The Florida agriculturist., 1884-10-29
700
The Milk of the Cocoanut.

Apart from the manifold merits of the
tree that bears the cocoanut, the milk
itself has many and great claims to our
respect and esteem, as everybody who
has ever drunk it in its native surround
ings will enthusiastically admit. In
England, to be sure, the white milk in
dry nuts is very poor stuff, sickly and
strong favored and rather indigestable.
But in the Tropics cocoanut milk, or, as
we oftener call it there, cocoanut water,
is very different and vastly superior
beverage. At II O'Clock every morning,
when you are hot and tired with the
days work, your black servant, clad
from head to foot in his cool, clean white
linen suit, brings you in a tall soda glass
full of clear, light crystal liquid, tempt
ingly displayed against the yellow back
ground Of a chased Benares brass work
tray. The lump of ice bobs enticingly
up and down in the center of the tumbler
or clinks musically against the edge of
the glass as he carries it along. You
take the cool cup thankfully and swallow
it down at one long drought; fresh as a
May morning, pure as an English hill
side spring, delicate as-well, as cocoa
nut water. None but itself can be it's
parallel. 1t is certainly the most deli
cious, dainty, transparent, crystal drink
ever invented. How did it get there,
and what is it for =?
Everybody knows that if you look at
the sharp end of cbcoanut you will see
there three little brown pits or depres
sions on its surface. Most people also
know that two OF these are firmly stopped
up, but that the third one is also closed
by slight film or very thin shell, which
can be easily bored through with pocket
knife, so as to let the milk run off before
cracking the shell. So much we have
learned during our ardent pursuit of
natural knowledge on half holidays i'll
early life. But we probably then failed
to note just opposite this soft hole lies a
small roundish knob imbedded in the
pulp or eatable portion, which knob is i'll
fact the embryo palm or Seeding, for
whose ultimate benefit the whole ar
rangement lin brown and green)has been
invented. This is very much the way
with man; he notices what corcerns his |
and omits all the really inn |
portant facts of the whole subject. We |
think the use of the hole is to let our the |
milk, but the nut knows that the real
object is to let out the seeding. The
knob grows out at last into the young
plantlet, and it is by means of the soft
hold that it makes it's escape through
the she'll to the air and sunshine which
it seeks without.
This brings us down to the true rdison
d'atre for the milk in the cocoanut AS
the seed or kernel cannot get at much |
water from the outside, it has good |
supply OF water laid up for it ready be- |
forehand, within its own encircling she'll.
The mother liquid from which the pulp
or nutty part has been deposited remains
in the center, as the milk, till the tiny |
little knob which was at first so very
small enlarges into a big spongy cellular
mass, which at last almost fills up the
entire shell. At the same time its other
end pushes its way out. through the soft
hole, and then gives birth to growing
bud at the top-the future stem and
to a number OF long threads
future roots. Meanwhile
the spongy mass inside begins gradually I
to absorb all the nutty part, using up
its oil and starches for the purpose of
feeding the young plant above, until it is
of an age to expand its leaves to the open
tropical sunlight and shift for itself in
the struggle for life.-CornhiH Magazine.