A Cocoanut Palm Grove

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 16, 18 April 1907, Page 30

A Cocoanut Palm Grove

When a traveller gets his first sight of a palm, - grove he does not easily forget it. He sees the trees/ springing up, as it ,we:e, from the- water in _ which their shadows are reflected. Besides being, beautiful or- - naments, to .& landscape these palms are among the most- useful-., gifts which. Nature has given to the mr 'haMltants of tropical islands. In supplying actual necessities and in the number of useful purposes "to which, it pan be applied, bamboo takes first ran*, but the palm comes next. In Ceylon,, where the bamboo is' not utilised to tfoa extent that it is in Japan, "the palm has the pre-eminent position.. To many of the people of th-is island the cocoanut trees aie everything and their very lives depend upon, them.- The tree supplies meet of their- wants, besides, giving , them valuable commercial products. In this island there are -estimated to be nearly twenty millions of palm trees, and the poorer classes a- -man's wealth is estimated" by the number cif trees he ewns. They form the most im».portant asset of his estate, and by will' are generally divided among his family;. As one of the important "traits of the Cingalese is his love of litigation, one" can readily see what an important part the plam tree plays in the Taw cases there. There is a case on record in which the 2,5201h part o>f a grove, containing only ten trees, was the subject of dispute. One of the greatest difficulties which the engineers had to encounter in building a railroad across the island was to .determine the ownership of the palm trees. The ramifications of relationships and the fractional claims set up were most difficult jki understand- and 'disentangle. -