16 THE SAMOAN CO CO A NUT 



better grades of soap, for, free of odor as it may be at first, its 

 pungent rancidity is apt to become soon manifest. The odor of 

 copra, especially when stored in bulk or on shipboard, is of the 

 most disagreeable and nauseating character. 



The accepted method of latter years is to plant the cocoanuts 

 in rows 40 feet apart, setting the trees 30 feet in the row. The 

 early planters placed the trees 20 feet apart each way, and many 

 years were required after they came into bearing to show that 

 the planting had been done too closely. The nuts were small 

 and not so abundant as they were on trees scattered widely apart. 

 Taught b}' this observation, the groves were thinned by cutting 

 away a liberal percentage of the trees, to the considerable im- 

 provement of the yield. The cocoanut, of all things, loves the 

 sunshine and free circulation of the air. Indeed, to flourish in 

 perfection it should stand on the outer verge of the shore, Its 

 roots striking into the sea water, its branches or palms ever 

 whipped and tossing in the stiff breeze of the trades. It finds 

 its habitat close to the sea, where the salt-impregnated air can 

 reach it freely and in abundance. Like some other members of 

 the vegetable kingdom — for instance, clover — it seems' to take a 

 part of the elements of its growth from the air, but that air must 

 be at the high temperature of the tropics and saturated with the 

 salt moisture of the sea. The cocoanut is so much the creature 

 of the sunshine and the sea that it clearly manifests its removal 

 inland in a reduced crop of smaller nuts. The lowlands of the 

 beach on all these islands are more or less covered with the 

 groves, while on the mountains and highlands no tree is found. 

 The smaller size of the trees and the poorer yield are plainly to 

 be noticed on lands at an elevation of from 400 to 600 feet, situ- 

 ated at as short a distance as 2J and 3 miles from the shore. 

 Standing immediately on the beach, the tree inclines outward 

 over the water; growing inland, it points by its leaning ever in 

 the most direct way to the sea. 



The nuts ripen along throughout the year, hanging in pendent 

 clusters close in and around the stems of the palm branches, 

 which spread about on all sides and reach upward from the 

 clustered head forming the top of the tree. The nuts hanging 

 lowest ripen first, the young nuts continually appearing above 

 with the growth of the tree, and so the lower branches wither 

 and dry, falling away as the younger branches push out from 

 above. The body of the tree from the ground to the crown at 

 the top, a distance reaching up from 30 to most frequently 60 



