THE COCONUT PALM.
The coco-nut palm grows best on the shelly, barren soil of tropical shores. It loves the sea air, and as it grows, leans toward the water! A crown of leaves shelters the clustered nuts that turn from green to brown as they ripen.
It is the delight of native boys and men to run up the trees and throw down nuts, to the wonder of strangers, who pay the acrobats well for their feats, and who enjoy the fresh food and drink thus supplied. Inside the shiny, brown, three-cor nered husk is the hard-shelled nut, lined with a thick layer of white meat, rich in flavor and in food value. The husk yields the useful fibre known in commerce as " coir." The wide distribution of the coco palm is due to the fact that the nuts float, and are not injured by sea water, as they drift to other shores. They grow in the tropics of all continents, and are the chief food of the inhabitants of many tropical islands.
Cocos means monkey, in the Portuguese language. So it must have been when he was looking at the funny little monkey face on the end of a nut, the end with the three flat penny spots on it, that the botanist adopted the name that was applied in fun to the familiar nut by a Portuguese sailor.
The meaning of the three spots is not clear at first. One is always largest; this is the one that
breaks to let the little plant escape on germination. The nut was intended to be in three compart ments, with a plantlet, or embryo, in each. But long ago the partitions between the chambers got into the way of breaking down, and a single seed was developed, in the place of three. The two prints are all that are left to show that the plant has decided to have fewer and therefore stronger seeds.
We know the coco-nuts as they come to our markets, freed of their bulky husks, and carried as ballast in the holds of vessels from Jamaica and Trinidad. There is a tremendous demand for them in the United States. We know the shred ded and dried meat of the nuts, that lend such a fine flavor to desserts and candies we make. We do not know copra, though.
The dry meats are shipped under this name from the South Sea Islands and other far regions, to be sold at the factories where presses extract the valuable coco-nut oil of commerce. Planta tions of the coco palms have been planted in the Old World as oil producers. In the New World, Brazil, and the West Indies, they are set out as fruit plantations.