Like all the oleaginous plants cultivated for their seed, colza greatly impoverishes the soil.
In Peru the caoutchouc is used as a substitute for candles. A roll of it (which is generally about a yard long and three inches in diameter) is cut lengthways into four parts, but before it is lighted the piece is rolled up in a green plantain leaf, to prevent it from melting or taking fire down the sides. The natives of Peru also bruize the beans of a species of wild cacao after they have been well dried, and use the substance instead of tallow in their lamps.
Mr. Dearman, writing from Dacca, to Dr. Spry, Secretary to the Agricultural and Horticultural Societies of India, in 1839, says—"I will send you some seeds from a tree, which resemble chestnuts. One of these seeds, after taking off the shell, being stuck on the point of a penknife, and lighted at a candle flame, will burn without the least odor for four or five minutes, giving a light equal to two or three candles. From the flower of the tree (he adds), I am told, is distilled a delightful scent." [I presume this must be the candle-nut tree.]
At the Feejee and Hawaian islands, the seeds of the castor oil plant and of the candle-nut tree (Aleurites triloba) are strung together and used for candles. Species of torches are also made from the candle wood in Demerara.
THE CANDLEBERRY MYRTLE (Myrica cerifera) abounds in the Bahama Islands. The shrub produces a small green berry, which, like the hog plum, puts out from the trunk and larger limbs. Much patient labor is required in gathering these berries, and from them is obtained a beautiful green wax, which burns very nearly, if not fully, as well as the spermaceti, or composition candles imported from abroad. Not long since Mr. Thos. B. Musgrove, of St. Salvador (or Cat Island), obtained about 80 lbs. of this wax, and made some excellent candles of it. The method of procuring this wax is by boiling the berries in a copper or brass vessel for some time. Iron pots are found to darken and cloud the wax. The vessel after a sufficient time is taken from the fire, and when cool the hardened wax, floating on the top of the water, is skimmed off.
MYRTLE WAX.—According to the experiments of M. Cadet and Dr. Bostock, myrtle wax differs in many respects from bees' wax, Specimens of it assume shades of a yellowish green color. Its smell is also different; myrtle wax, when fresh, emitting a fragrant balsamic odor. It has in part the unctuosity of bees' wax, and somewhat of the brittleness of resin. Its specific gravity is greater, insomuch that it sinks in water, whereas bees' wax floats upon it; and it is not so easily bleached to form white wax. The wax tree of Louisiana contains immense quantities of wax.
Mr. Moodie ("Ten Tears in South Africa") says,—
"I occasionally employed my people, at spare times, in gathering wax berries that grow in great abundance upon small bushes in the sand hills, near the sea, and yield a substance partaking of the nature of wax and tallow, which is mixed with common tallow, and used by the colonists for making candles. The berry is about the size of a pea, and covered with a bluish powder. They are gathered by spreading a skin on the sand, and beating the bush with a stick. When a sufficient quantity of the berries are collected, they are boiled in a great quantity of water, and the wax is skimmed off as fast as it rises; the wax is then poured into flat vessels and allowed to cool, when it becomes hard and brittle, and has a metallic sound when struck. The cakes thus formed are of a deep green color, and are sold at the same price as tallow. The wild pigs devour these berries when they come in their way, and seem very fond of them."
A good specimen of myrtle, or candleberry wax, accompanied by candles made from it in the crude unbleached state in New Brunswick, was shown at the Great Exhibition.
Vegetable wax was also sent from Shanghae, in China; from St. Domingo, in the northern parts of which the plant is indigenous; and a remarkable specimen from Japan. This substance, from its high melting point and other physical characteristics, has of late attracted a good deal of attention; it is admirably suited as a material for the manufacture of candles.
At a meeting of the Central Board, at Cape Town, in March, 1853, the members voted about £300, to employ some 20 or 30 men, in gathering berries from the Downs, and making wax during the winter months, that is, from the beginning of May to the end of September. The wax fetches a good price in the Cape market.
In the annual report of the Cape of Good Hope Agricultural Society, in May, 1853, a very fine sample of myrtle, or terry wax, grown on the Cape Flats, was exhibited by Mr. Feeny, Superintendent of the Road Plantation, by direction of the Commissioners of the Central Road Board, in different stages of purification, from green to white, as also some candles; and it being conceived by the meeting that this article might ultimately become one of considerable importance for purposes of export, a letter of thanks was addressed to Mr. Feeny; and Nathaniel Day, the constable who assisted him, was presented with the sum of £5, as a remuneration for his trouble in assisting to purify and prepare the wax. On reference to the juror's report on the Great Exhibition, it will be gratifying to find that the berry wax, forwarded by this Society, had attracted peculiar notice, and a prize medal been awarded for it; the following reference is therein made to it: "some fine specimens of myrtle or berry wax, from the Cape of Good Hope, are exhibited by J. Lindenberg, of Worcester. This is an excellent material for the manufacture of candles, when employed in conjunction with other solid fats. The jury awarded a prize medal for these specimens."
