It

into hard cakes for supplying the caravans on their long journeys across the great deserts. is the dried fruit that we get in America.

The trunk of the tree yields sap which is made into palm wine; the seeds are roasted and used instead of coffee, and are ground for the sake of their oil. Houses are built of the palm wood, and thatched with its leaves;

COCOANUT PALM

rope
is made from the bark fibers,
bags and mats from its leaves;
and to make sure that no part
of the tree is wasted, walking
sticks, fans, baskets and all sorts
of wickerwork are made from its
leaf stalks.

The cocoanut is a close rival of the date palm, and by many people is thought to be more useful.

It is found on the seashore, where in hot climates it grows

more than ten times taller than It, too, wears a crown of plumy leaves which are so large that the plant can

a very tall man.

When

grow only five or six of them in a year. fresh, the leaves are cooked and eaten as cabbage, and when dried, are plaited together to form roofs and sides of houses. Brooms are made from them; so are fans, hats, combs, fences, fish-nets, sieves and torches.

But what about the cocoanuts themselves?

The flowers grow in clusters in a shield or spathe; they are small and white, but not very beautiful. From each of these clusters the fruit or nuts grow, in clusters too, of course, with from five to fifteen nuts in each. Each nut is inclosed in a green husk which turns hard and brown when it is dried.

A man can strip off a hundred husks a day, but he does not throw them away, for after they have been soaked in water for several weeks, their fibers become separated so that they can be twisted into rope and woven into mats. The shell of the nut is polished and turned to many When the nut is green, it is full of "cocoanut milk," one to two pints in each nut. Its thick white meat is eaten either fresh or cooked,

uses.

but it is the oil that is considered the most valuable product of the tree. It is obtained by grinding and pressing the nuts, and is used for cooking, lighting, soap making and in many other ways.

GUIDO AND THE WHEAT

GUIDO ran out at the garden gate into a sandy lane, and down the lane until he came to a grassy bank. He caught hold of the bunches of grass and so pulled himself up. There was a foot path on the top which went straight in between fir trees, and as he ran along they stood on each side of him like green walls. They were very near together, and even at the top the space between them was so narrow that the blue sky seemed to come down and the clouds to be sailing just over the fir trees as if they would catch and tear in them.

The path was so little used that it had grown green, and as he ran, he knocked dead branches out of the way. Just as he was getting tired of running, he reached the wheat field.

Guido stopped in the wheat field and looked all around. There were fir trees behind him a thick wall of green-hedges on the right and the left, and the wheat sloped down toward a hollow.

1

No one was in the field, only the fir trees, the green hedges, the yellow wheat and the sun overhead.

Guido kept quite still, because he expected that in a minute the magic would begin and something would speak to him. Gently he leaned back till his back rested on the sloping ground - he raised one knee and left the other foot over the verge where the tip of the tallest rushes touched it. Before he had been there a minute, he remembered the secret which a fern had taught him.

First, if he wanted to know anything, or to hear a story, or what the grass was saying, or the oak leaves singing, he must be careful not to interfere, for if you interfered with one thing it would tell another thing, and they would all know in a moment, and stop talking and never say a word.

Next, if Guido did not hear them talking, he must touch a piece of grass and put it against his cheek, or a leaf and kiss it, and say,

66

Leaf, leaf, tell them I am here."

Now while he was lying down and the tip of the rushes touched his foot, he remembered this, so he moved the rush with his foot and said,

"Rush, rush, tell them I am here."

Immediately there came a little wind, and the wheat swung to and fro, the oak leaves rustled, the rushes bowed and the shadows slipped forward and back again.

Then it was still, and the nearest wheat ear nodded his head and said in a very low tone,

"Look up in the oak very quietly; don't move, just open your eyes and look."

Guido looked and saw a lovely little bird climbing up a branch. It was checkered black and white like a small magpie, only without such a long tail, and it had a spot of red about its neck. It was a pied woodpecker.