368 A DISCOURSE 



UOOK IV'. or almost desire,) it were sufficient to employ his meditations and his 

 ^'^"V^-^ hands, as long as he were to live, though his years were as many as the 



have a crop of rice, wheat, and other grain; I have seen fair and beautiful Palm-trees in 

 the inland, remote from the sea, always in plains, never upon hills, where- they come to no 

 maturity, either because in low grounds they shelter one the other, or that on the hills the 

 winds shake them too violently, to the no little detriment of their fruit ; being tall and ten- 

 der with all their boughs and fruit on the top, they are obnoxious to the wind, the whole 

 weight being at the head, the body high, tender, and fragile : they may be fitly compared 

 to the mast of a ship with round top and top-raast, without the help of shrouds to support 

 it. These trees are planted, by sowing the Cocoas or nuts in a bed, and covering them 

 with earth : a little time will put forth a shoot, the ordinary product of seed ; arrived at 

 some growth, they are transplanted into a place designed for that purpose ; there ranked 

 in fit distance, order, and proportion, they remain till arrived to perfection, and being 

 planted in a line, make a fair show in the field, so pleasant to the natives, that no garden 

 in Europe is with more care manured, or of greater, if of equal satisfaction. This hath 

 been experienced by presenting them with our rarities, who neglect them, and sigh after 

 the Palm-trees of their own country ; though there is not a more melancholy and unpleasant 

 sight to Europeans, than to be in a Palm-orchard, where nothing is to be seen but trunks 

 of trees set in order, which appear withered without any foliage ; all the greenness being 

 above the sight, there is little enjoyed : beheld at a distance, no prospect is more grateful. 

 Being young plants, their mortal enemies are the cattle, which rifle their beauty, and with 

 their teeth do them no little damage ; that begets a necessity to encompass them with fences. 

 These plants are manured at small expense ; ordinarily they require not much watering : 

 grown to some bigness, they lay ashes to their roots, all sorts of shell-fish, particularly little 

 fish, called by the natives cuta, putrified at the foot of the tree, are of admirable effect ; 

 but all trees cannot be so indulged ; thi&is supplied by mud taken out of salt marshes, by 

 which their fruitfulness is very much advanced. They bear fruit at five years if planted in 

 soft artificial beds, so taking root sooner and with greater ease ; at seven, if the earth be 

 firm and hard, spreading their roots leisurely and with more difficulty. I only know one 

 spot of ground in the island of Ceylon so fruitful and proper for these trees, that in two 

 years they come to their growth, get strength, and are laden with fruit. The fruit of this 

 tree, (whatsoever the species is,) comes forth thus : from the stem of the Palm, shoots out 

 a twig, made like a man's arm, not unlike a Moorish scimitar, which the natives call 

 poyo. This opens and puts forth a cluster of thirty, fifty, eighty, sometimes an hundred 

 coquinhos or nuts, about the bigness of a hazel-nut ; should all come to perfection, the 

 quantity were stupendous, but the parent wanting sap and nourishment for so many young 

 ones, the greatest part fall off and come to nothing; few remain- of the first appearing 

 multitude, twelve or fourteen in every cluster may come to maturity, ' ccording to the 

 goodness of the ground, or the soiling employed : nature supplies the lost ones, by putting 

 forth immediately another cluster before the first is ripe or cleared of the flower ; the 

 same happens to the latter fruit, and so to more, every month a bunch appearing, and 

 all the trees having four or five clusters of different ages, some in the blossom, others newly 

 cleared of the flower, as big as ordinary nuts, otliers larger, some come to perfection : 



