To Hon. F. Lamson-Scribner,
Chief Bureau of Agriculture, Manila.
The Cocoanut.
Introduction.
The following pages are written chiefly in the interests of the planter, but the writer feels that the great agricultural importance which the cocoanut palm is bound to assume in these Islands is sufficient to justify the presentation of some of its history and botany.
For that part of the bulletin which touches upon the botany of the cocoanut I am indebted to Don Regino Garcia, associate botanist of the Forestry Bureau; for that relating to its products and local uses, to the courtesy of manufacturers in Laguna; and, for the rest, to personal experience and observations made in Laguna Province and in the southern Visayan Islands where, as elsewhere in this Archipelago, the cocoanut may properly be considered a spontaneous and not a cultivated product.
History.
The legendary history of the “Prince of Palms,”[1] as it has been called, dates back to a period when the Christian era was young, and its history is developing day by day in some new and striking manifestation of its utility or beauty. It seems not unreasonable to assume that much of the earlier traditionary history of the cocoanut may have been inspired as much by its inherent beauty as by its uses. Such traditional proverbs Or folklore as I have gathered in the Visayas recognize the influence of the beautiful, in so far as the blessings of the trees only inure to the good; for instance, “He who is cruel to his beast or his family will only harvest barren husks from the reproving trees that witness the pusillanimous act;” and, again, “He who grinds the poor will only grind water instead of fat oil from the meat.”