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.