COOK—THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA, 275 
account of Cochin China by an early Jesuit missionary, Borri, which 
follows the early discoveries of America in Churchill’s Voyages, there 
is no mention of coconuts, though other plants and their products are 
treated in detail. 
The first practical acquaintance of the Spanish with the coconut 
was gained in America, and we may believe that if they had under- 
taken to introduce the palm into the West Indies they would have 
brought the nuts from Panama instead of from the East Indies. But 
even this would have been quite outside of the objects and operations 
that are recorded in elaborate detail by the early historians. Any 
such undertaking on the part of any intelligent leader would almost 
certainly have become a matter of record. We find, however, no 
sign of interest in the plant which would render such an effort on the 
part of the Spaniards in any way probable. 
In thus alleging an early Spanish introduction of the coconut in 
America De Candolle seems to have depended entirely on an inference 
not really warranted by facts. He argues that unless the palm were 
wild and indigenous it must have been introduced by Europeans, a 
deduction certainly unwarranted in view of the fact that numerous 
other species of native cultivated plants, such as Indian corn, sweet 
potato, cotton, capsicum, peanut, cassava, sour-sop, avocado, anatto, 
and cacao (chocolate) had been widely distributed through tropical 
America in pre-Columbian times. Like the coconut palm, most of 
these plants are still unknown in the wild state. They testify to the 
very great antiquity of agriculture in tropical America, and show the 
propriety of considering the coconut as one of many American plants 
that had been domesticated in America before the arrival of the 
Spaniards. 
EARLY ACCOUNTS OF THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA. 
PETER MARTYR’S ALLUSIONS TO THE COCONUT. 
The only suggestion of historical warrant that De Candolle gives us 
for the idea of the introduction of the coconut by Europeans is con- 
tained in this statement: 
Sloane says it is an exotic in the West Indies. An old author of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, Martyr, whom he quotes, speaks of its introduction, This probably took place 
a few years after the discovery of America, for Joseph Acosta saw the cocoa-nut palm 
at Porto Rico in the sixteenth century.@ 
In reality Sloane does not express any such opinion as his own; he 
gives a very casual mention of an idea which he ascribes to Peter 
Martyr, the representative of the Pope at the court of Spain, who 
wrote letters about the Spanish discoveries to his friends in Ttaly, 
a De Candolle, A. Origin of C ultivated Plants, ed.2 2,p. 4 0. (1886. ) 
