THE COCOANUT. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The following pages are written chiefly in the interests of the planter, 

 'but the writer feels that the great agricultural importance which the 

 cocoanut palm is bound to assume in these Islands is sufficient to 

 justify the presentation of some of its history and botany. 



For that part of the bulletin which touches upon the botany of the 

 cocoanut I am indebted to Don Regino Garcia, associate botanist of the 

 Forestry Bureau; for that relating to its products and local uses, to the 

 courtesy of manufacturers in Laguna; and, for the rest, to personal 

 experience and observations made in Laguna Province and in the south- 

 ern Yisayan Islands where, as elsewhere in this Archipelago, the cocoa- 

 nut may properly be considered a spontaneous and not a cultivated 

 product. 



HISTORY. 



The legendary history of the "Prince of Palms," 1 as it has been 

 called, dates back to a period when the Christian era was young, and its 

 history is developing day by day in some new and striking manifestation 

 of its utility or beauty. It seems not unreasonable to assume that much 

 of the earlier traditionary history of the cocoanut may have been inspired 

 as much by its inherent beauty as by its uses. Such traditional proverbs 

 or folklore as I have gathered in the Visayas recognize the influence 

 of the beautiful, in so far as the blessings of the trees only inure to the 

 good; for instance, "He who is cruel to his beast or his family will 

 only harvest barren husks from the reproving trees that witness the 

 pusillanimous act ;" and, again, "He who grinds the poor will only grind 

 water instead of fat oil from the meat." 



To this day the origin of the cocoanut is unknown. De Candolle 

 (Origin of Cult. Plants, p. 574) recites twelve specific claims pointing 

 to an Asiatic origin, and a single, but from a scientific standpoint al- 

 most unanswerable, contention for an American derivation. None of 

 the remaining nineteen species of the genus Cocos are known to exist 

 elsewhere in the world than on the American continent. His review of 

 the story results in the nature of a compromise, assigning to our own 

 Islands and those to the south and west of us the distinction of having 

 first given birth to the cocoanut, and that thence it was disseminated 

 east and west by ocean currents. 



1 "The Prince of Palms," Treloar. 



