Speaking of a tropical fruit, I am reminded that the greatest nut of all, though certainly not an American native, is nevertheless now grown on American soil. Some years ago a grove of lofty cocoanut palms in Yucatan fascinated me, and the opportunity to drink the clear and refreshing milk (not milky at all, and utterly different from the familiar contents of the ripened nut of commerce) was gladly taken. Now the bearing trees are within the bounds of the United States proper, and the grand trees in Southern Florida give plenty of fruit. The African citizens of that neighborhood are well aware of the refreshing character of the "juice" of the green cocoanut, and a friend who sees things for me with a camera tells with glee how a "darky" at Palm Beach left him in his wheel-chair to run with simian feet up a sloping trunk, there to pull, break open, and absorb the contents of a nut, quite as a matter of course. I have myself seen the Africans of the Bahamas in the West Indies climbing the glorious cocoa palms of the coral keys, throwing down the mature nuts, and then, with strong teeth, stripping the tough outer covering to get at the refreshing interior.
All these nut trees are only members of the great family of trees given by God for man's good, I firmly believe; for man first comes into Biblical view in a garden of trees, and the city and the plain are but penances for sin!
In preceding chapters of this series I have treated of trees in a relationship of family, or according to some noted similarity. There are, however, some trees of my acquaintance of which the family connections are remote or unimportant, and there are some other trees of individual merit with the families of which I am not sufficiently well acquainted to speak familiarly as a whole. Yet many of these trees, looked at by themselves, are as beautiful, interesting, and altogether worthy as any of which I have written, and they are also among the familiar trees of America. Therefore I present a few of them apart from the class treatment.
One day in very early spring--or was it very late in winter?--I walked along the old canal road, looking for some evidence in tree growth that spring was really at hand. Buds were swelling, and here and there a brave robin could be heard telling about it in song to his mate (I think that settled the season as earliest spring!); but beyond the bud evidences the trees seemed to be silent on the subject. Various herbs showed lusty beginnings, and the skunk-cabbage, of course, had pushed up its tropical richness in defiance of any late frost, pointing the way to its peculiar red-purple flowers, long since fertilized and turning toward maturity.