Part 29

=Cacao= (_Theobroma cacao_), a small tree, native to Mexico, Central America and the north of South America, is cultivated also in Brazil, Guiana, Trinidad and Grenada. It has large, oblong, pointed, entire leaves and clusters of flowers with rose-colored calyx and yellowish petals. The fruit is yellow, from six to ten inches long, and from three to five broad, oblong, blunt, with ten longitudinal ridges externally, and five chambers, containing ten or twenty seeds each, internally. The thick, tough rind is almost woody. The seeds are dried, roasted, bruised, and winnowed, so as to remove their testa from the cocoa-nibs or cotyledons. These contain more than fifty per cent of fat or cocoa-butter, part of which is generally removed in the process of “preparing” cocoa. It is used in making chocolate “creams.” Cocoa is also a valuable article of food; contains a gently stimulating alkaloid, theobromine, a fragrant essential oil and a red coloring matter. Sugar and vanilla or other flavoring are added in the preparation of chocolate.

=Cherry= (_Prunus avium_), is a stately tree of from twenty-five to forty-five feet in height. It has a pyramidal crown; its smooth bark splits crosswise; its leaves are elliptical, and covered with down on their lower sides; its blossoms are snowy white and its fruits sweet and of different colors. The latter furnish an agreeable nourishment, whether consumed raw, boiled, or preserved. Cherry-brandy is also made from them. The Cherry is cultivated in temperate regions of Europe, Asia, and the United States, and included among the fifteen leading fruits of the world. Ranks about eighth among fruits of the United States. Pennsylvania and California lead in production.

It was grown before the Christian Era in western Asia and southern Europe, and is mentioned in Vergil’s _Georgics_.

=Cinnamon= (_Cinnamomum zeylanicum_), is largely grown in Ceylon. The bark is stripped off two-year-old shoots in May and November and dried in the sun, undergoing a slight fermentation. It rolls up into quills, the thinnest being the best. Cinnamon contains a fragrant essential oil and has long been valued as a spice. It has also some medicinal value as a cordial and stomachic. It is also cultivated for bark in Brazil, West Indies, Egypt, and Java, but cultivation is now declining in favor of coffee.

=Clove= (_Eugenia caryophyllata_), a small evergreen spice tree, native of the Moluccas. The fruits are imported as mother cloves, and the stalks are used to adulterate the spice when ground. The whole plant is aromatic from the presence of the essential oil of cloves, which occurs to the extent of sixteen to eighteen per cent in the flower-buds. The dried flower buds are the cloves of commerce. Cultivated on many tropical islands and coasts, chiefly in the Moluccas, Sumatra, Java, Mauritius, Zanzibar, Jamaica, and French Guiana. The oil of cloves is widely used in flavoring and perfumery and also in medicine.

=Cocoa-nut= (_Cocos nucifera_), a small genus of palms. The cocoa-nut palm is apparently a native of the Indian Archipelago, but has been dispersed throughout the tropics from early times, flourishing especially near the sea. It has a cylindric stem reaching two feet in diameter, and from sixty to one hundred feet in height; a crown of pinnate leaves, each eighteen to twenty feet long, with a sheathing and fibrous base, succeeded by bunches of from ten to twenty fruits. These are about a foot long, six or eight inches across, three-sided, with a stony shell and one seed filling its cavity. The seed contains a fleshy kernel and a milky liquid. No tree of the tropics has so many uses, every part of it being employed, and in southern India furnishing several of the chief necessaries of life. The wood of the outer part of the stem is used, under the name of Porcupine wood, for inlaying; the leaves for thatch, mats, hats, etc.; the fibrous part under the name of coir, for cordage, etc.; the shell for bottles, cups, spoons, and when properly burned, for excellent charcoal and lamp-black. The solid white kernel contains thirty-six per cent of oil known as copra oil, from which, by pressure, the solid stearine used for candles is separated from the liquid lamp-oil. The “milk,” when fresh, is an agreeable drink; and from the sap sugar is obtained, and, by fermentation, toddy, from which vinegar and by distillation, arrack are prepared. It is extensively cultivated on the coasts of India, the East and West India Islands, and Brazil, and recently in Florida.

