The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-01-13
Tropical GrOwths.
THE PALM,

Tropical GrOwths.
THE PALM,
of which there are some three hundred
forty varieties, is the typical tree of the
tropics, the largest of which are the
grandest trees in the world, not except
ing our own American elms. The
cocoa palm is the richest of them all,
and is found in the tropics of both hemi-
spheres wherever the climate and soil
favors the termination of the seeds,
which may be floated by ocean currents
for thousands of miles. 1t often attains
a height of two hundred feet, bearing a
single crown of leaves at the top, and
underneath which the clusters of cocoa
nuts hang, at the rate of ton or two
on a tree. The wisdom of Providence
in making the great oak-trees bear little
acorns instead of fruit as large as pump
kins, so that in falling they should not
injure men or little boys who happen
to be beneath them, seems to get a
contradiction in case of the palm, for #
a bunch of these cocoanuts were to fall
upon a passer-by, his own cocoanut
would most surely get smashed, for,
falling from this great height, they often
bury themselves quite deeply in the
is the only part used in that climate.
1t is limpid, cool, and always delight
full and refreshing drink. never
tested the temperature by thermome-
ter, but in the hottest tropical weather
it always seems cool. The cocoanut
meat is never eaten where it grows, but
must come North to find ostrich stom-
achs strong enough to get away with it
without harm.
THE CACTUS
is another vegetable wonder. Like
the poor, you have them always with
you, and like them again, you always
wish to better their condition and get
rid of them. The spines, many of them
so fine and hairy as scarcely to be seen
at all, pierce the flesh, and cause Sc
we're and lasting pain. The Turks
head cactus, which is cultivated here in
pots, is planted there for fences and
stockades. Set the plants few inches
apart, and, in short time they grow
to the height of twenty or thirty feet,
and as solid as any brick wall-not a
hole even that one can look through.
Such barrier is impregnable to any
animal, and boys don't sit on it nor
lean against it. But when these fences
are in bloom they present sight ut
terly indescribable. Some of them
bloom only in the night, and l have
been walked up to go and see the fences
in bloom, and, like the barbed-wire
fences at the West, l have gone miles
to get round one of these stockades.
THE CACAO, OR CHoCoLATE-TREE,
is tropical plant of great interest. 1t is
cultivated in Central America, where
the heat is most excessive, and, like
many other forms of tropical vegeta-
ton, this tree cannot bear the full heat
of the sun, but under cultivation is
planted with other trees to shade and
protect it. The cacao is about the size
of an ordinary plum-tree at the North.
1t is severely headed in and is cult
of all tropical plants grow in the shade,
and cannot acclimate themselves to the
fierce kisses of their own mother, the
sun. The ailantus is usually planted
for shade, and as this tree sheds its
leaves when it is in flower and flowers
when cacao is in fruit, the two grow
well together.
THE BANANA-TREE
is an illustration of natures economy
1t never dies, but after a crop of fruit
is taken is cut down, when it sprouts
up and begins life over again from the
same stump or root. 1t has been propa'
gated in this way, or from cuttings
and slips, until it seems to have forgot
ten how to produce seed This and
the pineapple are seedless fruits. The
banana is the great food staple of the
country, and is capable, according to
Humboldt, of producing forty times as
When it begins to grow from an old
stump it looks like an immense cigar
with its wrapper of leaves, which un
fold so rapidly when mature that yor
can see the naked stem change to 6
broad-spreading, umbrella-shaped tree
while you are standing looking at it.
The fruit is rdiculously cheap, and
have bought it by the oX-cart load fol
eighty cents, and then occasionally haC
an extra load thrown in to make full
measure.
THE COFFEE-TREE
is not a native of America, but thrive'
as well here as any introduced tree
That, too, must be shaded when young
AT the time of my stay in the tropics
no animal or insect of any kind was
ever known to touch the coffee leaves OF
berry. The fruit resembles a cherry
with two seeds, with fiat sides together
When one seed aborts the other takes {
round form, and is styled the "male
berry," which is the type of fine coffee
Formerly, much labor was required il
macerating the berries and freeing thu
seeds from the pulp, but now ma
chinery has been introduced, which il
the chief cause of the reduction in tn,
price of coffee in our northern cities
used to think that | would certaiul,
| snand my declininO wears in n coffee