Cocoanut
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Cocoanut. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the well known nut of a palm tree. The natural home of the cocoanut palm is on the shores of the low tropical islands of the Pacific. It is an important tree in Ceylon, Sumatra, Java, the Philippines, and Hawaii. The trunk of the tree is a foot or two in diameter. It rises straight and trim, carrying a crown or tuft of leaves at a height of seventy-five to one hundred feet. The leaves wave gracefully like plumes. Many are from ten to twenty feet in length and are used by the natives to thatch their huts. The nuts hang at the bases of the leaves in clusters of ten or fifteen. Several clusters may be expected to ripen during the year. A Jamaica tree yields 100 nuts a year. Cocoanut trees follow the coast in a fringe, and plant themselves naturally. Nuts fall from overhanging trees into the sea and are carried like boats along the coast and cast up to take root anywhere. A tree matures in seven or eight years and bears during the lifetime of a person. Cocoanuts are pretty well known all over the world. The fresh milk is a fit article of food. Dried cocoanut meat or copra, is an article of commerce from which seventy per cent of its own weight of cocoanut oil is extracted. Thirty ordinary nuts will yield a gallon of oil. It is used extensively to make stearine candles and soap. Like that of other palms, the sap of the cocoanut tree yields a sweet wine called toddy by the Hindus. On undergoing fermentation and distillation, sweet toddy yields arrack, as the Arabians call it, the alcoholic liquor of the tropics. The cocoanut tree is put to many uses by the natives. The husk of the nut is surrounded by a fiber called coir, from which paper, twine, ropes, matting, doormats, mattresses, brooms, and brushes are made. The shell is used for ladles and cups. When burnt, it produces an excellent lampblack. Cocoanut charcoal is excellent as a powder for the teeth. The young leaves of the trees are eaten like cabbage. Cloth, hats, bonnets, fans, baskets, bedding, thatch, and fish nets are made of the leaves. The trunk is used for canoes, posts, rafters, and fences. The ribs of the leaves are used for paddles, spears, arrows, and torches. In fact, the uses to which the cocoanut palm may be put rival those of the bamboo in variety and number. Cocoanuts ripen and fall the year around. Average cocoanuts are worth about twenty dollars a thousand in New York , London, and other prominent seaports. American imports of cocoanuts and cocoanut products for the year 1908 were $2,000,000. See Cocoa
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a woody fruit of an oval shape, from 3 or 4 to 6 or 8 inches in length, covered with a fibrous husk, and lined internally with a white ite , firm, and fleshy kernel. The tree (Cocos nucifera) which produces the cocoanut is a palm , from 40 to 60 feet high . The nuts hang from the summit of the tree in clusters of a dozen or more together. The external rind of the nuts has a smooth surface. This incloses an extremely fibrous substance, which immediately surrounds the nut. The latter has a thick and hard shell, with three black scars at one end, through one of which the embryo of the future tree pushes its way. The kernel incloses a considerable quantity of sweet and watery liquid. This palm is a native of Africa, the East and West Indies, and South America, and is now grown almost everywhere in tropical countries. The kernels are used as food and yield a valuable oil. When dried before the oil is expressed they are known as copra . The fibrous coat of the nut is made into the wellknown cocoanut matting; the coarse yarn obtained from it is called coir, which is also used for cordage. The hard shell of the nut furnishes cups and utensils. The fronds are wrought into baskets, mats, sacks ; the trunks are made into boats or furnish timber for houses. By boring the tree a white sweetish liquor called toddy exudes from distillation one the wound, and yields by dis of the varieties of the spirit called arack. A kind of sugar called jaggery is also obtained from the juice by inspissation. (Batocera COCOANUT BEETLE rubus), a large longicorn beetle, the larvæ of which are very destructive in cocoanut plantations . They are destitute of feet, large and pulpy, and of repulsive aspect; but are esteemed a luxury by the coolies of the East. COCO DE MER (also called Sea or Maldive Double Cocoanut ), the fruit of the Lodoïcea Seychellarum palm. Its double kernel has long had an extraordinary value in the East as a poison antidote. The tree on which it grows is peculiar to some of the Seychelles Islands, reaches a height of 100 feet, and has very large fern-like leaves .