Your Committee would suggest every possible attention being drawn to this subject, in which they are gratified to state, the Commissioners of the Central Road Board have evinced a readiness to co-operate, by offering to place at the Society's disposal the sum of £10 10s., "to be given as a premium for the best information respecting the wax berry plant, the soils and situations in which it is found to grow most luxuriantly: the best mode of propagating and cultivating it, of collecting the berries, and extracting and preparing the wax, &c." And from a letter received from the Secretary to the Central Road Board, it appears that the Board had authorised the shipment to England of 2,561 lbs. of the wax, by the Queen of the South in November last, which, from the account sales lately received from Messrs. J.R. Thomson & Co., realised as follows, viz.:—
This statement shows that from a plant, which is indigenous to the colony, and might he cultivated to almost any extent, and mostly on soils unavailable for other purposes, an article of great export could be derived at a comparatively small expense; it is with that view that I desire to direct public attention more prominently to it.
In the Museum of the Royal Botanic Gardens, at Kew, wax is shown as scraped from the trunk of the wax palm (Ceroxylon andicola), and candles made from it, as also some made of acorns and closely resembling common tallow. Concrete milk and butter made from the Shea butter tree, and others growing in Para, are also exhibited.
Wax candles have been made from the seeds of Myrica macrocarpa in Colombia, and also from vegetable wax in Java. Some of these are to be seen in the Museum of the Pharmaceutical Society of London.
CASTOR OIL PLANT.
Castor oil is expressed from the seeds of Ricinus communis (Palma Christi), a plant with petale-palmate leaves, which is found native in Greece, Africa, the South of Spain, and the East Indies, and is cultivated in the West Indies, as well as in North and South America. In the temperate and northern parts of Europe, the plant is an herbaceous annual, of from three to eight feet high; in the more southern parts it becomes scrubby and even attains an height of twenty feet; while in India it is often a tree thirty to forty feet high. The best oil is obtained by expression from the seeds without heat, and is hence called "cold drawn oil." A large quantity of oil may be produced by boiling the seeds, but it is less sweet and more apt to become rancid than that procured by expression.
The Palma Christi grows continuously for about four years, and becomes a large tree in constant bearing, ripening its rich clusters of beans in such profusion, that 100 bushels may be obtained annually from an acre, and their product of oil two gallons per bushel.
There are several species, all of which yield oil of an equally good quality. A shrubby variety is common in South Australia, and other parts of New Holland. Ricinus lividus is a native of the Cape of Good Hope. It is a hardy plant, of the easiest culture, and will thrive in almost any soil, whether in the burning plains or the coldest part of the mountains. The seed should be planted in the tropics in September, singly, and at the distance of 10 or twelve feet apart. They will bear the first season, and continue to yield for years. When the seed-pods become brown, they are in a fit state to pluck. It is often grown in the East intermixed with other crops. The primitive mode of obtaining the oil is to separate the seeds from the husks, and bruise them by tying them up in a grass mat. In this state they are put into a boiler amongst water, and boiled until all the oil is separated, which floats at the top, and the refuse sinks to the bottom; it is then skimmed off, and put away for use. The purest oil is obtained, as before-mentioned, by crushing the seeds (which are sewed up in horsehair bags), by the action of heavy iron beaters. The oil, as it oozes out, is caught in troughs, and conveyed to receivers, whence it is bottled for use.
Castor oil is used for lamps in the East Indies, and the Chinese have some mode of depriving it of its medicinal properties, so as to render it suitable for culinary purposes.
That which we import from the East Indies comes from Bombay and Calcutta, and is obtained at a very low price. It is exceedingly pure, both in color and taste.
In the West Indies the shrub grows about six feet high. The stalks are jointed, and the branches covered with leaves about eighteen inches in circumference, forming eight or ten sharp-pointed divisions, of a bluish green color, spreading out in different directions. The flowers contain yellow stamina; the seed is enclosed in a triangular husk, of a dark brown color, and covered with a light fur, of the same color as the husk. When the capsule is thoroughly ripened by the sun, it bursts, and expels the seeds, which are usually three in number.
