The native is content to cultivate his patch of land with simple implements, such as the digging stick, and is not anxious to work harder than is necessary for his own needs. He is not very ready to work for a European employer, while all his traditions, and the communal system under which he lives, make it impossible for the industrious individual to accumulate any private property.
The cultivation of produce for export is due to the initiative of Europeans, and is largely carried on by the East Indian immigrants who now form a very considerable element in the population. We have already noticed the Hindu women in the streets of Suva. For a few years, during the American Civil War, Fiji exported excellent cotton, but at the present day its export trade consists practically of sugar, copra or dried coconut, and bananas. The sugar-cane is a native of the wet and fertile lowlands of the deltas; but the cultivated kinds are mostly introduced from elsewhere. We find the cane fields covering much of the land along certain parts of the coast, and on the river deltas of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu; and these are connected by nearly two hundred miles of steam tramways, which carry the cane to the centrally placed mills. Here is a view across the Rewa, 29 showing a sugar mill; inside the ugly buildings we find the elaborate European machinery for extracting the juice from the 30 cane. Here again we are in the cane fields with Indian women at work. It is all unlike the native agriculture, though it is very 31 profitable to Fiji, since sugar is the most valuable of all its exports.
The coconut industry is far more picturesque; it is chiefly confined to the south side of Vanua Levu and to Taveuni and the other islands. The nut is grown for its kernel, which, when dried, is called copra, and yields the coconut oil which we use for various purposes. The tree grows everywhere in this region, but does not flourish in Viti Levu owing to an insect pest which seems peculiar to that island. The nut has always been much used by the natives for food, but it is now carefully cultivated for the production of copra. Here is a plantation with the bungalow 32 of the planter; notice the hills in the background; here again is a tree carrying its fruit in curious clusters just below the 33 crown of leaves. The natives, who are excellent climbers, swarm up the taller trees to gather any fruit which is wanted in a not 34 quite ripe state, as for eating or drinking; but the bulk of the nuts, intended for copra, are allowed to ripen on the tree until they drop off. The ripe nuts are then cut open, the kernels 35 extracted and dried in great trays and put into bags for shipment.