The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-09-09
Willis { I: ;51ljlf
sGENERous GIFT OF NATURE.
TThe Eread- Fruit Trees, AfordiIg Food,
Clothing and Shelter.

Clothing and Shelter.
The bread-fruit tree, Artocarpus in
scisa, seen in the Dutch East Indies and
I'm many of the islands of the Soutl
iseas grows forty to fifty feet high, the
fruit being round or slightly oval in
shape, first green, then brown, and
iturning yellow when fully ripe. 1t is
from five to eight inches in diameter,
sand tastes insipid when cooked.
scould not determine what the taste was
j1ike unless it were grocery store brown
paper. In Samoa and Tahiti the tree
yields succession of two or three crops
[during eight months in the year. Its
tfruitfulness is said to exceed even the
generous plantain, upon which the ma
ltives Of the tropics subsist almost wholly
twhere the bread-fruiti is not grown. 1t
jdispenses entirely with the la Dor of the
agriculturist. the miller, the baker;
there is no threshing, no grinding, no
aSneading;. in fact. the islanders of the
South seas have their bread ready pre-
pared and have only to place it on the
acoals as they need it, says ODER.
This placing on the Goals is a pictur-
yesque affair like Rhode Island clam
bake. The fruit is cut up, the core re-
moved, and hot stones having been
placed in hollow in the earth and COW
erred with leaves. the fruit is laid on top
and again covered with leaves and hot
stones, on which more bread-fr1Iit is
laid, then another layer OF leaves and
stones, and on top of all earth is heaped
ITO depth of six inches or more. The
hot-stone bake lasts about thirty min
utes. and the result is brown piece of
natural bread, white, or perhaps yell
low. inside. and very nutritious Some
think it more like the plantain than
wheat bread. 1t is almost tasteless
when cooked green. but is highly APP
precia.ed by experts when allowed to
ripen just a little: not to the yellow
state, however. when it has a decayed
flavor. ] find it impossible to like it
very much in any state. but il seems to
be acquired taste with some whom
have heard praise it. This is the seed
bearing bread fruit which grows
throughout Polynesia, but the true
bread of the Moluccas, which is propa-
gated only 10y cutting-the seeds being
entirely aborted by cultivation-is a
different plant.
IF a Polynesian plants twenty or6i-
nary bread-fruit trees he is independent
for life. unless his enemy destroy them.
The constant feud of various tribes in
the same group. and on the same island,
tend to famine, as they wantonly de-
strov each others cocoanut palms,
banana groves and breadfruit trees.
The fiber of the inner bark of the bread
fruit makes good cloth, but coarser
than the 'tapa," made from the paper
mulberry tree. The wood is soft and
light, of a rich yellow. turning to ma
hogany in use, just right for the dug out
canoe. Then the milky juice obtained
by puncturing the bole is used as a
gum. Another use is to spread it about
as bird lime, to catch the feathered
songsJers of the woods. A prepare ton
is also made for tattooing. Usually the
Polynesian's house is bamboo leaves
and grass but sometimes bread-fruit
iuprights and beams are used In fact,
this beautiful and useful tree is one of
iche choicest gifts of nature to the
brown man of the tropic seas. Its
deeply lobed, dark green. glossy leaves,
~ to IS inches long, and its useful, if
luscious fruit, afford him shade and
food: and, if he does not like baked
bread. he puts quantities of it in hole
lin the ground, often 90 feet in diameter,
changing it from sweet TO sour, in
which state it will keep for months.
Some of these silos hold couple of
tons.
The indigenous trees of the West
Indies and South America. which are
iof the Artocarpaceoe family, allied to
'the bread fruit, are the bread nut OF
Jamaica, and the milk or cow tree of
lDemerara. st. Vincent was the first
island of the West Indies where the
bread frpit was planted, and there it
BIAS flourished to greater extent than
hn any other of the Caribbean chain,
even invading the forest edges to find
companion in the trumpet tree, which
looks like it. 1t grows on plantations,
lin groves. and in the deeper valleys in
p wild state.-American Agriculturist