Cocoa nut tree

“ Unlike the cocoa-nut trees, which bend to every gale and are never quite straight, the coco-de-mer trees are as upright as iron pillars. At the ago of 30 the trees first put forth blossoms. The female tree alone produces the nut, and is 6 feet shorter than the male, which attains a height of 100 feet. ”

“ I will not conclude this chapter without alluding to the cultivation of the cocoa-nut palm-tree. Owing to the long time it is necessary to wait for the first crop, not so much has been done in growing this tree. It seldom bears until seven years old, but when once it is in good bearing, it goes on for a hundred years. The yield of a tree averages one hundred nuts yearly; the bright green blossom and the ripe fruit appear simultaneously. The cocoa-nut palm grows best near the sea, but does not require such rich, moist soil as the banana. ”

“ During very hot weather, if the nuts are fresh gathered, or suffered to remain for a while in cold water, it is not very easy to withstand the temptation.
The shell of the cocoa-nut is always most valuable when suffered to ripen upon the tree; it then acquires great hardness, and a fine dark chocolate color, interveined by fine lines of a rich dun, or clay, or perhaps striated with those tints: they then take a good polish, and may, when tastefully mounted, be considered as ornamental to the sideboard. ”

“ From the time that the nut falls from the tree, a year elapses before it germinates; it only requires to lie on the ground without being covered, for the germ shoots downwards, forming a root, from which ascends the plumule of the future plant.
Several attempts have been made to grow this tree in some of the larger horticultural establishments in Great Britain, but hitherto without success. Hopes, however, are now entertained; for the interesting spectacle of a double cocoa-nut in the act of germination may be witnessed at this moment in the national gardens at Kew. ”

“ Plant Cocoa-nuts when the stomach is overburdened with food (kalau kita ’nak sangat berak) ; run quickly and throw the cocoa-nut into the hole prepared for it without straightening the arm; if you straighten it the fruit-stalk will break. Plant them in the evening, so that they may bear fruit while they are still near the ground. When you pick seed cocoa-nuts off the tree somebody should stand at the bottom of the tree and watch whether the “monkey-face” of each seed cocoa-nut, as it is thrown down, turns either towards himself or the base of the tree, or whether it looks away from both. ”

“ They pave the bottom with large pebble stones, which they lay down very smooth and even, and then kindle a fire in it with dry wood, leaves, and the husks of the cocoa-nut. When the stones are sufficiently heated, they take out the embers, and rake up the ashes on every side; then they cover the stones with a layer of green cocoa-nut tree leaves, and wrap up the animal that is to be dressed in the leaves of the plantain ”

“ The leaves are four fathoms, or four and a half long, at the very top of the tree, and serve excellently for thatching houses. At the bottom of the leaves the cocoa nuts grow in clusters of ten, fifteen, or twenty, hanging by a small string which is full of joints. Each nut, with its outer rind, is larger than a man's head, and within this outer rind is a hard woody shell which will hold near a quart of liquid. The nut or kernel lines the inside of this shell, and within this kernel is about a pint and half of pure clear water, very cool, sweet, and pleasant. ”

“ The uses to which the various parts of the cocoa-nut tree are applied in the regions of their growth are almost endless. The nuts supply a considerable proportion of the food of the people, and the liquor enclosed within them forms a pleasant and refreshing drink. ”

“ The cocoa-nut—the tree of a thousand uses—grows luxuriantly on the coral-made land, after it has emerged from the ocean; and the scanty dresses of the natives, their drinking-vessels and other utensils, mats, cordage, fishing-lines, and oil, besides food, drink, and building material, are all supplied from it. The Pandanus, or screw-pine, flourishes well, and is exactly fitted for such regions: as it enlarges and spreads its branches, one prop after another grows out from the trunk and plants itself in the ground ”

“ The shell of the nut is made into cups, and from the kernel, cocoa-nut oil is pressed out and largely used in making soap and for other purposes.
In Ceylon, the tree is cultivated extensively. It is estimated that there are twenty million trees in that island, and that each tree produces about sixty nuts yearly. The wealth of a native is based upon the number of cocoa-nut palms he owns. ”

