Show COCON U T az 61 aby CHARLES BROWN i L T has been commonly remarked that the uses of the coconut palm cocos Nuci Nu citera fera are numerous as the days of the year found nearly every where within the tropics almost the sole dependence tor for food of the in habitants of 0 many countries this king of 0 low tropical countries furnishes man with food drink medicines dome domet atiq iq utensil utensils materials tor for boat and house build ing oil all for or cooking lighting and lubricating and innumerable other purposes and is of all the the one that yields the greatest varl vart ety tty of products tennant has truly eald said that of the cocoanut palm a ship can be built and laden too be de cal Cai dolle in origin of culli bated plants does not consider the cocoanut palm a native of the western hemisphere but places its original habitat in the castern archipelago somewhere in the neighborhood of sumatra and java and surmises that nuts floated thence both east and west eastward to the islands of the pacific and the coast of central amer tea and westward to ceylon and the cast coast of africa he ile places its in tro reduction into brazil venezuela and the west indies by missionaries about three centuries ago de martius says that the portuguese introduced it on tho the coast of guiana about the same time the navigators dampier and vancouver found it at the beginning of the seventeenth century in groves en on the islands of panama bay as well as on cocos island miles off the pacific coast of costa rica at that time these islands were habited later the cocoanut palm is reported on the west coast from mex ico to ecuador and seeman reported having seen the palm both wild and cultivated on the isthmus of panama in 1526 oviedo wrote that the cocoa nut palm was abundant on the pa cine coast in the province of the cacique chiman now darien panama V ill C rae coco PAZ 10 4 fa eriv 1 A A U M 4 V 0 KA Z 1 A M CF 0 N 5 flyr AND ayr 1 4 W FRI A 4 it I 1 I 1 1 0 9 jmj I 1 vwe r W J fy 14 I 1 I 1 r of ai 4 4 V T aa S ilk FAT t A A 14 t t A 4 4 aw lf RA l 6 VA if gor WJ r VA 7 tail fa V 0 argument in favor of an american origin as elated stated by de Can dolle Is as follows the trade winds of the pacific to the south and yet more to the north of the equator drive floating bodies troia from america to asia a direction contrary to that 0 of the general currents it is known more over from the unexpected arrival of bottles con taming papers on different coasts that chance has much to do with these transports his ills arguments contrary to an american origin of the cocoanut palm and in favor of an asiatic ere are as fol follows lovis first aa current between the third and fifth parallel north latitude flows from the islands of the be indian archipelago to the gulf of panama to the north and south of this are currents which take the opposite direction but they nate ante in regions too cold for the cocoanut and so do not touch central america where it Is sup posed to have been long indigenous second the inhabitants of asiatic islands were tar far bolder navigators than the american indians it is very possible that canoes from the asiatic islands containing provisions of cocoa nuts were carried by storms or false maneuvers to the islands of the west coast of america the contrary is highly improbable third the area for three centuries has been much vaster in asia than in america and the difference ference lif was yet more considerable before that epoch foi it Is known that the cocoanut has not long existed in the east of trop cal america fourth the inhabitants of the islands of asia possess an immense number of varieties of the palm which indicates a very ancient cultivation blume enumerates eighteen varieties in java and adjacent islands and thirty nine in the philippines nothing of a similar nature has been observed in the am americas fifth the uses of the cocoanut are more varied and more habitual in asia sixth it is not probable that the ancient dext cans and inhabitants of central america would have neglected to spread the cocoanut in several directions had it existed among them from a very tery remote epoch the little breadth of the of panama would have facilitated its transportation from one coast to the other and the species would soon have been established in the west indies as it has since become natural iced there since the discover disco verv of america seventh it if the cocoanut in am rica dated from a geological epoch anterior anter Jor to the pliocene er r even eocene deposits in eure eu ope re it would probably have been found on both coasts and the eastern and western islands of tropical amer lea tea equally eighth iso no ancient data of the existence of the cocoanut in america have been found but its presence in asia three to four thousand years ago Is proven by several sanskrit names from these facts the most ancient habitation in n asia would be iti na the archipelago and in amer lea tea in the islands west of panama its introduce Intro duc tion don nto ceylon celon indian and china de Can dolle states does not date further back than three thousand years but the transport by sea to the coasts of america and africa took place perhaps in