tEB. T, i8g8.j 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
539 
OUR STAPLE EXPORTS FOR TEN YEARS 
—AND DISTRIBUnON FOR 1896 97. 
COCONUT PRODUCTS. 
The growing iinportance of the Coconut in- 
dustry, and the extraordinary cliange which has 
taken place in recent years in tire distribution 
of the products of the Coconut palm, require a 
fuller consideration of the figures contained in 
the table of Exports we issued as a Supplement 
last Saturday, than they might otherwise receive. 
Although, in figure.s, the exports of the ripe 
nut in the shell and of the kernel after desic- 
cation may make a braver show', it is the Oil 
which, after all, is the chief product and con- 
tinues to govern the price of nuts. Estates in 
the immediate vicinity of Desiccating Mills may 
calculate on the new industry, which has sprung 
up within the last decade and which c.an show 
figures only forseven years, as controlling the market; 
but it is not in reality so; although such estates 
may benefit by their situation in saving transport 
and breakages, while commanding the same 
price for delivery at the Mills as Estates more 
distantly situated. And why Oil rules the market 
will appear at a glance, if we consider the exports 
only for last year. Whereas the number of Nuts 
exported was l.‘l,610,£C8, and was exceeded only 
once in 1896, when about a quarter million more 
nuts were sent away ; and whereas the record 
figure for Desiccated Coconut (12,054,452 lb.) 
represents, at three nuts to the lb., between 36 
and .37 million nuts, the export of 409,600 cwt. 
of Oil rejnesents no less than 2('4 million nuts, 
at 500 nuts to the cwt. Hence the iuiportance 
of developing the Oil trade, and hence the signi- 
ficance of our inquiry rnto the causes of the 
vast dillerence in price between Cochin and 
Ceylon Oils. The upshot of our Circular appeal 
has been to place beyond doubt that the m.ain 
factor in the advantage which Cochin Oil has 
in the Market, of between 30 and 40 per cent 
in the price, over oui s, is the careless drying of local 
copra, which renders the extraction of w'hite Oil 
from the greater part of the supply impossible. 
Mill owneis do utilize the kernel from the 
drier districts which are able to avoid fire-dry- 
ing andean turnout clean copra to manufacture 
a proportion of colourless Oil ; but clean, white 
copra, so far as we can see, does not command 
the relatively higher price it should, chiefly be- 
cause of the preponderance of bad copra. The 
general outturn of our Oil is slightly yellow ; 
the price quoted is for Oil of that quality ; that 
rules the price of copra ; and it is the mill- 
owner who chiefly benefits by the white Oil 
he is able to extract from the white copra that 
comes into his hands, and not the owner of the 
copra who gets little beyond the market price 
for ordinary copra for his produce. The reriicdy 
would seem to lie in the general inrprovement 
of the quality of our copra, which would im- 
prove the general quality of our Oil, as it would 
hardly pay individual proprietors to manufacture 
and ship only t heir ow'n white Oil. Or can it be 
expected that some capitalist may start a Mill 
only for the production of white Oil by puichas- 
ing only sun-dried clean copi'a ? 
But to return to the figures — the export of 
Oil last year was only a fair average quantity. 
It was in excess of the figures for the two pre- 
vious years, hut it fell short of 1894 when 487.571 
cwt. were exported, and far short of 1892 when 
the figures i cached £50,977 cwt. We cannot, 
therefore, record a progressive developn. cut of the 
Oil trade; but it Is important to note that the 
fluctirations in exports are in no w'ay connected, 
as is the case w ith upcountry products like tea, 
coffee, cocoa &c. , with seasons and crops. The 
exports of most of our staples represent prac- 
tically the total production of the island for the 
year ; the out-turn of Oil depends, not so much 
on the crop of nuts, as on the price of Oil and 
on the demand for it. Had prices been higher 
and the demand stronger, we take it that 
we should have been able to send away 
quite as nmch as in 1892, with per- 
haps a slighc reduction in one or more 
of the other forms in which the products of the 
palm are exported. In such case, the brisker 
demand for Oil W’ould have led to higher prices 
for copra and for nuts. And that leads us to 
a consideration of the distribution of Oil during 
the laT two years in which there has been 
little short of a revolution. Ever since Coco- 
nut Oil formed one of our stai)le exports, the 
United Kiiigdom b.as been its largest purchaser, 
and the lea\es from an old mercantile book of 
60 years ago, which we recently published, dis- 
closed almo.st the beginning of the trade ; but 
last year the United Kingdom took only 72,004 
cwt., out of the total of 409,600 we exported. That 
is only about one-sixth of our total exports, 
and nearly 20,000 cwt. less than was taken in 
1896, which itself showed a considerable falling- 
off. Nor are there larger shipments for Conti- 
nental ports to .suggest the supersession of the 
London market by diiect importations. Austria’s 
imports of our Oil fell from 24,313 cwt. to 8,717 ; 
Belgium’s from 3,314 to 1,133 ; Germany’s from 
17,141 to 5,754 ; Italy’s from 1,317 to 310; while 
France and Bussia which used to take a few hun- 
dred tons, have disappeared as customers 1 This 
falling-off in custom was not due to prices 
which, if any thing, showed a slightly down- 
ward tendency. The camse was probably 
cheap tallow wdiich was leported to be very 
abundant in America and the United King- 
dom. It would be interesting to inquire 
whether the quality of our Oil told against it, 
and whether the countries which took less from 
us, took more from Cochin, or found other sub- 
stitutes, It is not unlikely that in some cases, 
and to seme extent, larger importations of nuts 
and copra compensated for the falling-off in 
orders for oil. Anyway, what we wish to point 
out is the great shifting there has been in trade 
whereby India almost doubled its demands on 
us, and took away 166,238 cwt., against 86,796 
the previous year. She is thus far and away our 
be.st customer, taking from us more than twice 
the quantity which the United Kingdom im- 
ported, and almost twice the quantity which 
America our second best customer indented for 
namely 88,000 cw t. Here, too, we find, if not a re- 
volution, a considerable change, as it is compara- 
tively recently that America began taking our 
Oil. She soon proved a good customer, but was 
long far behind, although now' she is 
ahead of, the United Kingdom ! Another 
place w'hich has almost doubled its demand 
is Sirigai>ore which took 64,058 cwt this year 
against 34,133 in 1896. The great free Port of the 
Straits and India have thus taken from us consider- 
ably more than ore-half of our total output of 
Oil ; and if our ohier customers revert to 
their large orders, the brisker demand should 
lead to higher ) rices. But how is this to be se- 
cured ? Cannot coconut growers combine 
to act in the way tea planters have comtiined 
to make their teas known in new markets, and 
to study the requirements of the old nmikets? 