In Jamaica this plant is of such speedy growth, that in one year it arrives at maturity, and I have known it to attain to the height of twenty feet. A gallon of the seed yields by expression about two pounds of oil.
The wholesale price in Liverpool, in October, 1853, was 3d. to 5d. per lb.
It is brought over from the East Indies in small tin cases, soldered together and packed in boxes, weighing about 2 cwt. each.
In Ceylon castor oil is obtained from two varieties of the plant, the white and the red.
The native mode of preparing the oil is by roasting the seed; this imparts an acridity to the oil, which is objectionable. By attending to the following directions, the oil may be prepared in the purest and best form. The modes of preparation are—1. By boiling in water. 2. By expression. 3. Extraction by alcohol. In the first the seeds are slightly roasted to coagulate the albumen, cleaned of the integuments, bruised in a mortar, and the paste boiled in pure water. The oil which rises on the surface is removed, and treated with an additional quantity of fresh water; 10,000 parts of clean seed give by this process (in Jamaica) 3,250 of oil, of good quality, though amber-colored. 2. Expression is the simplest and most usually adopted process; the cleaned kernels are well bruised, placed in cloth bags, and compressed in a powerful lever and screw press. A thick oil is obtained, which must be filtered through cloth and paper to separate the mucilage. In Bengal the manufacturers boil the oil water, which coagulates some albumen, and they subsequently filter through cloth, charcoal, and paper. 3. The extraction by alcohol is practised by some druggists. Each pound of paste is triturated with four pounds of alcohol, specific gravity 8.350, and the mixture subjected to pressure. The oil dissolved by the alcohol escapes very freely: one half is recovered by the distillation of the spirit, the residue of the distillation is boiled in a large quantity of water. The oil separates and is removed, and gently heated to expel any adherent moisture; then filtered at the temperature of 90 deg. Fahrenheit; 1,000 parts of the paste have by this process given 625 of colorless and exceedingly sweet oil.
The cultivation of the Palma christi, and the manufacture of castor oil, is extensively carried on in some parts of the United States, and continues on the increase. A single firm at St. Louis has worked up 18,500 bushels of beans in four months, producing 17,750 gallons of oil, and it is stated that 800 barrels have been sold, at 50 dollars per barrel. The oil may be prepared for burning, for machinery, soap, &c., and is also convertible into stearine. It is more soluble in alcohol than lard-oil.
American castor oil is imported for the most part from New York and New Orleans, but some comes from our own possessions in North America. In the United States, according to the "American Dispensatory," the cleansed seeds are gently heated in a shallow iron reservoir, to render the oil liquid for easy expression, and then compressed in a powerful screw press, by which a whitish oily liquid is obtained, which is boiled with water in clean iron boilers, and the impurities skimmed off as they rise to the surface. The water dissolves the mucilage and starch, and the heat coagulates the albumen, which forms a whitish layer between the oil and water. The clear oil is now removed, and boiled with a minute portion of water until aqueous vapors cease to arise: by this process an acrid volatile matter is got rid of. The oil is put into barrels, and in this way is sent into the market. American oil has the reputation of being adulterated with olive oil. Good seeds yield about 25 per cent. of oil. A large proportion of the drug consumed in the eastern section of the Union is derived by way of New Orleans from Illinois and the neighbouring States, where it is so abundant that it is sometimes used for burning in lamps.
In Jamaica the bruised seeds are boiled with water in an iron pot, and the liquid kept constantly stirred. The oil which separates swims on the top, mixed with a white froth, and is skimmed off. The skimmings are heated in a small iron pot, and strained through a cloth. When cold it is put in jars or bottles for use.
| Castor oil imported. lbs. | Retained. lbs. | |
| 1826 | 263,382 | 453,072 |
| 1831 | 393,191 | 327,940 |
| 1836 | 981,585 | 809,559 |
| 1841 | 871,136 | 732,720 |
| 1846 | 1,477,168 | — |
| 1849 | 1,084,272 | — |
| 1850 | 3,495,632 | — |
The imports of castor oil come chiefly from the East India Company's possessions, and were as follows, nearly all being retained for home consumption:—
| lbs. | |
| 1830 | 490,558 |
| 1831 | 343,373 |
| 1832 | 257,386 |
| 1833 | 316,779 |
| 1834 | 685,457 |
| 1835 | 1,107,115 |
| 1836 | 972,552 |
| 1837 | 957,164 |
| 1838 | 837,143 |
| 1839 | 916,370 |
| 1840 | 1,190,173 |
| 1841 | 869,947 |
| 1842 | 490,156 |
| 1843 | 717,696 |
In 1841, 12,406 Indian maunds of castor oil were shipped from Calcutta alone, and 7,906 ditto in 1842.
