V 



FIELD CULTURE 



149 



however, produces products which can at present be put 

 on to a general world's market in large quantities. The 

 practicability of raising them is therefore a local 

 question, and is usually quite limited. There are certain 

 garden crops, such as ginger, which are frequently grown 

 in shade ; so far as these have to be of local consumption, 

 the same conditions apply to them as to the lanson and 

 similar fruits. Pine-apples are often grown uuder coco- 

 nuts, but, so far as I know, this is never done on so 

 large a scale that it is possible to dispense with the 

 demands of the local market and can the fruit. Among 

 crops which are able to reach wider markets, and there- 

 fore to be raised on a large scale, are cacao, coffee, and, 

 on a smaller scale, black pepper. As a general proposi- 

 tion, both coffee and pepper are crops into whose pro- 

 duction large quantities of labour must enter. It would 

 therefore seem that they might be very desirable acces- 

 sory crops for one which like coco-nut requires very 

 little labour. As a matter of general economic propriety 

 this is no doubt the case ; but in practice at the present 

 time any district or country with an extensive coco-nut 

 industry is sure to be prosperous ; and with prosperity 

 the price of labour usually rises to a point where it is 

 economically impossible to devote it to the production 

 of either coffee or pepper. The situation with cacao is 

 somewhat different. Labour for the production of cacao 

 does not have to be quite so cheap as is demanded for 

 the crops just considered, neither does it have to be so 

 abundant. 



Markets for different crops change their relative 

 positions from year to year, and what could best be raised 

 last year may be produced at a loss by the next. Just 

 at this time it would appear that in places with extensive 

 coco-nut interests, but with population so dense that, in 

 spite of the high profit to be derived from the coco-nuts, 

 the value of labour remains reasonably low, the best crop 

 to be grown on a large scale on the same land which is 

 occupied by the coco-nuts is probably cacao. Where 

 coco-nuts are the principal crop, and the population is 