=Coffee Tree= (_Coffea Arabica_), originally a native of Africa attains a height of twenty-five to thirty feet. It is generally, however, kept at a much inferior height, in order to facilitate the collection of the fruit. Its leaves are evergreen; its blossoms white and fragrant. The fruit is a red berry about the size of a cherry, which contains two kernels, lying closely side by side: the coffee beans. These coffee beans are used everywhere for the preparation of that coffee which has become an indispensable beverage for many millions of people. Commercially it is of great importance, being largely grown in Brazil, Mexico, Central America, West Indies, Arabia, Java, Sumatra, Ceylon, India, and Hawaii. Brazil leads with a production of over one-half of the world’s crop. In the United States the consumption greatly exceeds that of tea.

Beginning of its cultivation is uncertain, but not ancient. It was introduced for cultivation in South America by the Dutch in 1718.

=Date or Date-Palm= (_Phœnix dactylifera_), a tree sixty to eighty feet high, with large pinnate leaves, cultivated in immense quantities in north Africa, western Asia and southern Europe. The stem is covered with leaf scars, and the flowers each have three sepals and three petals. The wood of the stem is used in building; huts are built of its leaves; the petioles are made into baskets and the fibre surrounding their bases into ropes and coarse cloth; the young leaf-bud or “cabbage” is sometimes eaten as a vegetable, or, if tapped, it yields a sugary sap which may be fermented; and even the seeds are ground into meal for camels. In central Arabia and some parts of north Africa the fruit forms the staple food of the inhabitants, camels, horses, and dogs. It is the chief source of wealth in Arabia. It was very anciently cultivated in Egypt and Babylonia and is the _palm_ of the Bible.

=SCENES IN THE PRODUCTION OF THE COFFEE BERRY=

=Fig= (_Ficus Carica_). The common fig is a native of the East. It is a low deciduous tree or shrub (fifteen to twenty-five feet), with large, deeply-lobed leaves, which are rough above and downy beneath. The branches are clothed with short hairs, and the bark is greenish. The fruit is produced singly in the axils of the leaves, is pear-shaped, and has a very short stalk; the color in some varieties is bluish-black; in others, red, purple, yellow, green or white. The fig is extensively cultivated in subtropical countries, particularly in Spain, Italy, and southern France, in Europe, and in southwestern Asia. It is also grown in the Gulf States and in California. All dried figs in the United States are produced in California. Commercial figs come largely from Asiatic Turkey, though Smyrna figs are now established in California.

=Grape-fruit or Shaddock= (_Citrus decumanus_), a tree, which, like the other species of the same genus, is a native of the East Indies, and has long been cultivated in the south of Europe. It is readily distinguished by its large leaves and broad-winged leaf-stalk; it has very large white flowers, and the fruit is also very large, sometimes weighing ten or even fourteen pounds, roundish, pale yellow; the rind thick, white, and spongy within, bitter; the pulp greenish and watery, subacid and subaromatic. It is a pleasant, cooling fruit, and much used for preserves. Finer and smaller than the shaddock proper is the Pomelo (also called Pummelo, and grape-fruit) a variety rather larger than an orange which bears its fruit in clusters. It was anciently cultivated and much prized fruit in India, China, East Indies and Pacific Islands. Now successfully established in Florida and California, and rapidly becoming popular table fruit in the United States.

=Lemon= (_Citrus Limonum_), a small tree or shrub closely related to the orange, apparently truly indigenous in the north of India, carried to Palestine and Egypt by the Arabs, and to Italy by the Crusaders, and now naturalized in the West Indies and elsewhere. The fruit is oval, and ends in a nipple-like point; the rind is thin, smooth, and not readily separable; and the juice is acid. There are numerous varieties, including the citron, bergamot, lime, and sweet lime. Cultivation in the United States is limited mostly to Southern California.