In 1842, 8 cases were shipped from Ceylon, 10 in 1843, 24 in 1844, and 14 in 1845.
1,439 barrels were shipped from New Orleans in 1847. The quantity brought down to that city from the interior was 1,394 barrels in 1848, and 1,337 barrels in 1849.
Within the last year or two, an attempt has been made to introduce the cake obtained in expressing the seeds of the castor oil plant as a manure, which is deserving attention, both because it is in itself likely to prove a serviceable addition to the list of fertilizers which may be advantageously employed, and because it may lead to the use of similar substances, which are at present neglected, or thrown aside as refuse.
The castor oil seed resembles in chemical composition the other oily seeds. It consists of a mixture of mucilaginous, albuminous, and oily matters; and the former two of these are identical in constitution and general properties with the substances found in linseed and rape cake, while the oil is principally distinguished by its purgative properties. The cake obtained is in the form of ordinary oil-cake, but is at once distinguished from it by its color, and by the large fragments of the husk of the seeds which it contains. It is also much, softer, and may be easily broken down with the hand. I have analysed two samples of castor cake, stated to have been obtained by different processes; and though I have not been informed of the exact nature of these processes, I infer, from the large quantity of oil, that one must have been cold-drawn. The first of the following analyses is that of the sample which I believe the cold-drawn. It is the most complete of the two, and contains a determination of the amount of oil. In the other analysis this was not done, but there was no doubt on my mind that its quantity was much smaller.
| No. 1. | No. 2. | |
| Water | 8.32 | 16.31 |
| Oil | 24.32 | — |
| Nitrogen | 3.05 | 3.35 |
| Ash | 7.22 | 4.95 |
| The ash contains— | ||
| Siliccous matters | 1.96 | — |
| Phosphates | 3.36 | 2.27 |
| Excess of phosphoric acid | 0.64 | — |
In order to give a proper idea of the value of this substance as a manure, I shall quote here, for comparison sake, the average composition of rape cake, as deduced from the analyses contained in the Transactions of the Highland Society of Scotland:—
| Water | 10.68 |
| Oil | 11.10 |
| Nitrogen | 4.63 |
| Ash | 7.79 |
| The ash contains— | |
| Siliccous matters | 1.18 |
| Phosphates | 3.87 |
| Excess of phosphoric acid | 0.39 |
It will be at once seen that there is a close general resemblance between these two substances, although there is no doubt that the castor cake is inferior to rape cake; still I believe that this inferiority is fully counterbalanced by the difference in price, which is such that, compared with rape cake, the castor cake is really a cheap manure. There is only one of its constituents which it contains in larger quantity, and that is the oil. No weight is, however, to be attached to the quantity of oil in a manure. In a substance to be used as food, it is of very high importance; but so far as we at present know, its value as manure is extremely problematical. Whale, seal, and other coarse oils have been used as manures, and by some few observers benefits have been derived from their application, but the general experience has not been favorable to their use, nor should we chemically be induced to expect any beneficial effect from them. We have every reason to believe that the oils which are found in plants are produced there as the results of certain processes which are proceeding within the plant, and there is no evidence to show that any part of it is ever absorbed in the state of oil by the roots when they are presented to them. On the other hand, the oils are extremely inert substances, and undergo chemical changes very slowly; so that there is no likelihood of their being converted into carbonic acid, or any other substance which may be useful to the plant; and as they contain no nitrogen, and consist only of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, they can yield only those elements of which the plant can easily obtain an unlimited supply. I can conceive cases in which the oil might possibly produce some mechanical effect on the soil, but none in which it could act as a manure, in the proper sense of the term.
KANARI on.—Mr. Crawfurd, in his "History of the Indian Archipelago," speaks most favorably of an oil obtained from the "Kanari," a tree which, he says, is a native of the same country as the sago palm, and is not found to the westward, though it has been introduced to Celebes and Java. I have not been able to distinguish its botanical name; but Mr. Crawfurd describes it as a large handsome tree, and one of the most useful productions of the Archipelago. It bears a nut of an oblong shape, nearly the size of a walnut, the kernel of which is as delicate as that of a filbert, and abounds with oil. The nuts are either smoked and dried for use, or the oil is expressed from them in their recent state. It is used for all culinary purposes, and is purer and more palatable than that of the coco-nut. The kernels, mixed up with a little sago meal, are made into cakes and eaten as bread.
