INTERESTING NUTS ON TROPICAL SHORES 
67 
from the attacks of insects. Sometimes the nut falls intoi the sea and 
is tossed by the waves until it reaches some distant shore. Washed 
ashore and buried in the sand, it grows into a tree. In this manner 
coconut groves have been started on low, sandy islands where very 
little vegetation is found. 
The coconut affords a great portion of the food-supply for the 
inhabitants of the tropical coasts, one tree averaging from eighty to 
one hundred nuts annually. It has been the means of saving the lives 
of shipwrecked men who have been stranded on uninhabited islands. 
The nuts not only are eaten as they come from the trees, both ripe and 
unripe, hut are also prepared in various ways, as in curries, etc. The 
milk of the coconut is simply the juice of the fruit, which, instead of 
being distributed all through the nut, as in soft fruits, is collected in 
the center. This the natives drink. The kernel of the coconut furnishes 
an oil which is used in manufacturing ‘ ‘ stearin candles ’ ’ and also a kind 
of soap called “marine soap,” which forms a lather in salt water. The 
oil is also used for food. 
The fiber of the husks is used in making coconut matting, also- in 
making ropes, and is called coir. Taken from the ripe nuts, the husks 
are used for fuel. The shell is made into cups, goblets, ladles, etc., and 
id often finely polished and elaborately ornamented by carving. 
Along the banks of the Orinoco and in the northern parts of Bra¬ 
zil, we find the beautiful trees on which Brazil-nuts grow. These nuts 
are sometimes called cream-nuts or nigger-toes. Have you ever won¬ 
dered when eating them where they came from and how they grew? 
If you could visit their native shores, you would see them hanging far 
up in trees that reach a height of 100 to 120 feet. If ever you have 
thought that surely they do not have much of an outer covering for a 
protection, such as hickory-nuts and chestnuts have, you were badly 
mistaken; for though among the hardest nuts to crack, they have about 
the greatest outer protection of all. They grow from a flower as the 
apple growls. After the blossoms falls, a capsule forms, which grows 
larger and larger until it is almost the size of a man’s head. Inside 
this shell are about twenty of these nuts, packed closely together like 
seeds. The capsule is very hard and heavy; and when the nut is ripe, it 
falls down the high tree like a cannon-ball. The Indians will not gO' neai 
a tree of this kind when the wind blows, lest the falling nuts should 
kill them. At the proper season the natives collect the shells and break 
