TODDY

Sura , Mee-ra , sweet juice.—The proprietors of coco-nut plantations in the peninsula of India, and in the Island of Ceylon, instead of collecting a crop of nuts, frequently reap the produce of the trees by extracting sweet juice from the flower-stalk. When the flowering branch is half shot, the toddy-drawers bind the stock round with a young coco-nut leaf in several places, and beat the spadix with a short baton of ebony. This beating is repeated daily for ten or twelve days, and about the end of that period a portion of the flower-stalk is cut off. The stump then begins to bleed, and an earthen ve el (chatty) or a calabash is suspended under it, to receive the juice, which is by the Europe ans called toddy . A thin slice is taken from the stump daily, and the toddy is removed twice a day. A coco-nut frequently pushes out a new spadix once a month; and after each spadix begins to bleed, it continues to produce freely for a month, by which time another is ready to supply its place. The old spadix continues to give a little juice for another month, after which it withers; so that there are sometimes two pots attached to a tree at one time, but never more. Each of these spadices, if allowed to grow, would produce a bunch of nuts from two to twenty. Trees in a good soil produce twelve bunches in the year; but when le favourably situated, they often do not give more than six bunches. The quantity of six English pints of toddy is sometimes yielded by a tree daily. Toddy is much in demand as a beverage in the neighbourhood of villages, especially where European troops are stationed. When it is drunk before sunrise, it is a cool, delicious, and particularly wholesome beverage; but by eight or nine o’clock fermentation has made some progre , and it is then highly intoxicating. [68] [68] Contributions to the History of the Coco-nut Tree. By Henry Marshall, Esq., Deputy Inspector of Hospitals.