1. The stem is used for—Bridges, posts, beams, rafters, paling, ramparts, loop-holes, walking sticks, water butts, bags (the upper cuticle), sieves in use for arrowroot.
2. The coco-nut is used for—milk, a delicious drink; meat from the scraped nut, for various kinds of food; jelly, kora, pulp, nut, oil, excellent and various food for man, beast, and fowl.
The shell for vessels to drink out of, water pitchers, lamps, funnels, fuel, panga (for a game).
The fibre for sinnet, various cordage, bed stuffing, thread for tying combs, scrubbing-brushes, girdle (ornamental), whisk for flies, medicines, various and useful.
3. The leaf is used for—Thatch for houses, lining for houses, takapau (mats), baskets (fancy and plain), fans, palalafa (for sham fights), combs (very various), bedding (white fibre), tafi (brooms), Kubatse (used in printing), mama (candles), screen for bedroom, waiter's tray.
Here are no less than forty-three uses of which we know something; and the natives know of others to which they can apply this single instance of the bounty of the God of nature. For house and clothes, for food and medicine, the coco-nut palm is their sheet anchor, as well as their ornament and amusement, who dwell in the torrid zone.
This fine palm, which always forms a prominent feature in tropical scenery, is a native of Southern Asia. It is spread by cultivation through almost all the intertropical regions of the Old and New Worlds; but it is cultivated nowhere so abundantly as in the Island of Ceylon, and those of Sumatra, Java, &c. On the shores of the Red Sea it advances to Mokha, according to Niebuhr; but it does not succeed in Egypt. It is cultivated in the lower and southern portions of the Asiatic Continent, as on the coasts of Coromandel and Malabar, and around Calcutta. In the island of Ceylon, where the fruit of this tree forms one of the principal aliments of the natives, the nuts are produced in such quantities that in one year about three millions were exported, besides the manufactured produce in oil, &c. According to Marshall it requires a mean temperature of 72 deg. Its northern limit, therefore, is nearly the same as the southern limit of our cereals.
Rumphius enumerates thirteen varieties of this palm, but many of these have now been placed under other genera, and Lindley resolves them into three species—C. nucifera, the most generally diffused species, a native of the East Indies; and C. flexuosa and plumosa, natives of Brazil. The trunk, which is supported by numerous, small fibrous roots, rises gracefully, with a slight inclination, from forty to sixty feet in height; it is cylindrical, of middling size, marked from the root upwards with unequal circles or rings, and is crowned by a graceful head of large leaves. The terminal bud of this palm, as well as that of the cabbage palm (Euterpe montana), is used as a culinary vegetable. The wood of the tree is known by the name of porcupine wood. It is light and spongy, and, therefore, cannot be advantageously employed in the construction of ships or solid edifices, though it is used in building huts; vessels made of it are fragile and of little duration. Its fruit, at different seasons, is in much request; when young, it is filled with a clear, somewhat sweet, and cooling fluid, which is equally refreshing to the native and the traveller. When the nut becomes old, or attains its full maturity, the fluid disappears, and the hollow is filled by a sort of almond, which is the germinating organ. This pulp or kernel, when cut in pieces and dried in the sun, is called copperah, and is eaten by the Malays, Coolies, and other natives, and from it a valuable species of oil is expressed, which is in great demand for a variety of purposes. The refuse oil cake is called Poonae, and forms an excellent manure.
A calcareous concretion is sometimes found in the centre of the nut, to which peculiar virtues have been attributed.
Along the Gulf of Cariaco there are many large coco walks. In moist and fertile ground it begins to bear abundantly the fourth year; but in dry soils it does not produce fruit until the tenth. Its duration does not generally exceed 80 or 100 years, at which period its mean height is about 80 feet. Throughout this coast a coco tree supplies annually about 100 nuts, which yield eight flascos of oil. The flasco is sold for about 1s. 4d. A great quantity is made at Cumana, and Humboldt frequently witnessed the arrival there of canoes containing 3,000 nuts.