The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1883-03-31
Our Olio. p
GARDENING IN BERMUDA.

4 letter from Hamilton, Bermuda, Feb
ruary 10, 1888, says: 1t is marvel
where all the vegetables come from that are
shipped from these islands to New York
for there is not field of five acres extent
in the whole place, and the entire acreage
is only 10000, of which |, 900 belongs to
the government, and more than 5000 are
hills and rocks utterly unfit for tillage.
The main island contains 9,725 acres st.
Georges, FOG Somerset, 7O2, and Ireland
Island, 1873. These four are the principal
islands, and there are only 1000 acres to
be divided among the 200 or more small
islands, none of which are cultivated. The
immense quantity Of land not put to any
use is one of the first things noticed by a
visitor. All the hills and hillsides run
wild, because they are not worth cultivat-
ing. The rocks are too near the surface.
The only good land is in the little valleys,
where the sun shines and cool winds never
/ blow. \ short time ago, say 1000, 900 or
/ 10000 years, when the Bermudas
were under water, the sea deposited few
feet of earthly sediment in these valleys,
and it is in this earth that all the Bermuda
potatoes and onions we are acquainted with
are raised. The hills are covered with more
or less soil, and the soil is covered with a
thick growth of grass. There are cedar
trees growing in this thin coating of soil, and
bushes, and no end of flowers, but there is
not enough of soil on the rocks to cult
vate. Whenever a road is run over a hill
it is cut through the rock, like railroad
''cut," to lessen the height. The sides of
the cut are soon covered with moss and
creeping vines and flowers, so that driving
in Bermuda is like driving through great
garden But down in the valleys, the
pockets as the natives call them, the
land is better than any land | ever saw.
When you take pet flower bed and put
it in good condition, and manure it and
water it, by the end of the season it is soft
and smooth and rich. That is just the way
| this Bermuda land is. 1t is as rich and
soft as the best flower bed. 1t is always
in good condition, and you can plant any
thing in it in any month of the year, and
it grows, 1t requires great deal Of ma
nure, for there is the drain Of twelve
months vegetation every year, instead of
six months as we have.
| have not seen any one of these patches
of good land that contains more than two
or three acres, and most of them are much
smaller than this. Onions are the great
crop and potatoes are next. A few people
are trying Strawberries, but this is ven
ture One American, Gen. Hastings, is
raising hundreds of thousands flower bulbs
for the New York market. Nearly every
little place has its patch of bananas, and
they give the island more OF Il tropical ap-
pearance than any other plant. The ba-
mana tree has sort of Cuban, South Amer
lea look, inseparable from hot day. Some
over-intelligent person will say that the
banana plant is not tree, and for his spe-
cial benefit [ will call it bush. 1t grows
from six to ten feet high, takes about six
months to mature, produces one bunch of
bananas and then dies and is gathered to
its fathers [ believe in some countries
banana plants live on and produce crop af-
ter crop, but one of the social habits of the
Bermuda banana is to die as soon as its
fruit ripens. When you see a grove of
banana bushes growing around the back
door, and few half-naked darkey children
playing among the plants, the scene is
truly tropical. [ have seen, [ suppose,
$4,000 banana trees on these island, but
not ripe banana on any of them. They
cut off the punches while they are green
and let them ripen in the house. For this
reason think, bananas in New York are
just as good as in Southern country, and
ours are generally larger and sweeter. They
have an unfortunate habit of making a
distinction here between plaintains and ba-
nanas, which is very confusing to North
erner We New Workers don't know any
thing about plaintains, though we are fa-
miliar with bananas. Anything that has
yellow inside and slippery skin to
break your neck on on the sidewalk, we
know as banana. The big and rich ones
that we like best these folks call plaintains
The oranges raised here are not the best
sort. They are generally pretty tart and
are used principally for making marina
lade, for which they are particularly
adapted, OF else cultivated for their beauti-
full appearance, and there can hardly be a
prettier thing in nature than green tree,
standing on green lawn, loaded with
bright, shining yellow oranges. There are
few Mandarin orange trees, principally
on the grounds of wealthy people, The
Hon. Mr.. Harvey, of Somerset, took me
through his grove of Mandarins few days
ago They trim out the centre of the tree
and bend over the branches, fastening their
ends to stakes driven in the ground, to let
the sun have full play on the tree. Ber-
muda lemons are altogether unique. There
are thousands of bushels here left to spoil
on the trees. Lemon trees grow every
where by the roadside, and visitors stop and
nick the fruit or tear off the branches.
These lemons are at least twice as large as
the ordinary kind, with very rough skins
and very sour juice. They do not keep,
and this is why they are not exported.
But they make lemonades that would make
your hair stand on end, and as ingredients
in hot whisky punches-whew LINES
grow in plenty-just such lines as we see
in New York. This is the season when
loquots ripen, and there are thousands OF
trees loaded down with them. They are a
large yellow plum, tart, with peculiar
flavor. When perfectly ripe they some
what resemble ripe persimmon. There
are a few cherry -moyas, and it is quite the
thing for Northern visitors to go wild over
the cherry-moya. Any one who is curious
to know what they are like, can make an
exact counterpart by mixing up cupful
of flower paste, adding spoonful of pow
dered sugar and putting the mixture in the
skin of a green orange. There is also 9
remarkable vegetable called the paw-paw,
which must have beepripyented some time
when nature was on a jamboree. Prickly
pears grow in great abundance along the
shores, with leaves an inch thick--the
plant that we know as the cactus, though
/ it is only one of thousand varieties OF