132 PALMS. 



The strong tough foot-stalks of the fronds, which attain a 

 length of from eighteen to twenty feet, are used for fences, 

 for yokes, for carrying burthens on the shoulders, for fishing- 

 rods; the leaflets serve for roofing, for mats, for baskets, for 

 cattle-fodder ; and their midribs form good brooms for the decks 

 of ships. Cooked or stewed, the cabbage or cluster of un ex- 

 panded leaves is an excellent vegetable, though rarely used, as it 

 necessarily involves the destruction of the tree ; and even the 

 tough web or network, which sustains the foot-stalks of the leaves, 

 may be stripped off in large pieces and used for straining. 



After the cocoa-nut tree has ceased to bear, its wood serves for 

 many valuable purposes — for the building of ships, bungalows, 

 and huts, for furniture and farming implements of every descrip- 

 tion ; and, as it admits of a fine polish, and its reddish ground 

 colour is beautifully veined with dark lines, it is frequently I 

 imported into England under the name of porcupine-wood. 



When we consider the many benefits conferred upon man- 

 kind by this inestimable tree, we cannot wonder at the ani- 

 mation with which the islander of the Indian Ocean recounts 

 its "hundred uses," or at the superstition which makes him 

 believe that by some mysterious sympathy it pines when 

 beyond the reach of the human voice. 



Yet, strange to say, as Sir Emerson Tennent informs us, one 

 preeminent use of the cocoa-nut tree is omitted in all the 

 popular enumerations of its virtues: it acts as a conductor in 

 protecting the houses from lightning ; thus shielding the life 

 and property of those whom it nourishes with its fruit and 

 enriches with its manifold productions. 



As experience has shown that the cocoa-nut palm requires 

 both sea-air and plentiful irrigation for its vigorous growth, 

 those portions of the Ceylon coast are selected for new planta-» 

 tions which are flanked by estuaries and intersected by inland 

 lakes, where wells can be sunk at a small expense and water 

 can be most conveniently carried. 



The ripe nuts are first planted in a nursery, where they are 

 covered an inch deep with sand and sea-weed, or soft mud from 

 the beach, and watered daily till they germinate. After two or 

 three months, a white shoot, in which the foliaceous rudiment^ 

 are distinctly to be perceived, rises from one of the three hole^ 

 of the nut, while the radicles emerge from the other twq 





