Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/361

313 may be eaten with a spoon; when ripe, it becomes a most valuable article of traffic, as it contains a large amount of oil which is expressed in mills and sold for use in cookery, for lamp-oil, for anointing the head and body, and for many other purposes. The kernel is also used in the formation of sweetmeats and of the universally-eaten curry. The hard shell of the nut, when cut and polished, answers for ladle, cup, or spoon; and, when not thus used, for fuel, as it contains a good proportion of oil. The sap gives toddy and arrack, (intoxicating drinks,) or, if boiled down before fermenting, sugar.

Many as are the uses of this invaluable tree already enumerated, they are not all. Indeed, to take away from Southern India and Ceylon its cocoanut-trees, would inflict upon multitudes a most severe calamity; hence, their owners guard them most carefully, and on no account destroy them until they grow old and of little value except for timber. They are rented out at so much a tree, and sometimes a single tree will be the property of two or more persons. Commonly, the cocoanut-palm is planted in topes or groves, covering a large surface of ground, and arranged in parallel lines, so as to Rh