THE COCO-NUT PALM.
This palm (Cocos nucifera) is one of the most useful of the extensive family to which it belongs, supplying food, clothing, materials for houses, utensils of various kinds, rope and oil; and some of its products, particularly the two last, form important articles of commerce. An old writer, in a curious discourse on palm trees, read before the Royal Society, in 1688, says, "The coco nut palm is alone sufficient to build, rig, and freight a ship with bread, wine, water, oil, vinegar, sugar, and other commodities. I have sailed (he adds) in vessels where the bottom and the whole cargo hath been from the munificence of this palm tree. I will take upon me to make good what I have asserted." And then he proceeds to describe and enumerate each product. Another recent popular writer speaks in eloquent terms of the estimation in which it is held, and the various uses to which it is applied.
"Its very aspect is imposing. Asserting its supremacy by an erect and lofty bearing, it may be said to compare with other trees, as man with inferior creatures. The blessings it confers are incalculable. Year after year the islander reposes beneath its shade, both eating and drinking of its fruit; he thatches his hut with its boughs, and weaves them into baskets to carry his food; he cools himself with a fan plaited from the young leaflets, and shields his head from the sun by a bonnet of the leaves; sometimes he clothes himself with the cloth-like substance which wraps round the base of the stalks, whose elastic rods, strung with filberts, are used as a taper. The larger nuts, thinned and polished, furnish him with a beautiful goblet; the smaller ones with bowls for his pipes; the dry husks kindle his fires; their fibres are twisted into fishing-lines and cords for his canoes. He heals his wounds with a balsam compounded from the juice of the nut; and with the oil extracted from its pulp embalms the bodies of the dead. The noble trunk itself is far from being valueless. Sawn into posts, it upholds the islander's dwelling; converted into charcoal, it cooks his food; and, supported on blocks of stones, rails in his lands. He impels his canoe through the water with a paddle of the wood, and goes to battle with clubs and spears of the same hard material. In Pagan Tahiti, a coco-nut branch was the symbol of regal authority. Laid upon the sacrifice in the temple, it made the offering sacred; and with it the priests chastised and put to flight the evil spirits which assailed them. The supreme majesty of Oro, the great god of their mythology, was declared in the coco-nut log from which his image was rudely carved. Upon one of the Tonga Islands there stands a living tree, revered itself as a deity. Even upon the Sandwich Islands the coco palm retains all its ancient reputation; the people there having thought of adopting it as the national emblem."
Besides the foregoing and following uses, I am aware of several scents and spirituous liquors being procured from the flowers and pulp of the coco-nut.
This palm tree is one of the finest objects in nature. Its stem is tall and slender, without a branch; and at the top are seen from ten to two hundred coco-nuts, each as large as a man's head: over these are the graceful plumes, with their green gloss, and beautiful fronds of the nodding leaves. Nothing can exceed the graceful majesty of these intertropical fruit trees, except the various useful purposes to which the tree, the leaf, and the nut are applied by the natives.
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.
Throughout the South Sea Islands, coco-nut palms abound, and oil may be obtained in various places. Some of the uninhabited islands are covered with dense groves, and the ungathered nuts, which have fallen year after year, lie upon the ground in incredible quantities. Two or three men, provided with the necessary apparatus for pressing out the oil, will, in the course of a week or two, obtain enough to load one of the large sea canoes. Coco nut oil is now manufactured in different parts of the South Seas, and forms no small part of the traffic carried on with trading vessels. A considerable quantity is annually exported from the Society Islands to Sydney. They bottle it up in large bamboos, six or eight feet long, and these form part of the circulating medium of Tahiti. The natives use the bruised fronds of Polypodium crassifolium to perfume this oil. Evodia triphylla, a favorite evergreen plant with the natives of the Polynesian Islands, is also used for this purpose.
The most favorable situation for the growth of the coco palm is the ground near the sea-coast, and if the roots reach the mud or salt water, they thrive all the better for it. The coco-nut walks are the real estates of India, as the vineyards and olive groves are of Europe. I have seen these palms growing well in inland situations, remote from the sea, but always on plains, never upon hills or very exposed situations, where they do not arrive to maturity, wanting shelter, and being shaken too violently by the wind. The stems being tall and slight, and the whole weight of leaves and fruit at the head, they may not unaptly be compared to the mast of a ship with round top and topmast without shrouds to support it. Ashes and fish are good manures for it.