=Lime= (_Citrus acida_), is a variety of orange with small flowers, and small, very acid, fruit, varying in form but ending, like the lemon, in a nipple-like boss. It is said to have been anciently cultivated in India, from whence it has been widely diffused in tropical countries. It is widely imported in temperate regions, but sparingly used, being much less popular than the lemon. Now successfully grown in Florida, which produces a small crop.

=Mango= (_Mangifera indica_), a small tree indigenous to tropical Asia, but now cultivated throughout the tropics. It has scattered, entire leaves and small pink or yellow flowers. Though its glossy leaves make it valuable for shade, it is chiefly valued for its fruit, which varies considerably in size and flavor. In an unripe state it is used in pickles; but in India is largely eaten when ripe as a dessert fruit. The seeds, bark and resin have some medicinal value, apparently as astringents, and the wood, though soft, is used as timber.

=Maté or Paraguay Tea= (_Ilex paraguayensis_), a species of holly growing in Paraguay and south Brazil, which furnishes the chief non-alcoholic drink of South America. Though used immemorially by the Indians, the tree was first cultivated by the Jesuits. The dried leaves are packed in scrons or raw hides containing about two hundred pounds each. The infusion is prepared in a calabash or maté, usually silver-mounted, boiling water and sugar, with milk or lemon-juice, being added to the leaves (yerba), and the beverage taken very hot through a metal or reed tube or bombilla with a strainer at one end. Maté contains 1.85 per cent of caffein, acting as a restorative, much as tea does; but, being bitter, the taste for it has to be acquired.

=Mulberry= (_Morus_), allied to the nettle, hemp, and elm families. The BLACK MULBERRY, mainly cultivated for its fruit, is perhaps a native of Armenia, but was early introduced into Greece, where its leaves are still used for feeding silkworms. The Asiatic species, or the WHITE MULBERRY, of which there are numerous varieties, mostly with white fruit, is that mainly cultivated in Japan, China, India and Italy for the silkworm. The fibrous inner bark of the PAPER MULBERRY is made into paper by the Chinese and Japanese, and into tapa cloth in the South Sea Islands. The so-called fruit is formed from a whole cluster of flowers which become fleshy, turn color and sweeten while they enlarge until they meet those of the other flowers, enclosing the true fruits, small dry capsules. Extensively grown for market near large cities in Europe and the United States.

=Nutmeg= (_Myristica fragrans_), an evergreen tree native to the East Indies, and now in cultivation in the East and West Indies and Brazil. The fruit is pear-shaped and about two inches across. The seed has a thin, hard shell enclosing the nutmeg, which is mottled in appearance. The largest and roundest nutmegs are the best, and though generally about one hundred and ten to the pound, they may be as few as sixty-eight. Nutmegs contain about twenty-five per cent of nutmeg butter or oil of mace, a vegetable fat now considerably employed in soap-making.

=Olive= (_Olea europæa_), a very valuable small tree, seldom more than thirty feet high, of slow growth, but sometimes exceeding twenty feet in girth and seven centuries in age. The wild olive has squarish, spinous branches; opposite evergreen, leathery, shortly-stalked leaves, hoary on their under surface, and small white flowers. The cultivated olive (var. _sativa_) differs in its rounder branches which have no spines, longer leaves and larger fruit. For pickling, the fruits are gathered unripe, soaked in an alkaline lye, and then bottled in brine. For oil, the ripe fruit, which usually yields sixty to seventy per cent, is squeezed, yielding virgin oil, and the marc or cake is wetted and re-pressed, and the kernels crushed and boiled to yield a second and third quality. The tree grows best on light or calcareous soils near the sea, and the value attached to its oil as an article of food in countries where butter can with difficulty be preserved made the tree from early times the symbol of peace and good-will. It is extensively cultivated in Mediterranean Europe, Syria, South Africa, Australia and California.

=Orange= (_Citrus Aurantium_), small evergreen trees, probably a native of southern China and Burma, but grows wild and spinous in Indian jungles. The scattered glossy leaves are remarkable for their double articulation, having one joint at each end of the winged leaf-stalk. The fragrant white or pinkish flowers have five sepals, five petals, and branched stamens. The fruit has a leathery rind, containing large spindle-shaped cells filled with watery juice. As the fruit takes some months to ripen, it occurs on the tree at the same time as the next year’s blossoms. There are two chief varieties or sub-species, the sweet or China orange, and the bitter, bigarade or Seville orange, but the Mandarin and Tangerine oranges are sometimes ranked as a distinct species. The principal orange-growing sections of the United States are Florida, Louisiana and California.