“ It flourishes best in the vicinity of the sea-shore. The tree grows frequently to the height of 50 to 100 feet. The trunk is straight and naked, and is about two feet in diameter, the feather-shaped leaves forming the top or crown, from which the nuts hang in clusters. The fruit itself, covered by a hard shell, is inclosed in a fibrous husk; within the nut is a clear sweet liquid. Few plants possess so many and useful properties as the cocoa-nut. From its wood the natives obtain the building material for their houses and canoes. ”

“ The trees, we learn, will flourish only within a certain distance of the sea-coast, and each full-grown tree produces annually sixty nuts. We presume that the estimated profits take into consideration the processes of oil-extraction and fibre-dressing, which necessarily follow in the wake of cocoa-nut cultivation. ”

“ When the fruits reach us, the albumen has hardened and become somewhat tough and indigestible. This nut is one of the sources of wealth—in some cases, perhaps, the only one—of the coral islands of Oceania and some other tropical regions. With the top in the sun and its roots bathed by the sea-waters—its favorite station—the cocoa-tree (Cocos nucifera) continues in good condition to the age of seven or eight hundred years. The dry nut, called copra, is marketed by the thousand tons every year, to be employed in various uses for which fats are ”

“ It is not united for his benefit to any living organism like a tree; nor does it seem to be necessary to his life to preserve it from harm.
Sometimes, however, the belief connected with the rite of planting at a birth is more obscure, whether from the fault of those who have recorded it, or because it has faded out of the memory of those who perform it. The Fiji islanders bury the navel-string with a cocoa-nut, which is intended to germinate and grow. ”

“ A bunch or cluster, often contains as many as a thousand nuts. Nothing can be more striking than this tree under the burden of its fruit, over which the branches form a kind of dome, supported by the column-like stem. The fruit resembles in every respect the tropical cocoa nut; the kernel is globular, having a space in the centre, which, when the nut is green, is filled with an agreeable [Pg 102] milky tasted liquor, but when dry is quite empty. A curious method is employed for divesting the nuts of their outer rind. ”

“ Each young nut, when in the true milk stage of its growth, will yield about a pint of fluid, cool, and of slightly acid taste. The younger nuts contain a soft, rich substance, not unlike blanc-mange, which can be easily scooped out. From the juices of these immature nuts the natives manufacture an indelible black dye. Toddy, cocoa-nut wine, arrack, or rack as it is sometimes called, is made from the sap of the cocoa palm. In favourable seasons the plumes of cocoa-nut blossom are shot out from amidst the fronds of the tree crown about every six weeks. ”

“ Where cocoa-nut palms were, you could not move a yard without kicking against a fallen nut; you might have picked up full-grown, half-grown, and wee baby nuts, not bigger than small apples, for on the same tree you will find nuts of all sizes and conditions.
One never sees a perfectly straight-stemmed cocoa-palm; they all have an inclination from the perpendicular more or less; perhaps that is why a cyclone has more effect on them than on other trees. ”

“ The terrible results of the plentiful possession of this tree are seen in Ceylon, at Panama, in the coastlands of Mexico, at Auckland in New Zealand. At Pitcairn‘s Island the plantain grove has beaten the missionary from the field; there is much lip-Christianity, but no practice to be got from a people who possess the fatal plant. The much-abused cocoa-nut cannot come near it as a devil‘s agent. The cocoa-palm is confined to a few islands and coast tracts—confined, too, to the tropics and sea-level ”

“ This tree seldom bears fruit till it is one hundred years old. Whether it be indigenous to Chile, or the produce of the tropical cocoa nut planted here, I could never ascertain. The natives make baskets of the leaves, and sometimes thatch their cottages with them. Walnuts are also grown, and together with cocoa nuts are [Pg 103] exported to Lima, Guayaquil, &c. The gevuin is another species of nut, called by the Spaniards avellano, from its taste being like that of the hazel nut. This tree grows to the height of fifteen feet ”

