550 



OLEAGINOUS PLAICTS. 



ratus for pressing out the oil, will, in the course of a week or two, 

 obtain enough to load one of the large sea canoes. Coco nut oil 

 is now manufactured in different parts of the South Seas, and forms 

 no small part of the traffic carried on with trading vessels. A con- 

 siderable quantity is annually exported from the Society Islands to 

 Sydney. They bottle it up in large bamboos, six or eight feet long, 

 and these form part of the circulating medium of Tahiti. The 

 natives use the bruised fronds of Folypodium crassifolium to per- 

 fume this oil. JSvodia triphylla, a favorite evergreen plant with 

 the natives of the Polynesian Islands, is also used for this purpose. 



The most favorable situation for the growth of the coco palm 

 is the ground near the sea-coast, and if the roots reach the mud 

 or salt water, they thrive all the better for it. The coco-nut 

 walks are the real estates of India, as the vineyards and olive 

 groves are of Europe. I have seen these palms growing well in 

 inland situations, remote from the sea, but always on plains, never 

 upon hills or very exposed situations, where they do not arrive to 

 maturity, wanting shelter, and being shaken too violently by the 

 wind. The stems being tall and slight, and the whole weight of 

 leaves and fruit at the head, they may not unaptly be compared 

 to the mast of a ship with round top and topmast without shrouds 

 to support it. Ashes and fish are good manures for it. 



The coco-nut is essentially a maritime plant, and is always one 

 of the first to make its appearance on coral and other new islands 

 in tropical seas, the nut being floated to them, and rather benefit- 

 ing than otherwise by its immersion in the salt water. Silex and 

 soda are the two principal salts which the coco-nut abstracts from 

 the soil, and hence, where these do not exist in great abundance, 

 the tree does not thrive well. I do not know myself what is the 

 practice in Ceylon, but in Brazil, Dr. Grardner tells me, salt is 

 very generally applied to the coco-nut when planted. Tar in the 

 interior, he states, he has seen as much as half a bushel applied 

 to a single tree, and that too when it cost about 2s. a pound, from 

 the great distance it had to be brought. That the application, 

 therefore, of salt, of seaweed, and saline mud, does more than 

 supply soda, must be very evident, if we only recollect how 

 difficiilt it is to dry any part of our dress that has been soaked 

 in salt water, and what effect damp weather has on table salt, 

 which, in a balance, has often been made use of as an hydro- 

 meter. Moisture is always attracted by salt, and the more sea 

 mud and other such little matters that coco-nut planters can 

 apply round the roots of their trees, there will most assuredly be 

 the less occasion for watering them in the dry season. Sea weed 

 contains but very little fibrous matter, being chiefly composed of 

 mucilage and water ; and the experiments of Sir J. Pringle and 

 ]Mr. C. W. Johnson, prove that salt in small quantities assists 

 the decomposition of both animal and vegetable substances. 

 Decomposed poonac, or oil-cake, is one of the best manures that 

 can be applied, as it returns to the soil the component parts of 

 which it has been deprived to form the fruit. 



