COCOA AND COCONUTS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3795, 14 August 1936, Page 7

COCOA AND COCONUTS

STAPLE PRODUCTS OF SAMOA. THE REPARATIONS ESTATES. (Wlritten by the United Press Association’s Representative with the Government Mission to Samoa.) REPARATION ESTATES. The New Zealand reparation estates in Western Samoa were taken over from the firm of J. C. Godoffroy and Shon, Hamburg (afterwards the Deutsche Handels und Plantagon Gesellschaft, commonly known as the D.H. and P.G.), in 1914. One of the principal shareholders in the old company was ex-Kaiser Wilhelm. The estates consist of three coconut plantations, Mulifanua, the largest, having 6000 acres under cultivation. This is one of the largest coconut plantations in the South Pacific. The other two areas contrailed by New Zealand—Vaitolo and Vailolo, each of 1500 acres—produce about 70 tons of copra a month. The total yearly output from the three estates is 2300 tons. Copra is actually the dried kernel of the cdconut. The nuts are collected after they fall to the ground, dumped in some convenient spot, and are later collected in bullock carts and taken to the husking shed. There they are husked by Samoans, split into two with a blow from a piece of flat iron, and dried in special dehydrators. The drying process takes up to 48 hours, when the nuts are taken out and the kernel extracted and quartered. In this state it is bagged for export.

The standard of copra produced from the Government estates compares favourably with the world's best, inasmuch as it is dust-free and contains a very low percentage of free fatty solids. A coconut tree takes up to nine years to come into full bearing, but once in bearing it requires very little attention. It is necessary, however, to keep down all noxious weeds. The undergrowth is usually kept in check by the grazing of cattle. On the three estates there are 10,000 head of cattle, mostly black Polled Angus and Hereford. It has been found that the estates are capable of grazing a beast to the acre.

One of the main difficulties of the officials lies in combating the rhinoceros beetle, which first appeared in Samoa in 1911. It has laid waste many acres of coconuts. Even at the present time, with the experienced use of traps, the systematic searching for the larvae and the adult beetle, and the destruction by burning of badly-infested trees, the managers still have difficulty in controlling the pest. The beetle bores a hole in the head foliage of the coconut palm, tunnlling its way into the growing shoot of the tree. There it feeds on the immature leaves, and, if not checked, will eventually kill the tree through the attack on the growing spike. The life of a coconut tree is anything up to 100 years, and on the oldest estate, Vailolo, experiments have been made for re-planting the plantation. Young palms have been interplanted between the old ones, and with the aid of fertilisers good results have been obtained. The average yield to be expected from a coconut plantation is from 8 cwt to 15 cwt per acre. The main markets are England and the Continent, shipments of 200 tons being consigned regularly every month. Copra is used principally for the manufacture of soap, margarine, and glycerine, and the chief by-product, copra-coke, is used for fattening stock. Beside the coconut plantations the New Zealand reparation estates control one of the largest cocoa-produc-ing areas in the mandated territory. This plantation, known as Central Grpup, consists of a combination of five erstwhile German plantations. The total area under cocoa cultivation is 1577 acres, of which approximately 500 acres are as yet only in partial bearing. The cocoa tree never attains a height of more than 30 feet and is usually restricted, by pruning, to half that height. It bears its fruit on the main trunk and along the main leaders. A striking peculiarity is its habit of producing the very small pinkish flowers and fruits in clusters, on cushions or buttons on the trunk and larger branches. In fact, the fruits are so closely attached to these' cushions that their removal without injury to the bark requires trained pickers. The beautiful pods, as the fruits are called, ripen at all seasons, but in Samoa they bear two main crops in a year, the first during April and May and the second during November and December. Inside the thick, granular-woody shell there is a scanty white pulp and large, irregularshaped, attened seeds, 20 to 40 or mode, somewhat like large, plump lima beans, either purple coloured or white. The white bean denotes that the tree is of the Criollo variety, and the purple signifies that it is of the Forastoro strain. Crinollo means native-born, and Forastoro is the Spanish adaptation of the Portuguese word Forastoro, meaning foreigner.

Most of the cocoa trees in Samoa are Crinollo-Forastoro hybrids, and it is interesting to find in a single pod a mixture of purple and white beans. From the Crinollo bean the best chocolate and cocoa are manufactured, and every endeavour has been made to maintain Crinollo predominance. The Forastoro is the hardier tree, and the strain was introduced into Samoa to combat the inherent tendency of the Crinollo to contract the canker disease. The first crop may be expected after the tree is three years old, and it should be in full bearing by the fifth year. The pods are carefully cut off the trees with knives, and collected by Samoans, who open the fruit and scoop the beans into kerosene tins or sacks.

The natives are paid contract rates, and some of the pickers become so proficient that from 200 to 30Q lbs of beans may be harvested daily by a single individual. The breaking is always an interesting task. Usually heaps of a few thousand pods near paths are made in the shade. Stripping the seeds from the placental strings, which run lengthwise in the seed pulp, looks simple, but is really a difficult operation. The seeds in their ice-cream-like pulp are shovelled into sacks, and are freighted by lorries to the factory. They are

then weighed and tipped into fermenting boxes, where the process is no longer agricultural but chemical. The cocoa undergoes much the same process as does dough when it is subjected to the action of yeast. After fermentation the beans are washed in revolving drums, and the liquid finally drained off. The beans are then spread out on large sundrying platforms. They are turned periodically for some hours, and are then collected and placed in drying drums for finishing. This process complete, the beans are graded and exported in sacks. Samoan cocoa is considered one of the worlds’ finest grades, and is used by chocolate manufacturers for blending.