Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/180

156 that the former was indigenous, and the latter had been grown there so long that it was practically so. The cocoanut-tree was an important article of cultivation, and thousands of acres have been planted with it. For a long time the chief article of export was copra, but latterly it has been exceeded by sugar. In 1875 the export of copra was 3871 tons; in 1884 it was 6682 tons, or nearly double the amount of nine years before. As the young trees come into bearing the exportation of copra will be greatly increased.



"The growth of the sugar-trade," said his informant, "has been very rapid, as you will see by the figures. In 1875 the export of sugar was 96 tons, and in 1876 it was 265 tons; in 1881 it was nearly 9000 tons; and in 1885, 10,586 tons. Molasses shows about the same increase as its first-cousin, sugar, though the product of later years is not as valuable as some that preceded it, owing to the diminished price of the article.

"Cotton has not been a profitable crop on the whole," he continued, "and the production has fallen off from 386 tons in 1879 to 150