Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/56

 expended upon it; in a less degree, the same increase of cost had affected the value of the staple product of the island, the plantain. At first, when the plantains were discovered, the islanders only used the fruit of those trees that were in the most convenient situations. They did not row ten miles for their plantain grove, when they could find an equally productive one by rowing five. They did not trouble to gather the smaller fruits, when they could fill their baskets so much more quickly by gathering only the larger specimens. By and by, however, they found that the nearest plantations were beginning to be less productive; then some of the men whose business it was to gather plantains went further away in search of new plantations, and those who remained filled their baskets with the smaller fruit, which at first had not been worth the trouble of gathering. After this, fears were felt by the islanders that they were using up their stock of food too rapidly, and that precautions should be taken to prevent a scarcity in future years. Then a large piece of ground in the most favourable situation was