Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1893-09-24
THE BREAD FRUIT TREE.
IL Grows From Forty to Fifty Feet
High and IL is Very Fruitful

The bread fruit tree, seen In the Dutch
East Indies and in many of the Islands
of the South seas, grows forty to fifty
feet high. The fruit is round or slightly
oyel in shape. first green, then brown,
then turning yellow when fully ripe. II
Is from five to eight inches in diameter,
aud tastes insipId when cooked. In
Samoa and Tahiti the tree yields y sue
eession of two or three crops during
eight months in the year. Its fruitful'
ness Is said TO exceed even the generous
phniain upon which the natives of the
tropics subsist almost solely where the
bread fruit is not grown. II dispenses
entirely with tie labor Of the agricul-
turist, the miller, the baker; There need
be no care for seed-time or harvest; there
is no threshing, no grinding, no knead-
ing; in fact the islanders of the South
seas have their bread ready prepared,
and have only TO place it on the Goals
as they need 1t.
This plncing on the Goals Is pigtnr-
esque affair." like a Rhode Island clam
bake The fruit Is cut M, the core re-
moved and hot stones having been plaeel
10 hollow in the earth and covered
with leaves, the fruit is laid on top anu
again covered with leaves and not stones
on which more bread fruit is lald, ticn
another layer of leaves and stones ana
on top of all earth is beaned 10 ueph
of six inches or more. The hot stone
bake lasts about thirty minutes ana the
result IL u brown piece of nalunll bre'n,
white, or perhaps yellow, inside ana very
nutritious. Some think ii more like the
plantain than wheat bread. IL ~ NJ
most tasteless when cooked green, put
Is highly appreciated by experts Wnen
allowed to ripen just n little; not 10 the
yellow state, however. when y mas u
lecayed flavor. This is the seed-hearlng
cruit which grows throughout Poiyheslh'
hut the true broad of the MOlucclsi
which is propagated only by cuttlng-
che seeds being entirely aborted by cult
6ation--is different plant.
If Il Polynesian plants twenty ordinary
bread fruit trees he is independent Tor
life, unless his enemy destroy them. Inc
ronstant feuds of various tribes in the
same group and on the same island,
tend 90 famine, as they wantonly DC
strpy each others coCounut palms, bi-
mana groves and bread fruit trees. The
iihers of the inner bark Of the bread
fruit make good cloth. hut cOarser than
khe ''tapa," nade from the paper Inn-
berry ire. The wood is soft and light,
OF a rich yellow, turning TO mahogany
u. use, just iigh for the dug-out canoe
Then the milky juice obtained by pune
turing the bole is used MS "a gum An
other use of IL Is 10 spread II about ~
u bird lime. TO catch the hathered song
sters Of the woods. A preparation Z
also made for tatooing. sually ihe
Polynesian's house Is bamboo leaves and
grass: but sometimes bread, fruit up.
rights and beams are used. IN ihv,
tllis isen1itifui aud useful tree is one OF
the choicest gifts OF nature 10 the brown
man Of thc tropical seas. us heepN
lobed. dark green, glossy Leaves, Twelve
10 eighteen inches long. and is useinl
II not luscious fruit. afford him shade
and food, and If he does not IKE nnhel
bread he puts quantities OF il in hol,
On the ground, often twenty feet in dl
ameter, changing 1t from SWEEP to sour
ia which state it will keen for mouths
Some of these silos' hold couple o.
tons.