Coconut tree

“ The coconut is a cultivated tree. It may be met with in some spots distant from human dwellings, but whenever such cases have been subjected to a closer scrutiny, it appears that evidently, or at least probably, huts had formerly existed in their neighborhood, but having been destroyed by some accident, had left the palm trees uninjured. Even in South America, where it may be found in forests at great distances from the sea-shore, it is not at all certain that true native localities occur, and it seems to be quite lost in its natural condition. ”

“ For a long time the people were afraid to approach the tree or to taste the nuts, because they had grown out of a human head, and so, by the falling of the ripe fruit, there grew up a dense grove of coconut palms. ”

“ If the tints of the vegetation were admirable, no less so were its forms; for there were palms of many different kinds, including the coconut palm in thousands, close down to the water’s edge. The traveller tree, shaped like a fan made of organ pipes; the banana and plantain, loaded with great bunches of fruit, each bunch a fair load for a man; there were great clumps of feathery bamboo ”

“ The coconut-tree grows everywhere. In the canoes we saw abundance of sugarcane in pieces two feet in length and an inch in thickness, and the natives brought off to us bananas, breadfruit, mangoes, and prepared arrowroot. To a certain extent also the natives feed upon fish, judging from the nets and fishing-spears seen among them. The former, although frequently thirty or forty feet in length, did not exceed eighteen inches in depth--they have small meshes, thin triangular wooden floats, and shells at the bottom as sinkers. ”

“ Turning again to the left you enter the real tropical garden, a cool, green, jungle under the second coconut grove. Some of the trunks of these palms are enwrapped in the great green and gold leaves of the Pothos or Philodendron vine. Growing under the tall palms are lesser ones, along with bamboos and tree ferns. The latter have soft, fibrous, brown trunks with three or four very large, typical, fern-leaves growing out of the top. The paths hereabouts are bordered with more of the Lauae fern and with Begonias and Anthuriums, while green and red Ti plants and A’pes fill in the background. ”

“ There is already a larger area under the coconut palm in this form than under tea, and the coconut as a commercial product increases steadily in importance. It is interesting to note that it is the wealthier natives and not the foreign planters who are mainly responsible for the development of this profitable business. In the northern part of the island we find another species of palm 23 tree, the palmyra. This palm is almost as important to the Tamils who inhabit the district as the coconut is to the Sinhalese further south. ”

“ Having climbed the tree, and gone round the stems of the branches of the tree, holding two stems firmly, with his two feet he began to kick down the clusters of [ripe] coconuts into the jungle, and the clusters of young coconuts into the jungle. Thereupon the Heṭṭirāla having descended from the horse’s back, began to shout, “Hā! Hā! Don’t pluck them, don’t pluck them!” At that time the person who owned the place having come, prepared to beat him.
Thereupon the Heṭṭirāla says, “It is I who sent him up the tree to make him pluck a young coconut. He is a great fool; don’t beat him.” ”

“ Concluding we may state that according to the whole evidence as it has been discussed by De Candolle and especially by Cook, the coconut-palm is of American origin and has been distributed as a cultivated tree by man through the whole of its wide range. This must have happened in a prehistoric era, thus affording time enough for the subsequent development of the fifty and more known varieties. But the possibility that at least some of them have originated before culture and have been deliberately chosen by man for distribution, of course remains unsettled. ”

“ Near the extremity of the Cape some bamboo was picked up, and also a fresh green coconut that appeared to have been lately tapped for the milk. Heaps of pumice-stone were also noticed upon the beach; not any of this production, however, had been met with floating.
Hitherto, no coconut trees have been found on this continent; although so great a portion of it is within the tropic and its north-east coast so near to islands on which this fruit is abundant. ”

“ They grow rapidly and in about a year they have attained their full dimensions. As the coconut matures, the outer envelope begins to turn brown and to shrink. With the shrinkage the well-known, roughly triangular shape of the fruit becomes emphasized.
A full-sized fruit cluster consists of twelve to twenty coconuts. The flowering continues the year around and a tree in prime condition yields upwards of 100 fruits annually, distributed over four or five harvests. The record in the Philippines is 470 nuts from a tree.
The leaves of the coco palm are attached directly to the main stem. ”

“ The owner of a coconut plantation must wait for his returns, or grow something else meanwhile. Quick growing catch crops may at first be raised between the rows if soil conditions are favourable, but it must be remembered that coconut trees thrive on soil so sandy that it will produce little else of value. They require abundant water and plantations should be well open to the breeze. Such conditions are frequently found along the seashore, which doubtless explains the belief so common among natives throughout the tropics that the coconut will not grow where it cannot “hear” or “see” the sea. ”

“ Many of the trees here were very large, straight, and branching only near the top. It appeared to me that they would be highly useful as timber, and so regretted being unable to procure specimens, on account of their great height. With the exception of a low sandy portion, overgrown with shrubs and small trees, the remainder of the island is quite free from underwood. Two small clumps of coconut-trees, loaded with fruit, were found on the eastern side of the island, within reach of the spray, in a place where they might have originated from a floating nut or two thrown upon the beach. ”

“ It is rather dangerous to live so close to coconut trees, and sometimes when the wind blew in gusts before the rain we heard warning shouts and the heavy thud of a nut falling to the ground; but accidents never seemed to happen. ”

“ The trees in general are neither very straight, thick, nor tall; yet appear green and pleasant enough: some of them bore flowers, some berries, and others big fruits; but all unknown to any of us. Coconut-trees thrive very well here; as well on the bays by the seaside, as more remote among the plantations. The nuts are of an indifferent size, the milk and kernel very thick and pleasant. Here is ginger, yams, and other very good roots for the pot, that our men saw and tasted. What other fruits or roots the country affords I know not. Here are hogs and dogs; other land-animals we saw none. ”

