gery," and the sap
when fermented forms an intoxicating beverage known as toddy. The
fibrous outer covering, or husk of the nut, when macerated and
prepared, is termed "coir," and is spun into yarn and rope. It is
extensively shipped from Ceylon, in coils of rope, bundles of yarn,
and pieces of junk.

The coco-nut is usually planted as follows:--Selecting a suitable
place, you drop into the ground a fully ripe nut, and leave it. In a
few days a thin lance-like shoot forces itself through a minute hole
in the shell, pierces the husk, and soon unfolds three pale green
leaves in the air; while, originating in the same soft white sponge
which now completely fills the nut, a pair of fibrous roots pushing
away the stoppers which close two holes in an opposite direction,
penetrate the shell, and strike vertically into the ground. A day or
two more, and the shell and husk, which in the last and germinating
stage of the nut are so hard that a knife will scarcely make any
impression, spontaneously burst by some force within; and, henceforth,
the hardy young plant thrives apace, and needing no culture, pruning,
or attention of any sort, rapidly arrives at maturity. In four or five
years it bears; in twice as many more it begins to lift its head among
the groves, where, waxing strong, it flourishes for near a century.
Thus, as some voyager has said, the man who but drops one of these
nuts into the ground, may be said to confer a greater and more certain
benefit upon himself and posterity, than many a life's toil in less
genial climes. The fruitfulness of the tree is remarkable. As long as
it lives it bears, and without intermission. Two hundred nuts, besides
innumerable white blossoms of others, may be seen upon it at one time;
and though a whole year is required to bring any one of them to the
germinating point, no two, perhaps, are at one time in precisely the
same stage of growth.

Coco-nuts form a considerable article of export from many of the
British colonies: 375,770 were exported from Honduras in 1844, and
254,000 in 1845; 105,107 were shipped from Demerara, in 1845;
3,500,000 from Ceylon in 1847.

They are very abundant on the Maldive Islands, Siam, and on several
parts of the coast of Brazil. Humboldt states, that on the south
shores of the Gulf of Cariaco, nothing is to be seen but plantations
of coco-nut trees, some of them containing nine or ten thousand trees.

Ceylon is one of the localities where the greatest p