COOK—THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA, 331 
The traditional partiality of the coconut for the seabeach is fully 
explained by two considerations, the salt and the relative absence 
of other vegetation, which enables it to be grown with less care or to 
persist longer without cultivation. The limestone of coral islands 
may also afford sufficient alkaline matter for the coconut, even out 
of reach of the sea water, as described by Wallace on the island of 
Matabello in the Malay Archipelago.“ 
Nor is the coconut confined to humid tropical climates or to low 
elevations. Coco palms have been reported as thriving away from 
the sea in relatively dry localities in several tropical countries. Pick- 
ering reported them in Arabia in the district behind Muscat. Coco- 
nuts are extensively grown in the southern part of the Hindustan 
peninsula, and even in Bangalore, in tue middle of the peninsula at 
an altitude of 900 meters. Field cultures of coconuts are recognized 
as acutely dependent upon particular kinds of soils.? 
An old report of coconuts in the interior of Africa, in the region 
of Timbuctu, was probably a mistake, as Seemann has pointed out, 
though it does not appear improbable that they would grow there 
if planted. Landor refers to five kinds of palms as seen about Tim- 
buctu, but makes no mention of coconuts.° 
a‘*The natives of Matabello are almost entirely occupied in making cocoa-nut oil, 
which they sell to the Bugis and Goram traders, who carry it to Banda and Amboina. 
The rugged coral rock seems very favorable to the growth of the cocoa-nut palm, 
which abounds over the whole island to the very highest points, and produces fruit 
all the year round.’’—The Malay Archipelago, p. 281. (London, 1889.) 
6A report ‘‘On the composition of Indian soils” contains the following statements: 
‘No. 375-96. Black loam; lies on a gravelly substratum at a depth of 2 or 3 feet; 
is therefore unfit for cocoa-nut. The ryots complain that the soil of this and the neigh- 
bouring fields is not retentive enough, and needs to be more frequently watered than 
the fields farther down the Cauvery Valley. Irrigated under the Kaling-arayan 
channel from the Bhavani. 
“No. 377-96. Clay, black; more mellow and clayey than No, 375. Ata depth 
of 83 to 5 feet there is a bed of impalpable black sand; cocoa-nuts and plantains thrive 
on this remarkably, and nowhere in the Cauvery Valley are cocoa-nuts more exten- 
sively cultivated. The nuts are comparatively small. (The sample received could 
not be called either black or clayey; it consisted of a dark-brown loamy soil.)’’?— 
Leather, J. W., The Agricultural Ledger, No, 2, p. 8. (1898.) 
cA few date palms, the gorboy-musukuru, the gorboy-homo, with long green thorns 
and a bitter fruit much enjoyed by the children, and a number of dwarf palms are 
to be found, as well as the forked palm, thebaide.’’—Landor, A. H.8., Across Widest 
Africa, vol. 2, p. 451. (1907.) 
The palms with the long green thorns may be oil palms, H/aeis guineensis Jacq., 
which have the lower pinnz narrow, stiff, and spine-like. Many other palms have 
spines along the margins of the petioles, but usually short and brown or black in 
color. The fruits of Elaeis are rather bitter when raw, but not aiter they have been 
roasted. 