“ We cannot have tropical fruit without tropical heat, and I am sure that none of us would want such a change as that. You may sometimes see small cocoanut trees in hothouses or horticultural gardens, where they are shielded from our cold air. The island of Ceylon, in the East Indies, is full of cocoanut-palm trees, for they are carefully cultivated by the inhabitants, and the feathery groves stretch mile after mile. The tree shoots up a column-like stem to the height of a hundred feet, and is crowned with a tuft of broad leaves about twelve feet long. ”

“ Indeed, to take away from Southern India and Ceylon its cocoanut-trees, would inflict upon multitudes a most severe calamity; hence, their owners guard them most carefully, and on no account destroy them until they grow old and of little value except for timber. They are rented out at so much a tree, and sometimes a single tree will be the property of two or more persons. Commonly, the cocoanut-palm is planted in topes or groves, covering a large surface of ground, and arranged in parallel lines, so as to form lanes completely shaded by their uniting leaves. ”

“ That the cocoanut will grow and thrive upon the immediate seashore, in common with other plants, is simply an indication of its adaptability to environment. That it is at a positive disadvantage as a shore plant may be determined conclusively by anyone who will examine the root system of a seashore-grown tree upturned by a wash or tidal wave, and one uprooted from any cause, farther inland. ”

“ The cocoa-nut tree requires a sandy and well-drained soil; and although it flourishes where no other tree will grow, it welcomes a soil of a richer quality and produces fruit in proportion. Eighty nuts per annum are about the average income from a healthy tree in full bearing, but this, of course, depends much upon the locality. This palm delights in the sea-breeze, and never attains the same perfection inland that it does in the vicinity of the coast. There are several varieties, and that which is considered superior is the yellow species, called the "king cocoanut." ”

“ When older, this matting has every appearance of coarse cotton cloth, and is used to wrap food, or is made into bags and even rough garments, specially for fishermen.
The white flowers are small and grow along a branching stalk, protected by a sheath, and just above the commencement of the leaf. From them is made the cocoanut-brandy that enables the native to forget his sorrows. Flowers and nuts in every stage of development are on the same tree, a year elapsing between the first blossom and the ripe nut. ”

“ In any case, wherever it happens to strike, the young coconut sends up at first a fine rosette of big spreading leaves, not raised as afterwards on a tall stem, but springing direct from the ground in a wide circle, something like a very big and graceful fern. In this early stage nothing can be more beautiful or more essentially tropical in appearance than a plantation of young coco-nuts. ”

“ Just so the little patch above water protects the corals to leeward, and there the island increases fast; for the birds not only settle on it, but they make their nests and rear their young, and so every year the soil increases; and then, perhaps, one cocoa-nut in its great outside shell at last is thrown on these little patches—it takes root, and becomes a tree, every year shedding its large branches, which are turned into mould as soon as they decay, and then dropping its nuts, which again take root and grow in this mould ”

“ A great messenger of life, and one of the most transportable, is the solid cocoanut. Not only does it travel well, but, when thrown upon shoal or rock, if it find only a little poor white sand, which would support nothing else, the cocoanut contents itself there, finds brackish water not a jot less agreeable than the freshest; germinates, thrives, grows into a robust cocoa tree. ”

“ Each, as it falls, leaves a ridge upon the trunk, which assists the climber in reaching the fruit. The blossoms of the cocoanut spring from the trunk and open amid the bases of the lower leaves; as the tree sends forth a succession of blossoms every few weeks, the fruit is found upon it in every stage of maturity at the same time, from the blossom and the cluster of pretty little green nuts not larger than plums, to the full-grown fruit as large as a man's head, hanging from a tough stalk and ready to be plucked. ”

“ The cocoanut tree springs up everywhere, but in the spots where yams and taros are grown the sand is hollowed out, and a pit formed, from one to two hundred yards long, and of varying width, into which decaying cocoanut leaves and refuse are thrown, till a rich soil is formed. [1] It is certain, however, that among the Polynesians the cocoanut is a cultivated plant no less than the yam, taro, sweet-potato, sugar-cane, banana, breadfruit and numerous other species found in use throughout the tropical islands of the Pacific. ”

“ Here we find the sugar-apple, alligator-pear, sapodilla-guava, limes, lemons, tamarinds, bananas, and plantain—the cocoa-nut tree, with her tessellated leaves, fanned by the breath of eternal spring-time, and ripening its refreshing fruits to nourish the thirsty residents, who would languish were they not supplied with the juices from fruits. The cocoa sheds its fruit when ripe, endangering the heads of those passing. Parents having children who play under the trees are constantly uneasy, as a full-grown cocoa-nut, falling forty feet, would nearly annihilate a child. ”

“ I often watched the natives climb the tall cocoanut trees, about eighty feet high, with only the fine fern-like leaves at the extreme top. These trees yield twenty to fifty cocoanuts per month and live to a great age. No one can have any idea of the delicious milk until he has drunk it fresh from the recently gathered nuts. A young native will climb as nimbly and as swiftly as a monkey, and will be as unfettered by dress as his Darwinian brother. The fruit is severed from the tree by the useful bolo. ”

“ Brought from adjacent islands in small sailing boats, it is loaded on vessels at the capital port. A cocoanut tree produces a dollar's worth of copra yearly. Forty trees is the number generally planted to the acre. Eight years' time is required from planting until bearing. The trees require very little care, and, if not blown down by storms, will yield for a hundred years.
It is marvelous to what uses the cocoanut tree and its fruit can be put. Besides being a staple food of natives, the pulp, together with cocoanut oil, is made into cakes for cattle, particularly dairy cows. ”