The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
timber. The young leaves make an excellent salad, 
and when mature and hard are used for shingles, 
fences, or even clothing. Brushes, rope tools or 
fishing nets are made from the veins of the leaves. 
The water inside the nut makes a cooling drink, 
and the meat is eaten in various ways. A form of 
milk is made by* grating the while meat, mixing with 
water and straining. This gives an oil suspended 
in water with mucilage and sugar, and is used in 
India as a substitute for cow’s milk. A wine or 
toddy is made by collecting sap from the flower 
1255 
fiber was formerly used for cordage in all the South 
Sea islands. It makes a light, strong rope; also 
matting, brushes and a substitute for horsehair in 
upholstery. The dust or refuse in manufacture 
make a good forcing “soil” for bulbs. With all these 
varied uses it will be seen that the “coeoanut cow’’ 
is an important individual in the industry of the 
world, it seems evident that as the business of 
growing cocoanuts becomes systematized and or¬ 
ganized, the output will be greatly increased. The 
oil has many uses, and the most determined efforts 
will be made to press its sale as food. It is already 
A*' ‘ 
largely used in preparing substitutes for milk, ice 
cream, butter and other dairy products, usually in 
a fraudulent manner as a counterfeit. The laws to 
prevent this counterfeit use which farmers are at¬ 
tempting to press through Congress are justified and 
necessary. As we have stated repeatedly, the con¬ 
test will come to be a struggle between a lazy, half 
savage native under a coeoanut tree in the Pacific 
and an American family on a dairy farm back 
among the bills. Which are you for? 
Bracing Weak Trees 
Will you advise me the host way to st 
that is liable to split in lhe crotch? 
New Baltimore. N. V. 
B Y proper training it is possible to prevent the 
formation of weak crotches. Once they are 
formed, however, they may be braced by either arti¬ 
ficial or natural means. 
Artificial bracing is the more common, and is 
usually accomplished by means of an iron rod or 
holt long enough to go through both of the branches 
Methods of Bracing Weak Crotch. Fig. 589 
forming the crotch and drawn up with a nut, as 
shown at left in Fig. 539. The nut should either be 
a large-one. or else a washer should he used in addi¬ 
tion, so that the nut will not he drawn into the tree. 
The hole that is bored to accommodate the rod 
should, of course, be a suug tit. or else it will afford 
a splendid opportunity for fungi to begin their work 
of decay. 
in case it is desirable to use a rather long brace, 
or where there is considerable movement of the 
limbs, it is well to use a chain or wire instead of the 
solid rod, fastening it by a bolt with a hook or eye 
passed through each branch, as shown at right. Fig. 
539. This provides ample opportunity for the weav¬ 
ing of the limbs, and lessens the likelihood of a bent 
or broken rod or split branch. By all moans avoid 
tying a wire or heavy rope about the crotch, for it 
will result in time in the distorted growth shown at 
left in Fig. 542, due to the obstruction In the circu¬ 
latory system of the tree. 
In tin* natural system a living branch is trained 
to grow from one arm of the crotch to the other, 
affording the excellent bracing shown at right. Fig. 
542. It goes without saying that this is the cheapest, 
the most lasting and the easiest method, provided 
it is done in time, so that the junction will he estab¬ 
lished before the danger of splitting is too serious. 
It may be accomplished in one of two ways: First, 
by twisting or twining two shoots together, one from 
each limb; second, by inserting a shoot from one 
limb through a slit in the other. In either ease the 
foliage should he left on the shoots until they have 
united firmly. To scrape the bark of the shoots 
where they come together or where the one passes 
■through the bark of the large limb, as the ease may 
be. and to tie in place with rallla or weak string, 
will give the cambium layers the .best opportunity 
to grow together and knit, although this is not at all 
necessary. The plant propagator would call the re¬ 
sults of our labor a “natural graft,” for it is surely 
a graft, even though it be merely a union between 
two parts of the same tree. h. b. t. 