The MANDARIN ORANGE or CLOVE ORANGE has fruit much broader than long, with a rind very loosely attached to the flesh, and small leaves; the TANGERINE ORANGE is apparently derived from the mandarin. It is grown in Florida. The JAFFA ORANGE has now a great reputation. The MAJORCA ORANGE is seedless. The KUM-QUAT from China and Japan, is little bigger than a gooseberry, and grows well in Australia. The NAVEL ORANGE, nearly seedless, is a favorite variety with California growers.

Orange trees are often extremely fruitful, so that a tree twenty feet high and occupying a space of little more than twelve feet in diameter sometimes yields from three thousand to four thousand oranges in a year. One tree in Florida has often borne ten thousand oranges in a single season. The orange tree attains an age of at least one hundred to one hundred and fifty years. Young trees are less productive than old ones, and the fruit is also less juicy, has a thicker rind, and more numerous seeds.

=Palms= were called by Linnæus “the princess of the vegetable kingdom,” and comprising over one thousand species, chiefly natives of the tropics. They have mostly cylindric, unbranched stems, bearing a tuft of large, often gigantic, leathery leaves at the top, the leaves being torn into segments. The leaves are sometimes spattered, and in most cases have a fibrous sheathing base to the leaf-stalk. The terminal leaf-bud is the “cabbage” which, in some species, is eaten. The fruit varies very much, with a hard seed, as in the date; drupaceous, as in the cocoa-nut; or covered with woody reflexed scales, as in the sago palm. The use of palms are innumerable. Beams, veneers, canes, thatch, fibre for cordage and matting, fans, hats, bowls, spoons, sago, sugar, wine, spirits, food, oil and wax are only some among the number. See also DATE, BETEL-NUT, COCOA-NUT.

=Peach= (_Amygdalus persica_), probably a native of China. The nectarine is merely a smooth-fruited variety, differing, however, in flavor. The stone in both is coarsely furrowed. The flowers which appear before the leaves, are of a delicate pink. The fruit in the peach has a separable wooly skin. Though deliciously flavored and refreshing, since it contains eighty-five per cent of water and eight per cent of pectose and gum, it does not contain much nutriment. Peaches grow extensively in Europe and Asia and second only to the apple as an orchard fruit in the United States. California, Michigan, Georgia and Texas lead in production.

=Pear= (_Pyrus communis_), is a tree belonging to the same genus as the apple. It grows from thirty to seventy feet high, with a pyramidal outline; branches spinous in the wild state; leaves scattered and somewhat leathery; flowers in clusters; fruit with a fleshily-enlarged stalk, core near the apex and parchment-like, and black seeds. Gritty particles, due to groups of wood-cells, occur in the flesh. They are widely cultivated in temperate regions, but chiefly in France and the United States. Ranks fourth among American orchard fruits, being preceded by the apple, peach and plum. Chiefly grown in California, New York and Michigan.

=Pecan= (_C. illinoensis_), is a large, slender tree reaching a maximum height of one hundred and seventy feet and a diameter of six feet. It grows in moist soil, especially along streams, from Indiana to Iowa and Missouri, south to Kentucky and Texas. It is cultivated in the Southern States for its sweet, edible nut, which forms an important article of commerce.

=Persimmon=, the Virginian date-plum (_Dios pyros virginiana_), a moderately-sized tree of the United States, belonging to the ebony tribe, the round orange fruit of which, though austere, becomes edible when affected by frost. They are fermented into a beer and distilled for spirit in the Southern States. The bark has medicinal properties.

