222 



THE COCOANUT PALM. 



produce trees whicli will yield small nuts. Too much moisture of 

 every kind is injurious to plants. 



The seed beds, where the plants are to be nursed, should be well 

 dug to about two feet deep, and all stones, roots of trees, &c., removed ; 

 the cocoanuts should then be laid along flat on their side in the soil, 

 in such a way that all but two inches of them be buried, the interval 

 between the nuts being about a foot at least. Should the spaces be 

 too great, the plants will have too many roots, and the sun will not 

 be shaded from them by the fronds, which will be shown by the pale 

 green of the leaf. But should the nuts be placed too close to each 

 other, the young shoots will be then meagre and. quickly spindle up ; 

 the roots too will twist together and be broken when the plants are 

 taken up to be transplanted. Though manuring is of little use before 

 they have taken root, yet in order to prevent white ants, &c., a 

 mixture of salt and ashes, or ashes alone, should be -put into the 

 trenches made in the beds for receiving the cocoanut. Sand alone, or 

 salt with ashes, sand, and paddy husk, form another mixture to be 

 placed between the earth of the bed and the nuts, which latter 

 should be covered with the compost. Black salt, ashes made from 

 the cocoanut husk, and fronds with sea sand, is the best mixture. If 

 this precaution be not used, many of the nuts will be injured and 

 the plants grow pale and weak. 



Some, however, are of opinion that these composts should not be 

 used in the nursery, as they tend to force the plant, which, when 

 transplanted, will then decline, but that the application is best after 

 transplanting ; and that in the nursery beds, black salt dissolved in 

 water is sufficient to keep off white ants ; early manuring, in their 

 opinion, lessening its after effects. 



The next care is to water the nursery, which should be done only 

 every second or fourth day according to the dryness of the weather, 

 simply keeping the soil moist ; for if the ground is too damp, rot is 

 engendered, but if too dry the cocoanut water inside the nuts will 

 evaporate and the shoots dry up. A careful observance of these 

 instructions will cause the shoots to sprout generally within six 

 months from the time they are placed in the ground. 



Some place those cocoanuts intended for seed, tied together in pairs 

 by a strip of the covering on the cadjan, over the roof tree of the 

 dwelling house, or on branches of jack trees, freely exposing them to 

 sun, dew, and rain. But when the shoots are a few inches long, they 

 are taken down and placed in a nursery till transplanted. Such 

 plants are seldom lost, and make no great delay in yielding fruit. 

 Once the tender shoots begin to appear, no great care is necessary 

 for manuring, but the greatest attention should be given that no 

 cattle or insect, &c., injure the shoot itself, else the slightest blow or 

 abrasion will cause a want of vigour ; but on the other hand, some 

 suppose that unless either ashes alone, or mixed with salt and sand, or 

 these separately, be applied to the plants every month, a want of colour 

 will be visible in the opening leaves, or ants and other destructive 

 insects will be fostered. Plants are removed for transplanting gene- 

 rally in the second or third month, sometimes even in the ninth 

 month, but rarely so late as the fifth month ; but in ordinary cases, if 