* the same article of food for days and weeks in 
succession, it would not Only get monotonous, but 
there would be trouble either with our appetite or 
digestion, or both. A change or rotation seems to 
he necessary for best results. It appears to be about 
the same thing with the soil, and a change or rota¬ 
tion lias been the rule in good soil management. 
liile it is possible to maintain the proper fertility 
in the soil that is planted to the same crop year 
after year, there is an effect on the soil that as a 
general thing affects crop production; and again, in 
the case of beans, there are so many diseases that 
affect the crop that it is very risky to plant this 
crop in succession on the same field If a rotation 
ot crops is followed the fungus diseases and insects 
are worked out of the soil to a great extent, and 
then it is safe to grow the crop again. There are 
exceptions to this rule in some instances. I know 
of a field in an adjoining county where corn was 
grown on the same field for 10 years in succession, 
with annual good results. As this field was situated 
close to the barnyard and manure supply, this fact 
may have had its influence on the corn crop, but it 
is not safe to practice this with the beau crop. 
The practice of plowing under green crops is a 
good one, and I am glad that the editor of The R. 
X.-Y. is so strong on both practice and precept in 
this matter. Where plenty of manure is applied or 
green crops plowed under I believe that just as good 
results come from using 10 per cent acid phosphate 
as where the higher-priced goods are used. At least 
this has been my experience, hut as soils vary so 
much in different localities I advise in this as in 
other tilings that have proved out satisfactory for 
me, and suggest that a trial of >th kinds of fer¬ 
tilizer he made side by side, and results carefully 
noted. Incidentally, we are harvesting one of the 
best 10 acres of robust pea beans that I have seen 
for 20 years. 
Just a word in conclusion in regard to the drilling 
in of the fertilizer. We have found it far more 
profitable to drill this over tlie whole field and har¬ 
row the soil before planting the beans. In this way 
Germination of a Coeoanut. Fig. 540 
spikes and permitting it to ferment. With some 
tribes the nut is even held to have some sort of 
religious power or significance. There is a report 
of one tribe of cannibals whose custom permits a 
slayer t<> eat the heart of liis victim provided lie 
does so while sitting on one coeoanut and balancing 
himself with his feet on two others. 
The island of Ceylon exports great quantities of 
desiccated coeoanut. The hard shell of the nut is 
cut by a hatchet or small saw, the fiber rasped off 
by machinery, and tile meat shredded and dried by 
steam heat. “Copra" is the dried meat of the ma¬ 
ture fruit. The nuts are picked and thrown down 
The Coeoanut Cow; Its Habits and Uses 
T HE astonishing development of the products of 
the coeoanut palm (Cocos nucifera) during 
recent years makes it necessary for every intelligent 
person to know something about it. Before the war 
it was estimated that the world’s output of meat and 
fiber from tlie coeoanut was 50 per vent greater than 
that of rubber, and only 40 per cent less than that of 
and facts here given are taken 
gold. The picture 
from a bulletin of the Missouri Botanical Hardens fiffijSSy* 
of St. Louis. The picture shows tlie sprouting 1«**^~»* • __ 
of one of the nuts. The young shoots start grow¬ 
ing from one of the "eyes’’ on the nut, and must Tiling Bunch Vegetable, 
work through the strong fibrous husk. The cocoa- Sec < 
nut palm is thought to be of American origin. The 
nut will float and retain its power of germination by natives and in a fe\ 
for a long time, and that has aided in its disfrilm tually trained to do this 
tiou, for the nuts have evidently been carried about <>f average size will yieh 
by (he ocean tides and currents, driven by the wind, ounces of dried meal. 
In tropical countries every part of the tree is used employed for extractim 
in some form. I lie roots are used as a medicine, hand work to intricate r 
having some astringent qualities. They are also Another product of 
used for hulking baskets. The wood is used for made from the fibrous 
