436 
AMERICAN A GrRIOIJLTURIST. 
[OCTOBBK, 
Among the Cocoanuts. 
Straight up, for fifty feet, an ash-grey stem, 
banded with many indented rings,- springs from 
the yellow sand. Far up, the sea breeze rustles a 
feathered crown of sweeping fern-like fronds, 
which wave against the sky like so many gigantic 
plumes. As we looked up iu delight at this, the 
first cocoanut tree we had ever seen, a sharp snap 
sounded overhead, and we dodged just in time to 
save our head from a large nut, which, breaking 
from its stem, had fallen and now rolled at our feet. 
On a schooner bound to Aspinwall, we had run 
ashore during the night on one of the many coral 
reefs which wall the Central American coast from 
the deep Carribbean. By day, the islet would 
have been visible enough, with its great tree stand¬ 
ing as a warning beacon, tall and solitary. But 
the night had been dark, and we had made the 
closer acquaintance of the signal tree. We were 
carried, a couple of days later, to St. Andrews by a 
native fishing boat, which had been on a cruise 
after turtles, and which we signalled. There we 
saw the cocoanut in all its glory. St. Andrews is 
the chief supply port of the cocoanut in the Ameri¬ 
can tropics. The nuts are brought North from all 
along the coast, and from many of the West India 
Islands, but St. Andrews is the great producing 
center. The island is given over entirely to cocoa- 
nut growing. The nuts are its only currency, and 
from them many of the islanders have grown rich, 
as riches go in that primitive society. The crop, 
which was originally planted by nature, has since 
been improved by man, and now St. Andrews is 
said to produce the best cocoanuts in the world. 
The nut is said to have originally been a native 
of the East Indies and the South Sea Islands. How 
it ever traversed the vast stretch of sea to take 
root in our own hemisphere is one of nature’s 
mysteries. But here it is, with a tenacious hold. 
The cocoanut palm delights in the salt moisture 
of the sea. We have found it in the interior, where 
it had been planted, but it bore either no fruit or 
such as was too poor and dry to eat. But on the 
hot sands of the seashore, and along the salt la¬ 
goons which indent the tropical coasts, it thrives 
and flourishes. The largest and sturdiest trees are 
always nearest the sea. There they are found from 
fifty to one hundred feet high, while farther back 
they decrease to from thirty to fifty feet in hight. 
The stem is from one to two feet in diameter, 
rather smooth in grain, and marked with rings 
where successive rows of leaves have decayed and 
broken from the stem. Each row of leaves is said 
to be the growth of a year, and we have counted 
from seventy to ninety rings on the giant stems of 
trees growing on St. Andrews and the San Bias coast. 
The foliage of the cocoanut palm is inexpres¬ 
sibly beautiful. Imagine from fifteen to twenty 
gigantic ferns, dark green in color and with tough- 
fibered, sharp-pointed and highly polished leaves 
or fronds. Bunch these at the end of a towering 
pole, and set them swaying and clashing in the 
breeze and flashing the sun from their polished 
surfaces, and you can form an idea of the tree. 
The cocoanut makes its first appearance above 
ground with a delicate fern-like shoot. Another 
and another follows until the growing plant looks 
like a gigantic fern. Then a couple of leaves turn 
yellow, brown, and bright russet, and drop off, and 
you see a foot of stem between the remaining 
leaves and the ground. It takes from seven to ten 
years to send the tree up to a hight of twenty 
feet. Then it begins to bear. The first crop of 
nuts is from fifteen to twenty-five a year. When 
it is iu full bearing a tree will make an annual yield 
of from eighty to one hundred nuts, or even more. 
The cocoanut propagates with amazing readi¬ 
ness. A nut washed ashore on some tropical beach 
is rolled up by the tide. Then the rain rots the 
husk, and the winds bury it in the sand, and next 
year a cocoanut palm is springing from the arid 
ground.—The trees protect the tropical beaches 
from the action of the tides. Their roots spread 
out and interlace into a tough and matlike net¬ 
work, which opposes a wall of vigorous resistance 
to the gnawing and encroachments of the sea. 
Every one knows what the ordinary cocoanut of 
commerce looks like. In nature, however, it is en¬ 
closed by a thick, tough husk, fibrous on the in¬ 
side, and from two to three inches thick, but cov¬ 
ered without by a smooth, light-green rind. This 
husk is either split with a blow of a heavy wood- 
knife and torn from the nut, or else the nut is 
husked by splitting the rind on an iron blade set 
in a log, as shown in the illustration. It is from 
the fibre of the husk that the mats and cordage of 
commerce are made. The fibre is rot-proof in 
water, and iu tropical ships is popular in the form 
of coir rope. The uses of the cocoanut in all 
forms are mauifold. The value of the fruit for 
food is its least recommendation. The meat of 
the nut is macerated and soaked in water, and 
pressed, when it yields a rich oil, very pleasant in 
flavor at first, but soon growing rancid on expos¬ 
ure. This oil is also obtained by boiling the meat, 
and furnishes a stearine for candles. It is used 
pure for burning, and in soap-making. Soap made 
from cocoanut oil forms a lather in salt water. 
Mixed with resin, the oil makes a valuable pitch 
for caulking. It is largely used in tropical cook¬ 
ery, and on holidays many of the aborigines and 
blacks besmear themselves with it as if it were a 
perfume. The meat from which the oil is obtained 
is savory, but, being rich in fat, is very indigestible. 
A green cocoanut contains only a milky fluid, 
which gradually consolidates on the inside of the 
shell. When the nut becomes over-ripe on the tree, 
only a watery milk is left in the shell. This 
rapidly sours, when the nut becomes worthless. 
If it is picked, however, before it grows too 
old, the milk preserves its sweetness. 
The leaves of the cocoanut palm furnish the 
most durable thatch known in the tropics. They 
are also extensively worked into mats, screens, bas¬ 
kets, boxes, and so on. When dampened and ex¬ 
posed to the sun until the green portion rots, the 
fibre is carded and woven into coarse cloth. The 
wood is fine grained and hard, and is used in orna¬ 
mental work under the name of porcupine wood. 
The fibrous heart of the old stems is made into 
cordage. The husk is used for burning, and makes 
an excellent scrubbing brush. 
There are so many uses of the cocoanut palm 
that it has, not untruly, been called the most use¬ 
ful plant known to man. The same tree affords 
food, drink, clothing, ropes, firing, light, and a 
house to live in. The root of the tree is said to 
possess a narcotic property similar to opium, and 
is often chewed for that quality. The shells are 
made into drinking cups, ladles, and other useful 
household implements, and the bud from which 
the flowers start is boiled and eaten like cabbage. 
When the cocoanut palm is cultivated it is 
planted in rows like fruit trees, some twenty 
feet apart. But it will grow much closer. Dense 
growth, however, impairs the productiveness of 
Eig. 3.— HUSKING COCOANUTS. 
the trees. The nuts grow in clusters of from five 
to fifteen, and there are ten to twelve bunches on a 
tree. They are attached by a cord-like stem, which, 
when the nut is ripe, often dries and breaks. But 
