Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/386

372 The dwarf palm of Algeria and southern Spain (Chamærops humilis) is not a profitable sort, but is rather a detriment to the Algerian plains. When it gets possession of a spot, it is very hard to exterminate, and the place becomes little to be preferred to the desert. The palm lands have, however, been cleared to a considerable extent since the French occupation of Algeria. The leaves are used in making brooms, baskets, and minor articles, for paper pulp, cords, and "vegetable hair."

The tender, plump buds of many species of Indian and American palms supply a choice food which is called "palm cabbage." The young tissue, which is very like salad-heart, is eaten raw or cooked and seasoned in different ways, or pickled. The leaves that are large enough are used on the roofs of houses or in the manufacture of a diversity of articles. Hindu characters are sometimes traced with a bodkin on strips of the leaves of the fan palm (Corypha) of the Indian islands, and these are folded like letters and sent in the mail. The flexibility of the leaves adapts them to many purposes of art. From the young leaves of the coco (Lodoicea seychellarum), whose enormous and strange-looking fruit is an object of curious interest, the natives of the Seychelles Islands make some handsome basket-work. The extremely light and durable hats called Panama are made from the leaves of species of this family. The pellicle of the leaves of the Baphia, or sago palm of Madagascar, from which the natives of that island make fine cloths, is used for ties in gardening and in the manufacture of artificial flowers, and is good for many other purposes.

Bridges over torrents and small rivers are made of the solid trunks of palm-trees. When the wood is fine and close, it is split into pieces that are turned and polished. Highly esteemed umbrella-handles—called laurel handles—are made from several kinds. If the central part of the stem is filled with tender pith, not too much stringy and tough, it is collected as sago; of which the sago palm of Madagascar and the corresponding regions of Africa affords the most highly prized quality.

Stems of small diameter are equally desirable. The jungles in the East Indian Archipelago—Java, Sumatra, and the peninsula of Malacca—abound in climbing palms or palm vines, the stems of which wind among the limbs of the trees to the top. Some have been measured that were a hundred yards long before they became interlocked with the network of the forest. They are the rattans (Fig. 4) which are so handy where a cane or any kind of flexible stick is wanted. Chairs are caned with the outer part of the rattan, and from the rest of the stem children's chairs, baskets, and many useful articles—including even dish-cloths—are made. The author of this essay has had considerable success in making such ornamental articles as earrings, scarf-pins, etc., out of the