SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE COCOA-NUT PALM. 
A CHINESE proverb says that “there are as many 
useful properties in the cocoa-nut palm as there are 
days in the year and a Polynesian saying tells us that 
“ the man who plants a cocoa-nut plants meat and drink, 
hearth and home, vessels and clothing for himself and his 
children after him.” 
The solid part of the nut almost alone supplies food to 
thousands and the milk serves them for drink. From the 
dry nut you get cocoa-nut oil, which, when fresh, may be 
used as lard or butter. 
Under t*he name of copra it forms the main or only 
export of many Oceanic islands. The thicker portion of it 
is called stearine, and is used for candles, while the clear 
oil is burned in lamps. In process of purification it yields 
glycerine, and enters largely into the manufacture of the 
better class soaps. 
The fibre that surrounds the nut is known in commerce 
as coir , and is used to make ropes, matting and mats. 
Brushes and brooms are also made of it, and it is 
sometimes used in stuffing cushions. 
The leaves serve as an excellent thatch—on the flat 
blades prepared like papyrus the most famous Buddhist 
manuscripts are written; the long midribs or branches 
(strictly speaking the leaf-stalks) answer for rafters, posts 
or fencing; the fibrous sheath at the base is a remarkable 
natural imitation of cloth employed for strainers, wrappers 
and hats ; while the trunk or stem passes in carpentry 
under the name of porcupine wood, and produces beau¬ 
tiful effects as a wonderfully-colored cabinet-maker’s ma¬ 
terial. These are only a few of the innumerable uses of 
the cocoa-nut palm. 
In the early green stage at which cocoa-nuts are gen¬ 
erally picked in the tropics, the shell can be easily cut 
through with a sharp table-knife. Then the nutty part is 
soft and jelly-like and can be readily eaten with a spoon. 
The office of the cocoa-nut water or milk is the depo¬ 
sition of the nutty part around the side of the shell; it is, 
so to speak, the mother-liquid, from which the harder 
edible portion is afterward derived. 
To understand the formation of the cocoa-nut, it is 
necessary to examine a “ grower,” one that has sprouted 
on shipboard. An examination of a “ grower ” very soon 
convinces one of the use of the milk in the cocoa-nut. 
It must be duly borne in mind that the nut is not 
originally grown for food for man and animals, but solely 
to reproduce its kind. If you look at the sharp end of 
the cocoa-nut, you will see three little brown pits or de¬ 
pressions on its surface. Two of these are firmly stopped 
up, but the third is only closed by a slight film or very 
thin shell. Just opposite this soft hole lies a small, 
roundish knob, imbedded in the edible portion, which is 
the embryo palm, for whose benefit the meat and drink 
are grown. As it is difficult for the seed or embryo to 
get much water from the outside, it has a good supply 
furnished it in the inside of the shell. Hence, you per¬ 
ceive, there is good reason for the milk in the cocoa-nut. 
The nutty portion, composed of oil and starch, fur¬ 
nishes food for the young plant until it is abie to procure 
nutriment from the earth, air and moisture, as other plants. 
The cocoa-nut is really not a nut, but “ a drupaceous 
fruit with a fibrous mesocarp.” It has the largest and 
most richly stored seed of any known plant, and the 
hardest and most unmanageable of any known shell. 
The cocoa-nut loves the sea, and only on the sandy 
levels or alluvial flats of the seashore does it bring its 
nuts to perfection. On the coast line of Southern India 
immense groves of the cocoa-nut palm fringe the shore 
for miles and miles together. 
A good tree in full bearing should produce one hun¬ 
dred arid twenty cocoa-nuts in one season, and, under 
favorable circumstances, sometimes attains the height of 
ninety feet. 
I am indebted to Prof. Grant Allen, of England, for many 
facts regarding the cocoa-nut. Louise Dudley. 
FAVORITE FLOWERS. 
■■'T'LOWERS have their language,” says an able 
T writer. “ Theirs is an oratory that speaks in 
perfumed silence,” and some flowers almost bear written 
upon their upturned faces the thoughts of which they are 
living representatives. 
“ In Eastern lands they talk of flowers, 
And they tell in garlands their loves and cares ; 
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers. 
On its leaves a mystic language bears.” 
The edelweiss is the Swiss flower, a dwarf plant of the 
same family as our white “everlasting” of the fields, but 
having a larger blossom. 
“ Once there was a maiden”—so the legend runs—“so 
fair, so pure, so heavenly-minded, that no suitor was 
found worthy to win her; and so, though all men vainly 
sighed for her, at last she was metamorphosed into a 
white, star-like flower, and placed high up on the loftiest 
mountain top, close to the snow she resembled, to be for¬ 
ever a type of the womanhood that is purest and most 
lovely.” And because the flower was only found through 
peril and toil and an upward struggle, it became a saying 
through all the cantons that to win the love that was 
highest and noblest was “ to pluck the edelweiss,” and no 
higher honor could any lady merit than to have the little 
white flower placed, as her own emblem, within her gentle 
hand. So at length it grew to be sacred to betrothals, as 
