228 FLORIDA FRUITS COCOA-NUTS. 



grown leaves, from fifteen to twenty feet long, are every 

 where employed for thatching in Ceylon ; when used for 

 this purpose they are plaited into huge roofing-mats, with 

 which the bungalows of Europeans are thatched as well 

 as those of the native population. 



The Malays plait the leaflets into sails for their phras, 

 and wonderfully durable do they prove to be. 



The uses of the cocoa-nut leaf, like that of all palm 

 trees, are manifold. Mats for roofing buildings, for shel- 

 tering young plants, for covering cattle-sheds, for fences, 

 for walls, for ceilings, and for human coverings ; all these 

 necessities they supply in the one article of plaited mats. 

 Moreover, they furnish baskets, large and small, delicate 

 and rough, coarse, or so fine and close that fluid may be 

 carried in them as in buckets, baskets to catch fish and to 

 carry them. 



The midribs of the leaves are used for propelling boats 

 instead of manufactured oars or paddles, and when bruised 

 at one end this same useful midrib is converted into a brush 

 for scrubbing and whitewashing. The smaller ribs of the 

 leaves become formidable rivals to the pin manufactories, 

 being universally employed by the poorer population of 

 the ' ' palm lands " in place of those indispensable articles 

 of the toilet. As toothpicks, also, they perform good serv- 

 ice ; and by simply tying a bundle of them firmly together 

 with a midrib in their center, a most excellent broom is 

 obtained, so excellent, indeed, that no other is employed by 

 either rich or poor. 



By the South Sea Islanders, too, these small ribs of the 

 cocoa leaf are extensively used as teeth for the combs of 

 which they are skillful manufacturers. 



The chief food of domesticated elephants is the cocoa- 

 nut leaf, and it is a wonderful thing to observe how dex- 

 trously this intelligent animal separates the woody fiber 

 from the thinner margin of the leaf. 



