COOK THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA. 275 



account of Cochin China by an early Jesuit missionary, Borri, which 

 follows the early discoveries of America in Churchill's Voyages, there 

 is no mention of coconuts, though other plants and their products are 

 treated in detail. 



The first practical acquaintance of the Spanish with the coconut 

 was gained in America, and we may believe that if they had under- 

 taken to introduce the palm into the West Indies they would have 

 brought the nuts from Panama instead of from the East Indies. But 

 even tins would have been quite outside of the objects and operations 

 that are recorded in elaborate detail by the early historians. Any 

 such undertaking on the part of any intelligent leader would almost 

 certainly have become a matter of record. We find, however, no 

 sign of interest in the plant which would render such an effort on the 

 part of the Spaniards in any way probable. 



In thus alleging an early Spanish introduction of the coconut in 

 America De Candolle seems to have depended entirely on an inference 

 not really warranted by facts. He argues that unless the palm were 

 wild and indigenous it must have been introduced by Europeans, a 

 deduction certainly unwarranted in view of the fact that numerous 

 other species of native cultivated plants, such as Indian corn, sweet 

 potato, cotton, capsicum, peanut, cassava, sour-sop, avocado, anatto, 

 and cacao (chocolate) had been widely distributed through tropical 

 America in pre-Columbian times. Like the coconut palm, most of 

 these plants are still unknown in the wild state. They testify to the 

 very great antiquity of agriculture in tropical America, and show the 

 propriety of considering the coconut as one of many American plants 

 that had been domesticated in America before the arrival of the 

 Spaniards. 



EARLY ACCOUNTS OF THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA. 

 PETER MARTYR'S ALLUSIONS TO THE COCONUT. 



The only suggestion of historical warrant that De Candolle gives us 

 for the idea of the introduction of the coconut by Europeans is con- 

 tained in this statement: 



Sloane says it is an exotic in the West Indies. An old author of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, Martyr, whom he quotes, speaks of its introduction. This probably took place 

 a few years after the discovery of America, for Joseph Acosta saw the cocoa-nut palm 

 at Porto Rico in the sixteenth century. a 



In reality Sloane does not express any such opinion as his own; he 

 gives a very casual mention of an idea which he ascribes to Peter 

 Martyr, the representative of the Pope at the court of Spain, who 

 wrote letters about the Spanish discoveries to his friends in Italy, 



P De Tandolle, A., Origin of Cultivated Plants, ed. 2, p. 430. (1886.) 



