Cocos nut

“ After being macerated, the fibers, called coir or cair, are combed. Ropes made of them are elastic and hardy against decay. They are worked into articles of esparto and brushes, and we tread them under feet in cocoa mattings. From the hard shell of the nut are made cups and dishes, which are susceptible of a ready polish, and can be carved. The leaves can be utilized, like those of other palms, but lack the suppleness of the leaves of other kinds.
Not all the species of Cocos bear fruits as large as those of nucifera. The small species also contribute to the maintenance of man and industries. ”

“ The Cocos nucifera, or coco-nut palm, is a native of the island, and may justly be considered the most valuable 780 of its trees. It grows in vast abundance alone the entire sea-coast of the west and south sides of the island, and furnishes almost all that a Sinhalese villager requires. Its fruit, when green, supplies food and drink; when ripe, it yields oil. The juice of the unopened flower gives him toddy and arrack. The fibrous casing of the fruit when woven makes him ropes, nets, matting. The nut-shells form drinking-vessels, spoons, &c. ”

“ The stems of this genus are lofty, generally cylindrical and smooth. The leaves are large and regularly pinnate. The spadix is simply branched, and the fruit is ovate oblong, and with an outer fibrous covering.
Eighteen species of Cocos are known, seventeen being natives of South America, principally of Brazil, while one only, the well-known Cocoa-nut, is a native of the Old World, though it is now universally cultivated in every part of the tropics. ”

“ The fruit consists of a thick external husk or rind of a fibrous structure, within which is the ordinary coco-nut of commerce. The nut has a very hard, woody shell, enclosing the nucleus or kernel, the true seed, within which again is a milky liquid called coco-nut milk. The palm is so widely disseminated throughout tropical countries that it is impossible to distinguish its original habitat. It flourishes with equal vigour on the coast of the East Indies, throughout the tropical islands of the Pacific, and in the West Indies and tropical America. ”

“ The uses to which the various parts of the coco-nut palm are applied in the regions of their growth are almost endless. The nuts supply no inconsiderable proportion of the food of the natives, and the milky juice enclosed within them forms a pleasant and refreshing drink. The juice drawn from the unexpanded flower spathes forms “toddy,” which may be boiled down to sugar, or it is allowed to ferment and is distilled, when it yields a spirit which, in common with a like product from other sources, is known as “arrack.” ”

“ The nutty part around the inside of the shell is then extremely soft and jelly-like, so that it can be readily eaten with a spoon; but as a matter of fact very few people ever do eat the flesh at all. After their first few months in the tropics, they lose the taste for this comparatively indigestible part, and confine themselves entirely (like patients at a German spa) to drinking the water. A young coco-nut is thus seen to consist, first of a green outer skin, then of a fibrous coat, which afterwards becomes the hair, and next of a harder shell which finally gets quite woody ”

“ The cocoa-nut tree belongs to the palm family: it requires to [250] grow seven years before it bears fruit; but after this period, and for a whole century, it yields continually the same product—that is, every month about twenty large nuts. This produce never fails, and on the same tree may be seen continually flowers and fruits of all sizes. The cocoa-nut affords, as everyone knows, nutritious food, and when pressed yields a quantity of oil. The shell of the nut serves to make vases, and the filamentary parts are spun into ropes and cables for ships, and even into coarse clothing. ”

“ Travellers certainly do sometimes tell untruths, but on the subject of the cocoa-nut I believe them to be innocent. The cocoa-nut is well known to contain the liquid you describe, just before they are in a state of ripeness. It is the same with our European nuts, with only the difference of quantity; and the circumstance is common to both, that as the nut ripens, the milk diminishes, by thickening and becoming the same substance as the nut. If you put a ripe nut a little way under the earth in a good soil, the kernel will shoot and burst the shell ”

“ At this stage there is very little flesh in the nut, but a large supply of cool, sweet milk, which makes a very delicious drink. If you want a coco-nut, you just climb up a tree and take one. The owner of the tree will not mind, and he would be neither surprised nor angry if you were even to go and ask him for the loan of a knife wherewith to cut down his own coco-nuts. When the fruit is ripe, the woody mass changes to a tangle of brown fibres, that are stripped off to make coco-nut matting and other articles, and the kernel ripens into the nut as we know it in the English market. ”

