This section is from the book "The American Garden Vol. XI", by L. H. Bailey. Also available from Amazon: American Horticultural Society A to Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants.
It may not be generally known to the reader of The American Garden that the cocoanut is growing and bearing abundantly in the United States. It is true that the area of its successful culture is very small, as it comprises only a small strip along the coast of Florida, beginning near Jupiter Inlet on the east, and running continuously around the coast, including the adjacent islands or keys, to an unknown point on the west coast between Key West and Charlotte Harbor. The experiments are yet too few and insufficiently made to definitely determine just how far north the cocoanut may be grown on the Gulf side of the Florida peninsula, but on the east coast I think this matter has been fully determined. Near Jupiter Light-house is a tree that has been bearing for a number of years, which was not damaged by the great freeze of 1886. North of there the trees are quite young, but from personal observations made last winter, I conclude that it is not at all likely that the cocoanut trees will ever be brought to a fruiting period much north of Eden, which is situated on the Indian River about 40 miles north of Jupiter Inlet.
If the reader will take the pains to examine a good map of Florida, he will notice that the eastern coast runs nearly parallel with the Gulf Stream about as far north as a point opposite the southern end of Lake Okeechobee; from this point the coast changes from a north-easterly to a north-westerly direction and recedes from the Gulf Stream. The warm waters of this great current have a material influence on the climate of the shores which it washes, as we well know, hence the tropical character of the coast lying south of Jupiter Inlet. Not only does the cocoanut succeed there, but many other tropical growths that are sensitive to the very slightest frosts are found growing there luxuriantly, and even north of there. Lake Worth is really a narrow sound about thirty miles long, averaging less than a mile in width. It is subject to slight tidal changes, as it is connected by an inlet with the ocean. The strip of land lying between the lake and the ocean is a most lovely place for residences, and some wealthy people have availed themselves of the location for their winter homes. Tomatoes, beans and other vegetables are grown for northern shipment in winter.
There are large cocoanut trees now thirty years old on this strip, about 40 feet high, which have been bearing since they were five or six years old. They have never been damaged by cold, although there have been several slight frosts there since they were planted. There are fully 50,000 cocoanut trees, old and young, now growing on the shores of this little body of water, many of them having begun to bear in the fifth year from planting the nut; and in nearly all cases they have shown signs of fruiting by the seventh year. Sometimes the nuts hang within two feet of the ground, as I have had abundant opportunity to observe. There can be nothing more picturesque and graceful than the soft, yellowish-green leaves of the cocoanut groves as they wave in the wind, which blows almost constantly along these shores. Many of the leaves are from 10 to 20 feet long, and as perfect in every particular as an ostrich plume. There is no special season for the fruiting of the cocoanut as the same tree has flowers and ripe fruit continuously. As the crown keeps growing, the flower shoots keep coming, and beneath them hang great clusters of fruit in all stages of growth, and fully ripened nuts; and almost any day nuts freshly dropped may be found upon the ground.
It is supposed that a tree in full bearing will produce an average of one nut a day, but I think this is a little more than they actually bear at Lake Worth, although I have counted more than 300 nuts on one tree. A cluster was sent to my office from Palm Beach (which is a beautiful little place on this strip of land), that had 31 nuts nearly full-grown, besides a few that had become detached in transit. I should think the cluster weighed more than 150 pounds, and at maturity, I suppose it would have weighed more than 200 pounds.
The nut as it appears in market is stripped of its outer husk or covering of bast, which is about two inches thick, making the nut as it falls from the tree, about ten inches long and eight inches in diameter, and about the shape of a grain of buckwheat.
It may be that from a commercial point of view, the culture of the cocoanut may not prove a success in the United States, as growers will have to compete with the products of the tropics where the cocoanut grows almost without care, and of course it is produced very cheaply, but as a of matter of interest and beauty, it is already a delightful success.
It will repay any one who has the time and means at command, to take a trip along the east coast of Florida to Titusville by rail, thence on one of the comfortable Indian River steamboats to Jupiter, and a short eight-mile trip by rail from there will land him on the picturesque and tropical shores of Lake Worth. I do not think a more interesting trip for the botanist, the fisherman, or the lover of beautiful scenery of the Egyptian type, can be found in North America.
H. E. VanDieman.
U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.
SEEDS AND SEED GROWING.
Fifth Paper.
 
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