140 OIL. 



prodQctive ; and that the capital, and the interest upon the capital 

 expended in this husbandry, must necessarily exceed the value of 

 the produce up to the thirtieth year. Yet there are soils which are 

 favorable to the olive, and which are useful for nothing else ; a hole 

 in a rock suffices it, if the climate be favorable and it receive a 

 praper dose of manure. But the grand cause of the disadvantages 

 attending the cultivation of the olive, in France, is connected with 

 the periodical occurrence of severe winters, which kill it ; in an 

 interval of one hundred and twelve years, from 1709 to 1821, the 

 olive plantations have suffered three great mortalities, which give a 

 mean duration of about forty years to each planting. 



The cocoa-nut-tree is one of those which yields the largest quan- 

 tity of oil with the least labor. The tree grows vigorously in all hot 

 countries, at no great distance from the sea-shore ; wherever the tem- 

 perature is from 78° to 82° Fahr., there the cocoa-nut thrives. It is 

 also found on the banks of great rivers ; and the common practice in 

 planting the cocoa-nut is to put a little salt in the hole. When trans- 

 planted far from the banks of rivers, it thrives best in the neighborhood 

 of human habitations, which has led the Indians to say that the 

 cocoa-nut-tree loves to hear men talking under its shade. It is a 

 tree which requires a soil impregnated with saline substances, and 

 these are never wanting near the habitations of man. The tree 

 bears its first flowers at the age.of four years ; it produces fruit the 

 following year, and continues to fructify until it is eighty years old. 

 The spikes generally bear about twelve cocoa-nuts, and the number 

 of nuts yielded by a tree in the course of a year may be taken at 

 about fifty, which will yield about four litres, or rather more than 

 seven pints of oil. Somewhere about ninety trees are generally 

 found upon the acre of land, and these are capable of yielding about 

 825 lbs. of oil annually* 



The cocoa-nut-tree must, therefore, be regarded as among the 

 most productive in oil, and also as the plant which requires the least 

 outlay in its cultivation. Many species of palm yield oils of a very 

 agreeable flavor for the table, and the produce of all answers admira- 

 bly for the manufacture of soap. In the same proportion as agri- 

 cultural industry extends in the equatorial regions of the globe, will 

 the production of palm-oils increase, and this must necessarily in- 

 fluence the cultivation of the olive in a very serious way. The cul- 

 tivation of the tree being already threatened in Europe by that of 

 the mulberry, and the prodigious extension in the trade in palm-oil 

 upon the coasts of Africa in the course of the last few years, justify 

 this conclusion. In 1817, palm-oil was considered as among the 

 list of mere medicinal substances. At this period a London perfumer 

 thought of making it into a soap for the toilet-table. From this time 

 it became the staple of a bartering trade, which has been by so much 

 the more profitable to the nations engaged in it, as the purchase is 

 always effected by manufactured articles, such as cotton and wool 

 len goods, hardware and crockery, arms, powder, &c. The future 



* Codazzi. Remmen de la Geografia de la Venezuela, p. 133. 