“ The stem is so strong and tough, being composed of closely-interwoven fibres, 96that the entire top may be torn off by the hurricanes and the trunk remain uninjured. The cocoanut commences to bear when from three to ten years old and will continue to produce fruit, year after year, for from seventy-five to one hundred years. The nut is used for both food and drink, and the shell is made into dippers, jars, spoons and other household utensils. The dried cocoa is a valuable article of commerce, but the real value of the oil prepared from the fresh meat is only beginning to be realized. ”

“ Large quantities of this are exported, and used for sweetmeats, in the manufacture of which in great variety the natives of India are consummate adepts.
The cocoa-nut is consumed in a greater variety of ways than even the sap, and not a portion of it, or of the palm on which it grows, is without its special use. Besides the refreshing drink extracted from the young undeveloped nut, which is also made into a dye, the pulp inside the soft crust is considered a delicacy, and is used in the preparation of various dishes. ”

“ Tapping the nuts with their fingers, they know by the sound those which are fit for food. They prefer the young nuts, in which the milk is as clear as spring water, and the flesh of the consistency of cream. When a cocoanut has lain on the ground a short time, a shoot emerges from one of its three eyes and enters the ground. A cord connects it with the nut, and supplies half the nourishment of the young plant till it is 60strong enough to draw all it requires from the ground. The tree and its products are put to such an infinite variety of uses that without it the natives would be badly off. ”

“ In the early green stage at which cocoa-nuts are generally picked for household use in the tropics, the shell hasn't yet solidified into a hard, stony coat, but still remains quite soft enough to be readily cut through with a sharp table-knife—just like young walnuts picked for pickling. If you cut one across while it's in this unsophisticated state, it is easy enough to see the arrangement of the interior, and the part borne by the milk in the development and growth of the mature nut. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The kernel of 37the ripe nut, thoroughly dried and pressed, gives forth a strong, clear, tasteless oil, which is used by the natives for anointing their skin and hair, and at the same time forms so important an article in European commerce, that above 5,000,000 ripe cocoa-nuts are annually exported through foreign mercantile houses in exchange for European fabrics. ”

“ The interior of the nut is extracted without breaking the shell, by filling it with salt-water, after which it is buried for some time in the sand, when the inside pulp becomes decayed, and the shell is then well washed out. The largest nuts are chosen for the purpose, and are often seen highly polished, and of a fine black colour. The cups of the natives are usually made of sections of the cocoa-nut in that stage of ripeness, when they are denominated by the Tahitans Omutu ”

“ 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. ”

“ He subsists entirely upon a coco-nut diet. Setting to work upon a big fallen nut—with the husk on, coco-nuts measure in the raw state about twelve inches the long way—he tears off all the coarse fibre bit by bit, and gets down at last to the hard shell. ”

“ The fleshy mesocarp of the fruit of Elaeis guineensis of western tropical Africa yields, when crushed and boiled, " palm oil." Coco-nut oil is extracted from the oily endosperm of the coconut. Wax is exuded from the stem of Ceroxylon andicola and Copernicia cerifera. A variety of " dragon's blood, " a resin, is procured from Daemonorops Draco and other species. Edible fruits are yielded by the date, the staple food of some districts of northern Africa. The coco-nut is a source of wealth to its possessors; and many of the species, e.g. ”

“ The knob grows out at last into the young plantlet, and it is by means of the soft hole that it makes its escape through the shell to the air and the sunshine which it seeks without. This brings us really down at last to the true raison d'être for the milk in the coco-nut. As the seed or kernel cannot easily get at much water from outside, it has a good supply of water laid up for it ready beforehand within its own encircling shell. The mother liquid from which the pulp or nutty part has been deposited remains in the centre, as the milk, till the tiny embryo begins to sprout. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The coconut industry is far more picturesque; it is chiefly confined to the south side of Vanua Levu and to Taveuni and the other islands. The nut is grown for its kernel, which, when dried, is called copra, and yields the coconut oil which we use for various purposes. The tree grows everywhere in this region, but does not flourish in Viti Levu owing to an insect pest which seems peculiar to that island. The nut has always been much used by the natives for food, but it is now carefully cultivated for the production of copra. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 coco-nut has been compelled to inclose this particularly large and rich kernel in a very solid and defensive shell. ”