=Plum= (_Prunus domestica_), a small fruit-tree, native to Asia Minor and the Caucasus, and naturalized in most temperate parts of the world. The Damson or Damascus variety was grown by the Romans from very early times. Large quantities of many varieties, both home and foreign are grown, which are eaten raw, in tarts, and in preserves, or, when dried as _prunes_. Extensive cultivation is carried on throughout temperate regions. Third most important orchard fruit in the United States, exceeding eight million bushels, California growing two-thirds. All prunes produced in the United States grown in the Pacific States; first prune orchard planted at San Jose, California, in 1870.

=Pomegranate= (_Punica Granatum_), long valued in hot countries for the refreshing pulp of its fruit. It is a tree, fifteen to twenty-five feet in height, native to West Asia and North Africa. It has opposite, simple, entire leaves, and the flower has five scarlet or white petals. The fruit has a tough, leathery gold-colored, but partly reddened, exterior and numerous seeds each surrounded by a reddish pulp. This varies in flavor in the numerous cultivated varieties. The rind is rich in tannin, and is employed in tanning Morocco leather.

=Walnut= (_Juglans regia_), or COMMON WALNUT is a native of Persia and the Himalayas, but has long been cultivated in all parts of the south of Europe. It is a tree of sixty to ninety feet, with large spreading branches. The leaves have two to four pairs of leaflets, and a terminal one. The ripe fruit is one of the best of nuts. It yields a bland fixed oil, which, under the names of walnut oil and nut oil, is much used by painters as a drying oil. The timber of the walnut is of great value, and is much used by cabinet-makers. The wood of the roots is beautifully veined. Both the root and the husks of the walnut yield a dye, which is used for staining light-colored woods brown. Very similar to the common walnut, but more valuable, is the BLACK WALNUT of North America, found in most parts of the United States, except the most northern. See also BUTTERNUT.

_IV. FRUIT-BEARING SHRUBS AND PLANTS_

The trees previously mentioned are woody plants with only one stem, which begin to form branches at some distance from the ground. The shrubs, on the contrary, are woody plants in which the stem forms branches close to the ground, or even underground.

=Banana= (_Musa sapientium_), a handsome plant, long cultivated in tropical and sub-tropical countries for its fruit. The sheathing bases of the large, oblong leaves form a false stem twenty to thirty feet high. The spikes of irregular flowers are succeeded by a branch of one hundred to two hundred fruits, weighing together from fifty to eighty pounds. The long, berry-like fruits, as they ripen, convert nearly all their starch into sugar and pectose, and form a valuable article of food, the staple food in many tropical countries, producing forty-four times the weight of food per acre yielded by the potato. It is produced in enormous quantities in the West Indies and Brazil, and shipped in constantly increasing volume to the United States and Europe. Beginning with a few hundred bunches in 1870, consumption in the United States has increased to upwards of five million dollars worth annually. Banana flour is becoming a staple article of food.

Its cultivation antedates historical records in India. Pliny mentions that the Greeks under Alexander the Great saw it in India.

=Blueberry.= See Huckleberry.

=Cassava= (_Manihot utilissima_), the bitter cassava, and _M. Aipi_, the sweet cassava, are both natives of tropical America. Both are shrubby plants, the former with yellow poisonous roots and seven-lobed leaves, the latter with reddish wholesome roots and five-lobed leaves. The coarsely-grated roots are baked into cassava cakes, from which the intoxicating drink piwarrie is prepared. The juice of the poisonous kind is rendered harmless by boiling, and is then the delicious sauce known as cassareep. If allowed to settle, it deposits a large quantity of starch, known as Brazilian arrowroot when simply sun-dried, or as tapioca when partly converted into dextrine by roasting on hot plates. It was long cultivated in Brazil, and, after Spanish discovery, extended to Africa and Asia.

=Cranberry= (_Oxycoccus_), a small evergreen shrub, that grows in bogs and marshy grounds, and is a small wiry shrub with creeping, thread-like branches, and small oval leaves rolled back at the edges. The berries are an excellent antiscorbutic, and hence furnish an excellent addition to sea stores. The American cranberry (_O. macrocarpa_) is larger and more upright with bigger leaves and berries. Large quantities are exported to Europe and other varieties are also imported into Britain and Germany from Russia and other parts of northern Europe.