a more remote epoch although posterior to those epochs when the geographical and physical conditions were different from those of our day in early botanical works cocoanuts are men cloned being derived from an east indian word coc or cocce used to indicate the fruit of the cocos Nuci fera or cocoanut of a fancied lesem blance of the three circular depressions to the face of a monkey whose conversational powers are limited to uttering a sound like coco at the present day on the islands of the baa of panama such as coiba ceiba collita mon auosa ladrones drones La and along the southwestern coast of Ch iriqui in panama and punta bunca durica and golfo duice dulce in costa mca rica are found dense groves of wild cocoanut palms the fallen nuts piled up around their base in many instances to a depth of two and three feet washed rashed back and forth by the swirl of the great tides of these coasts until hurled against some lagged jagged rock the pro teching hi hisk sk Is torn away and the tender kernel becomes the prey of the myriads of soldier crabs patrolling these great sandy stretches at low tide others are carried by swift currents to nearby coasts where thrown high on the beach at flood tide they may germinate and take root others come as floating manna and becalmed pearl pearI fishing crews supplying at once food and drink to the divers whom the tides carry far from their base of supplies an analogy to the aphorism of the ill wind accepting de condolle Can dolle dolles s theory as correct this same process of distribution from the low lying coasts of the eastern archipelago to these islands of the bay of panama mentioned by dampier and vancouver in their might have been seen taking place a thousand years before the christian era or by columbus successors in the dukedom of veraguas Ver aguas off which coast hey lie thence carried by human agency to farther shores north into central america and mexico south into what Is now colombia and ecuador and across the isthmus is of panama to the mosquito coast venezuela and the west indies there to meet with th those se brought over from africa by either ocean currents or early e explorers in the americas today the cocoanut is an important product of mexico guatemala nicaragua honduras san salvador costa rica panama colom bia bla ecuador r as far south as guaya aguaya quil quit venezuela guiana and brazil and in the west indies cuba santo domin domingo go haiti bahamas jamaica a and nd trinidad cocoanuts are being planted more e extensively every evey year in southern florida and within a few constitute an im years ars will doubtless product of that state pacific america sends cocoanuts to the san francisco market from the Ila hawaiian wallan islands while copra or the dried kernel and oil expressed there from reach this market from the orient along the coast of brazil there are wild cocoanut groves over miles long and millions ot of nuts are shipped annually from this country to the united states and europe mexico reduces much of its product to oil and ships to the united states in this lorm form although a good trade in raw nuts is maintained of those exported from cuba honduras nica bagua panama and jamaica the greater part Is in the raw state trinidad reduces much of its product to copra for europe and oil principally for the local consumption of its large east indian population in 1908 the approximate estimate of area un der cultivation in the cocoanut palm in all parts of the world R nas as acres of this vast area there are probably palms bearing fully 7 nuts annually the majority of which are consumed for food pur poses where produced the cocoanut palm flourishes near the equator and as far north as 80 degrees especially along low coasts although many are found in india at an elevation of 3 feet and cases are known where the palm does well at an elevation of 4 feet above the sea As a rule a cocoanut tree throws out a and a leaf every month each flowering spike yielding from 10 to 25 ripened nuts the product of a healthy tree properly tended may be from 60 to and even nuts annually the principal products of the cocoanut palm are raw nuts from which the desiccated meat is made copra or the dried kernel from which in turn oil Is expressed or the residue after extracting the oil and coir the uses of these products as well as of eiery portion of the palm itself are almost innumerable twenty eight per cent of all the cocoanuts raised in tha world are grown in the americas where however they are scattered over a much greater area tor for each palm than Is the case in the orient thereby making the work of collecting co electing and shipping more difficult and expensive due principally to this fact the vast stretches of cocoanut groves of brazil venezuela mexico and the western coast of central america have never been extensively exploited for cocoanuts increasing demand higher prices than in former years and the approaching completion of the panama canal which means new markets brought about by improved transportation facilities are rapidly bringing these fields within the radius of profitable exploitation in addition to stimulating the scientific culture of this palm pa aroi tropical america |