Then Come Sugarcane
And Padi, And Then Palm Plantations Again.
The cocoa-nut palm grows best near salt water, no matter how loose and
sandy the soil is, and in these congenial circumstances needs neither
manure nor care of any kind.
It bends lovingly toward the sea, and
drops its ripe fruit into it. But if it is planted more than two
hundred yards from the beach, it needs either rich or well-manured
soil, or the proximity of human habitations. It begins to bear fruit
between its fourth and tenth years, according to soil, and a
well-placed, generous tree bears from one hundred and forty to one
hundred and fifty nuts a year. They are of wonderfully slow growth. It
is three months from the time the blossom appears before the fruit
sets, then it takes six months to grow, and three months more to ripen,
and after that will hang two months on the tree before it
falls - fourteen months from the first appearance of the flower!
It is certainly not beautiful as grown in Province Wellesley, and I am
becoming faithless to my allegiance to it in this region of areca and
other more graceful palms.
In returning we saw many Malay kampongs under the palms, each with a
fire lighted underneath it, and there were many other fires for the
water-buffaloes, with groups of these uncouth brutes gathered
invariably on the leeward side, glad to be smoked rather than bitten by
the mosquitoes. These huge, thin-skinned animals have a strange
antipathy to white people.
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