The coco-nut is essentially a maritime plant, and is always one of the first to make its appearance on coral and other new islands in tropical seas, the nut being floated to them, and rather benefiting than otherwise by its immersion in the salt water. Silex and soda are the two principal salts which the coco-nut abstracts from the soil, and hence, where these do not exist in great abundance, the tree does not thrive well. I do not know myself what is the practice in Ceylon, but in Brazil, Dr. Gardner tells me, salt is very generally applied to the coco-nut when planted. Far in the interior, he states, he has seen as much as half a bushel applied to a single tree, and that too when it cost about 2s. a pound, from the great distance it had to be brought. That the application, therefore, of salt, of seaweed, and saline mud, does more than supply soda, must be very evident, if we only recollect how difficult it is to dry any part of our dress that has been soaked in salt water, and what effect damp weather has on table salt, which, in a balance, has often been made use of as an hydrometer. Moisture is always attracted by salt, and the more sea mud and other such little matters that coco-nut planters can apply round the roots of their trees, there will most assuredly be the less occasion for watering them in the dry season. Sea weed contains but very little fibrous matter, being chiefly composed of mucilage and water; and the experiments of Sir J. Pringle and Mr. C. W. Johnson, prove that salt in small quantities assists the decomposition of both animal and vegetable substances. Decomposed poonac, or oil-cake, is one of the best manures that can be applied, as it returns to the soil the component parts of which it has beau deprived to form the fruit.
The primary direction of the planter's industry will be to the establishment of a nursery of young plants. In Ceylon, for this purpose, the nuts are placed in squares of 400, covered with one inch of sand, or salt mud; are watered daily till the young shoots appear, and are planted out after the rains in September. Sand and salt mud are to be found on almost all the coasts where it would be desirable to plant nuts, and if they are put into the ground at the commencement of the rainy season, artificial watering will scarcely be necessary. Any period, when there are showers, would answer for transplanting them. I should say from the middle to the end of January would be best, when they are placed in the nursery in October and November; and in October when they are planted in June.
It is said that they should be allowed from 20 to 30 feet space apart, but I will calculate their return when planted 27 feet apart every way. This will give 58 coco-nut trees per acre. If manured, for the first two years, with seaweed and salt mud, and supplied with water in dry weather, there need be no loss, and the plants will thrive the better. The land must be kept clear of weeds till the plants are matured, in order to permit them abundance of air and light. In five years, when well cared for, the flower may be expected, but the plants will not be in full bearing before the seventh or eighth year. From 50 to 80 nuts are the annual crop of a tree; but I will calculate at the lowest rate. One hundred nuts will yield, when the oil is properly expressed, at least two gallons and a half. I shall not take into account the making of jaggery sugar and toddy, or spirit from the sap, as I do not consider that the manufacture would be remunerative; and it must be attended with much trouble, besides requiring a great deal of care and some skill.
Take the case now of a plantation of 100 acres in extent. This would give us 5,800 trees, which, at 50 nuts per tree, 290,000 nuts, at 2½ gallons of oil per hundred, would yield 7,250 gallons of oil, the value of which any person may calculate, but which, at the low rate of 3s. over charges, would furnish, as the gross plantation return in oil, a sum of £1,087 10s. sterling. If the cultivator, instead of making his produce into oil, were to sell it in its natural state, his gross return in the West Indies would be nearly £600 sterling, at the rate of ten dollars per thousand.
Either of these sums would be a handsome return from 100 acres of any land, requiring no cultivation or care whatever, after the fourth year, and yielding the same amount for upwards of half a century! But this is not all. An outlay of a few pounds will secure other advantages, and ought to enable the owner of a coco-nut plantation to turn his gross receipts for oil into nett profits. The coir made from the husk of the nut is calculated to realise nearly one-fourth of the proceeds of the oil, but if we put it down at one-fifth, we shall have, in addition to the value of the oil, £217 10s., thus making a total of £1,305 sterling. If we obtained 60 nuts from each tree, the return would be £1,566 sterling, and if 75, £1,957 8s. sterling; and this from 100 acres of sea side sand! But even this does not exhibit the whole return of this article of culture. Each nut may be calculated to give a quarter of a pound of poonac, or oil-cake, being the refuse after expression, fit for feeding all kinds of stock, which may be estimated as worth £10 per ton. We must, therefore, add on this account to our first calculation, the sum of say £325; to the second, £390; and to the third, £485. This would give, in round numbers, the entire returns of the 100 acres planted:—At 50 nuts per tree, £1,630; at 60 ditto, £1,957; at 75, ditto, £2,446.
