SAMOAN NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14924, 23 February 1912, Page 5

SAMOAN NEWS.

— ♦ — [from orn, own- correspondent.] Apia, February 7. Some very considerable land transactions have just taken place, and the new plantations are anxious to obtain further supplies of labour, while on some of the older places the Have* rubber trees are coming into the tappable age, and when this work is in full blast, large numbers of coolies will be required to harvest the crop. It is calculated bore that one coolie can only care for one and a-half acres during tho tapping season. Thus a place of 1200 acres will have to provide about 800 men for gathering the crude gum as it exudes from the trees. On most of the plantations the cacao is now in full bloom, and a fine crop is looked for. Six hundred and forty tons were exported in 1911, together with 10,600 tons of native-grown copra. Owing to a new and growing demand having sprung up in the United States for pal- j mine butters, it is believed that the prico j of copra will again advance. It is now worth about £19 in the Islands, and it is exported that as the uses of copra are still further exploited, the price will advance to about £25 per ton. Very few cocoamit plantations change hands in the Pacific. Such properties are generally worth from £40 to £70 per acre, according to their location, and their capacities. Plantations near civilised centres, on which cattle can be grazed under the palms are much more valuable than those situated in unhandy .localities, where the cocoanuts alone have to lie depended on. A good deal has lately been done in the Islands towards improving the breed of horses. So far, in German Samoa, the road system has not been kept up to expectations, but it is likely that this sort of work will be accelerated. It is expected that many plantations will, during this year, become dividend paying, and that as soon as it has been decisively shown that handsome profits can be made new capital will be attracted, and thousands of acres now lying unused will be taken up and planted.