A DEMORALIZING TREE. 17 



Witli these figures to go on, imagine the innumerable 

 numbers of tropical islands in the world where cocoanuts 

 flourish, and the hundreds of miles of suitable seashore 

 along which the trees grow upon the various continents, 

 and then try and figure out the mighty sum total of the 

 world's production of nuts. Where do they all go to ? 

 Of course, if you think, as we did, that the only use for 

 cocoanuts is to provide a very laudable object for small 

 boys to shy at and afterwards test the digestive powers 

 of their stomachs on, or, may be, for the making of an 

 occasional cocoanut ice-cream, or the flavouring of a cake 

 or pudding, you will think there must be an awful waste 

 going on in the world, every year, of a thing which really 

 is not wanted and which we have not asked for. Even 

 now, we more than half suspect, the great majority of people 

 are ignorant of the fact that the " flesh," or eatable part 

 of the cocoanut, is sun-dried to the tune of thousands of 

 tons yearly (being in this state known to commerce as 

 copra), and is used for the manufacture of cocoanut oil. 



I should imagine there is no more demoralising tree in 

 the world than the cocoanut palm. It is just the sort 

 of thing some of our " unemployables " are looking for. 

 You have only got to summon up enough energy to plant 

 a sufficient number of young ones, and time does the rest 

 for you. All it asks of you is to wait for some seven years, 

 until the tree has had time to become full grown, producing 

 an average of some hundred nuts a year (sometimes less, 

 sometimes a great deal more), not all at once, which might 

 be inconvenient, but spread over four or five harvests 

 annually. And this it considerately goes on doing for 

 sixty, seventy, or eighty years, and you need never lift 

 a finger to help it. The tree, in fact, simply encourages 

 you to be lazy, and if you have any grit left in you after 

 living in its company for any length of time, the soft 

 " lotus-eating " kind of ehmate in which it flourishes will 

 soon take it out of you. 



The South Sea Islanders never had a chance with a 

 tree like this. Why work or worry or fuss around when 



B 



