Chapter II 

 The Coconut and its Products 



BEFOKE proceeding to the further con- 

 sideration of coconut cultivation from a 

 financial point of view it is advisable, and 

 even necessary, to know something more of the 

 coconut itself, and of the various purposes served 

 by its products. 



The coconut tree, botanically known as the 

 Cocos nucifera, must not be confounded with that 

 famous evergreen, the Theobroma cacao, whose 

 pod- fruit yields the cocoa of commerce. 



The coconut palm has a slender, branchless 

 trunk, which attains a height of from 70 to 85 ft., 

 and a diameter of 12 to 23 in. It is marked along 

 its entire length, in transversal rings, by scars left 

 by the leaves that fall, and two scars being thus 

 formed annually its age can be readily ascertained. 

 The stem is surmounted by a cluster of from twenty 

 to thirty leaves, the youngest of them being in the 

 centre. A full leaf is about 17 ft. in length, and 

 from 4 ft. 6 in. to 6 ft. 6 in. in width. It is so hard 

 in parts that it is used for thatching, fencing and 