“ The seeds take root in the new soil, and young plants begin to appear on the glistening white surface. Floating cocoa-nuts often lodge on the shores, and cocoa-nut-trees are among the first to grow upon them. As the plants drop their leaves and decay, the soil is enriched little by little, and fitted for the home of various animals and birds, which in some mysterious manner find their way to these lonely spots far out at sea. ”

“ The expressed juice of the nut, used as an external application, mixed with new milk, is regarded by the Singalese as a good remedy for ophthalmic complaints.
It has been asserted, I believe by Lord Valentia, that cocoa-nut trees were injurious to the air in the places where they grew. Dr. Davy notices this in his excellent work on Ceylon, and says, “Respecting the good effect of the wind from the sea, there can be no doubt; and almost as little can be entertained respecting the ameliorating effect of cultivation, and the benefit derived from the shade of cultivated trees. ”

“ The fruit consists of a thick external husk or rind of a fibrous structure, within which is the ordinary cocoa-nut of commerce. The nut has a very hard, woody shell, inclosing the kernel, within which again is a milky substance of a rather agreeable taste.
The cocoa-nut palm is so widely disseminated throughout tropical countries that it is impossible to distinguish its original habitat. It flourishes with equal vigor on the coast of the East Indies, throughout the tropical islands of the Pacific, and in the West Indies and tropical America. ”

“ However, those planted in good soil give, as might be expected, an earlier and more productive yield than is afforded by trees grown in the poor land which usually adjoins the coral sea-beach. A cocoa-nut planted in average soil commences to bear fruit in about the fifth year of its existence, and from that time until it has attained the age of a hundred years,—when it is probably blown down,—it yields about twelve dozen nuts per annum. ”

“ Curiously enough, at a little distance from the sandy levels or alluvial flats of the sea-shore, the sea-loving cocoa-nut will not bring its nuts to perfection. It will grow, indeed, but it will not thrive or fruit in due season. On the coast-line of Southern India, immense groves of cocoa-nuts fringe the shore for miles and miles together ”

“ But, as whatever feeds a young plant will also feed an animal, and as many animals betray a felonious desire to appropriate to their own wicked ends the food-stuffs laid up by the palm for the use of its own seedling, the cocoa-nut has been compelled to inclose this particularly large and rich kernel in a very solid and defensive shell. ”

“ Flowers of every hue and fragrance blossomed along the way.
The cocoa-nut palm abounded, of all heights and ages. The older ones had a smooth bark, made of its own dead leaves, crowned with long, bending branches, made up of spines like ribs going out of a backbone. It begins in these spines, and they seem to grow together as new ones shoot out, so that the trunk is itself a leaf. These leaves hang dead and loose in their upper edges, ragged and gray, but bind the trunk at their juncture. Every new burst of leaves gives a new cincture and a new raggedness. ”

“ Just at present the nuts have reached this stage in our copses; but as soon as autumn sets in, and the seeds are ripe, they will turn brown, fall out of their withered investment, and easily escape notice on the soil beneath, where the dead leaves will soon cover them up in a mass of shrivelled brown, indistinguishable in shade from the nuts themselves. Take, as an example of the more carefully protected tropical kinds, the coco-nut. Growing on a very tall palm-tree, it has to fall a considerable distance toward the earth ”

“ Then the nuts gradually swell out to an enormous size, and ripen very slowly, even under the brilliant tropical sun. (I will admit that the tropics are hot, though in other respects I hold them to be arrant impostors, like that precocious American youth who announced on his tenth birthday that in his opinion life wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.) But the worst thing about the cocoa-nut palm, the missionaries always say, is the fatal fact that, when once fairly started, it goes on bearing fruit uninterruptedly for forty years. ”

“ Flowers and fruit in all stages of ripening grace the crown at all times of the year. The young cocoanut contains the delicious, cooling milk, and the soft pulp, a nourishing article of food. The mature nut is an excellent substitute for meat, as the kernel contains more than seventy per cent, of a fixed, bland, nutritious oil. The tree bears fruit in from seven to eight years from the time of planting, and its lifetime is from seventy to eighty years. Its greatest ambition during youth is to reach the clouds and equal its oldest neighbors in height. ”