These are striking results, and may appear exaggerated; but I will, to show how very moderate has been my calculation, give two returns, with which I have been favored from Ceylon. These, it will be seen, differ materially, but the latter I can rely on as a practical result, from a plantation in Jaffna, the peninsula of the northern portion of the island. After estimating the expense of establishing the plantation, the first writer sets down his return thus:—
"The produce, calculating 90 trees to an acre, and 75 nuts to a tree, sold at £2 per 1,000, would yield 675,000 nuts, worth £1,350; or if converted into oil, calculating 30 to give one gallon, it would produce 22,500 gallons, or about 90 tons from 100 acres."
From Jaffna, the following is an abridged estimate of return of 100 acres in full bearing:—"At 27 feet apart, 58 trees per acre, 5,800 trees, at 60 nuts per tree, 3,480 nuts per acre, 100 acres, 348,000 nuts, at 40 nuts per imperial gallon, 8,700 gallons of oil, at 2s. per gallon, netted £8 14s. per acre. The poonac left will pay the expense of making the oil. If shipped to England, at the present time (close of 1848), the selling price there being 55s. per cwt., measuring 12 imperial gallons, say, 4s. 7d. per gallon, and the cost and charges of sending it home and selling it being 23s., it would leave 3s. per gallon, or £13 per acre." This sum is nett proceeds.
It will be seen by the above, that I have been extremely moderate in my computation of the return which may be anticipated, for there is no doubt that planters can, in favorable localities, on the coasts of most of our colonies, cultivate this palm with as much success as attends its culture in Ceylon. By the first of the calculations I have cited from, that island, the gross return appears thus:—
| 22,500 gallons at 4s. 7d | £5,156 | 5 |
| Coir—one-fifth of value | 1,031 | 4 |
| Cake from 675,000 nuts, say ¼ lb. each, 75 tons at £10 | 750 | 0 |
| Total gross return from 100 acres | 6,937 | 9 |
According to the other calculation, the return will stand thus:—
| 8,700 gallons at 4s. 7d | £1,993 | 15 |
| Coir | 398 | 15 |
| Cake from 348,000 nuts, 34 tons | 340 | 0 |
| Total gross return from 100 acres | 2,732 | 10 |
It will be seen that in my calculation I have set down the return lower than it is rendered in the less favorable statement from Ceylon by a sum of upwards of £1,000 sterling. But even supposing one-half of the amount of the lower Ceylon estimate could be realised, we should have a return of £1,366 5s. sterling from 100 acres of sea side sand.
I now proceed to point out the very small outlay required to obtain these results. In places where the coco-nut would be grown, there is generally no heavy woodland requiring great labor with axe and fire, and consequently one able-bodied man should get through the felling and clearing away bush, on an acre of the land to be prepared for the plant, in a short period,—say, on an average, four days. I will calculate, that for wages and rations, each hand employed will cost sixteen dollars per month, an outside price. Let us then say that ten laborers shall be at work. They fell two acres and a half per diem. In one month there should be nearly 70 acres felled; but I will say that the 100 acres will occupy them two months in felling and stacking the wood. During this period our planter may be considered to have had the aid of two more hands, engaged in the preparation, planting out, and care of the nursery of young plants. Two more hands must also be occupied in the construction of tanks and sheds, except where there is a stream of fresh water. For grubbing up the roots, if not very large size, the assistance of about a dozen cattle would be required, a labor which would be performed by means of the common grubbing machine, an implement in the form of a claw. We will consider that all hands are occupied another month in this manner, and in removing and re-stacking the wood, and turning up the land. The planting out would require but little time and labor. At the end of three months then, one-half of the hands, besides those engaged in the nursery and tanks, might be discharged. We must make an allowance for provision for the fodder of the cattle. Six thousand nuts would be required.
Let us now see what are the planter's expenses; making ample allowance on account of each item:—
| dollars. | |
| 6,000 picked nuts at 10 dollars per 1,000 | 60 |
| Hire and rations of 12 hands, at 16 dollars for 3 months | 676 |
| Two hands at nursery, for same period | 96 |
| Purchase of 12 cattle at 20 dollars | 240 |
| Foddering cattle one month | 32 |
| Hire of two extra hands, making tanks and sheds 3 months | 96 |
| Hire of 6 hands for 9 months | 864 |
| Tools (including plough) | 100 |
| Total | 2,064 |
About £415 sterling for expenses for the first year.
Where fencing is required, we must add for making about three miles of fence, say £30 sterling. Two carts would also have to be provided, which will cost, say £20 more. In all we may compute the first year's expenditure at £460 sterling.
