The value of the cocoanut palm to the natives where it flourishes can scarcely be exaggerated. There is literal truth in the native proverb to the effect that "He who plants a cocoanut-tree plants vessels and cloth ing, food and drink, a habitation for himself and a heritage for his children." He who would do so could build himself a home of "porcupine wood," which is procured from the trunk of the tree and is very durable. Leaf stalk rafters are to his hand, and his house is readily completed with a picturesque roof of thatched leaves. He can cover his floor with matting made from the coir (the fiber which is about the nut), and the same fiber will supply him with clothing, cord age and fishing lines. He can make brooms and brushes of the ribs of the leaves, and can utilize the old leaves in making buckets. The house com pleted, it can be decorated with fans and with cups artistically carved from the nuts. The palm furnishes transportation also, for the sea-going canoe of the South Sea Islander is made of rough pliable planks of cocoanut-wood, grooved to fit and stitched together with cocoanut-coir twine.
As regards food, he can sustain life on the monotonous but dainty fare provided by the green and ripe nuts. The latter will give him also cocoanut-oil in which he can fry any other food he may obtain, and from which he can manufacture soap and candles. The terminal bud may further be cooked like cabbage, and both tem perance and intoxicating beverages may be prepared from the sap and fruit.
"Ttiba," a beverage highly prized and extensively consumed by the natives, is the sap of the flowering fruit-bearing stalks. As its extraction destroys the nut-bearing capacity, it is generally confined to trees devoted exclusively to the purpose. The fer mented juice is intoxicating and yields on distillation a spirituous liquor known as "Coco wine." COD: one of the most abundant of food fishes, found in all northern temperate seas and taken in large quantities by both nets and lines along the North Atlantic and Arctic coasts of both America and Europe. It ranges in size up to a hundred pounds, the average market weight though being less than ten pounds. It is a very voracious fish, all the small ocean inhabitants serving it for food, and extraordinary prolific, the roe often containing from two to eight million eggs and sometimes constituting a full half of the weight of the female. See Color Page facing page 250.
Cod is marketed in various forms, fresh, salted and dried, in the latter state being generally sold by the quintal (112 pounds). In addition to the large consumption in
North America, great quantities of the dried fish are carried from Newfoundland to the West Indies, South America and Europe, especially to the Catholic countries of the latter continent.
Fresh cod is at its best during the winter months. The head and shoul ders, the choicest portions, are prefer ably boiled, the remainder being usual ly sliced for frying, etc.
In Norway, cows are frequently fed on cod heads and seaweed in order to increase their supply of milk. In Iceland, the waste parts, bones, etc., are utilized as cattle food.
When the curing process has been com pleted, they are taken out of the vats, washed and brushed to remove super fluous salt and placed to dry in the sun, spread out on wooden racks, on the beach or elsewhere. They are considered fit for market when they show "bloom"—a whitish appearance on the surface. They are sold in many forms, popular types be ing Boneless Cod and Flaked Cod, put up in small boxes ; Shredded Cod, in papers and cans, etc.
or Klipp-fisb, is applied to the fish dried on the rocks "Scrod" is a term which was originally applied to any fish, particularly cod, "scrodded" or "shredded," but it now generally signifies a young cod split and slightly salted.