerable confidence in the opinion that the soil does 

 not deteriorate as rapidly in manioc as it does in rice. 