Second year's expenditure: ploughing land, or hoeing it twice, watering plants, manuring, repairing fences, and supplying plants, say hire of eight men for six months, about £150 sterling. The same for the third.
Fourth year's expenditure: hire of six hands for three months, cleaning land, and manuring plants, about £60 sterling, and the like, at the cultivator's option, for the fifth year.
| SUMMARY OF EXPENSES. | ||
| £ | ||
| First year | 460 | |
| Second year | 150 | |
| Third year | 150 | |
| Fourth year | 60 | |
| Fifth year | 60 | |
| Total expenditure | 880 | |
| Add for buildings | 80 | |
And we have a grand total of £960 sterling expended; for what purpose? To secure a net income of at least £1,200 sterling per annum for at least 50 years!
In the first year's expenses many items might be cut down, but I leave the calculation as one to be considered by a party with small capital, intending to establish a coco-nut plantation. I have allowed nothing for the cost of land, as it is impossible to compute that. In general it would cost next to the nothing mentioned. I have, by careful calculation, arrived at the conclusion that by combining the cultivation of provisions with the gradual but steadily progressive establishment of a coco-nut plantation, any man of energy and perseverance may, with the aid of but four hands, clear, fence, and plant, in a favorable locality, 50 acres of coco-nuts within the year, yet have a balance in his pocket at its close. Such a person would, ere doing anything beyond putting in his nursery plants, establish a provision ground, of considerable extent, for the purpose of supplying himself and his laborers with bread kind, and vegetables, and of enabling him, by the disposal of the surplus produce in the market, to raise a sufficient sum of money to furnish the wages and rations of the men. I need not enter into a calculation to show how this could be done, as every one must be aware of an easy method of following out so simple a suggestion. Of course he would have to bear in mind that the provision ground is of secondary importance, and limit his exertions in that line accordingly; devoting to the coco-nut plantation the strictest daily attention.
The cultivation of this tree deserves much more attention than has hitherto been paid to it, particularly in the East, where it not only forms part of the daily food of all classes of the community, but is an exportable article to neighbouring regions, the oil which it yields having of late years become in great demand in England, for the manufacture of composite candles and soap, and there is no doubt of its continually extended application to such purposes. Supposing, nevertheless, the result of an increased cultivation of the coco-nut should be such as to cause a fall in price, and sink the nett return in England to 2s. per gallon; this being clear profit, would make this kind of plantation a safe and sure investment for both capital and labor in the Colonies.
A kind of sugar made from the sap is called "jaggery," 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 progress has been made in this species of culture.
In 1832 several Europeans settled at Batticaloa, expressly for the purpose of cultivating this palm to a large extent. They planted cotton bushes between the young trees, which were found to ripen well, and nurse and shade them.
There are now an immense number of coco-nut topes, or walks, on the coasts of the island, and about 20,000 acres of land are under cultivation with this tree.
The value of this product to Ceylon, may be estimated by the following return of its exports in 1847, besides the local consumption:—
| £ | |
| Declared value of nuts | 5,485 |
| Ditto of Coir | 10,318 |
| Kernels, or Copperah | 6,503 |
| Shells | 210 |
| Oil | 19,142 |
| Arrack | 11,657 |
| Total | £53,315 |
The annually increasing consumption of the nuts holds out a great inducement to the native proprietors to reclaim all their hitherto unproductive land. The fruit commands a high price in the island, (ranging from ¾d. to 3d. per nut), owing to the constant demand for it as an article of food, by both Singhalese and Malabars; there is not so much, therefore, now converted into copperah for oil making. In the maritime provinces of the island, it has been estimated that the quantity of nuts used in each family, say of five persons, amounts to 100 nuts per month, or 1,000 per annum. It needs only a reduction in the cost of transit, to extend the consumption in the interior of the island to an almost unlimited extent.
In 1842, Ceylon exported but 550 nuts, while in 1847 she shipped off to other quarters three millions and a half of nuts, valued at £5,500. The average value of the nuts exported may be set down at £7,000.
In Cochin China the cultivation of the coco-nut tree is much attended to, and they export a large quantity of oil. At Malacca and Pinang it shares attention with the more profitable spices. Since the palm has been acclimatised in Bourbon, about 20,000 kilogrammes of oil have been produced annually. About 8,000 piculs of oil are exported annually from Java.
A correspondent, under date December, 1849, has furnished me with the following particulars of coco-nut planting in Jaffna, the northern district of Ceylon, in which the culture has only recently been carried on; the facts and figures are interesting:—