T II M 
MONTHLY 
Vol. VIII. | 
COLOMBO, FEBRUARY ist, 1889. 
[No. 8. 
THE COCONUT PALM: 
ALONG THE LINE OF THE BENTOTA 
RAILWAY EXTENSION. 
|E revert to the interesting 
, ij subjeot of the seaside rail- 
way extension to correot an 
error into which we fell, in 
stating the daily task of each 
man engaged in uprooting 
and felling coconut palms to 
be one tree. The number is really too. Even this 
number may seem small to persons who have 
not watched the process and noticed the remark" 
able manner in which the coconut palms are 
buttressed by means of exceptional bulblike growths 
in and above the ground and held in the soil against 
monsoon storms which sometimes bend the 
elastic stems to the very horizon by a most 
remarkable series of roots, capable of resisting as 
strong a strain as the best cordage which can be 
made of the coir which covers the nuts. It was 
a curious effect to see many of the masses whioh 
formed Ihe lower portions of prostrate palms, 
dotted over with fresh brownish red marks on the 
spots whero the spreading roots had been torn out 
of the woody portion by tho force of the fall. 
A careful observer once told us that ho had followed 
these roots down to a perpendicular depth of 
thirteen feet, and ii is quite certain that horizontally 
they extend to at least twice that distanco. The 
extont to which tho ground is permeated by the 
large roots whioh ure tough enough to resist in 
sonio cbkos several strokes of a mamoty, added 
to the tangled masses of uncountable feeding 
rootlots which intervene, makes earthwork cutting 
on many parts of this seaside lino a somewhat diffi- 
cult work. We need scarcely add that the size of 
the root masses of the trees and the number of 
rootlots, and so the hold of tho trees in tho ground, 
differ according to the nature and quality of the 
soil, the latter varying from almost pure sea sand 
to rich mould as at Kalutara, with coralline and 
laterite formations towards Beruwala and Bentota. 
In all its varieties, however, from eandy to swampy, 
the sea-shore belt between Colombo and Galle, and 
aspecially south of Kalutara seems, with the favour- 
able climate (plenty of wet, but not too much mois- 
ture), to produce coconut palms of exceptional 
luxuriance and especially of unusual height. We 
reoollect the astonishment expressed by a friend 
whose eye had been accustomed only to the palms 
of the Jaffna Peninsula, after he had travelled 
along the Galle road, at the loftiness of the trees 
generally and especially the altitude attained by 
the coconut palms. It remained for Mr. Cantrell, 
however, to settle by actual measurement the fact 
that the coconut palm, under special conditions 
(close planting being perhaps one of these?), attains 
an altitude of considerably over 100 feet. It seems 
probable that amongst the many thousands of trees 
to be felled along the line of railway, some may 
be measured up to 120 feet, the maximum, we should 
think, to which the coconut palm can anywhere 
attain ? We should be interested in learning whether 
anywhere on the earth's surface taller speoimens 
of this palm exist than those growing south 
of Kalutara. We mean, of course, heights ascer- 
tained by actual measurement, for we attach but 
slight importance to guess estimates, knowing how 
grossly exaggerated are the notions formed by 
oasual observers of the height (Mr. Caine's figure 
was l'>0 feet) and the bearing capacity of these 
wonderful trees. A gentleman who accompanied 
us in our recent trip, and who was comparatively 
new to Ceylon, was surprised to learn that it was 
not common for a coconut palm to yield 100 
nuts per annum, and that a orop of '200 nuts 
from a tree was so rare and exceptional an event 
as to bo quite phenomenal. Our companion, like a 
great many othurs, was groatly disappointed to learn, 
that, acoording to tho Ubual modo in which 
