The Washington bee., 1899-06-10
FRUIT IN FLORIDA
A Comparison Of Southern Grown Fruh
with Fruit From the Bahamas.

With Fruit From the Bahamas
The oranges of the Bahamas, Cuba
and Jamaica are intensely sweet. but
lacking in the sprightly flavor so high
ly priced by our growers, says the
Jacksonville Times Union. 4 few
specimens may be seen which are
bright, smooth, thin-skinned and solid,
but the greater part Of them as early
as February are pithy, over-large and
coarse-grained, and there is strong
tendency in the West Indian groves TO
produce thick-skinned and rough,
blemished fruit, occasionally rusty.
In short, orange culture in those isl
ands has more drawbacks than with
us, except in our extreme northern
belts, where oranges have been. grown
at all. where of late years the untime-
ly frOsts have fallen. But in our best
adapted sections the preponderance of
advantages is decidedly in our favor.
Notwithstanding their lands are offered
at So to $40 per acre and labor at %
to 40 cents per day. They have more
frequent gales than Florida. and, in
the Bahamas the soil is so scarce and
rock so abundant that their best trees
make only stunted growth and are
early seized with dieback Budded
trees bear at three feet in height, seed
lings at six or seven. Every crevice
in the rock will contain a tree, even
though the crevices are not over nine
feet apart. while, should an interval Of
twelve or fifteen feet occur, an artifi-
cial creyice must be formed with pick
and crowbar
They are subject tO the same bliz-
yards as ourselves, though softened
and diminished by distance. but their
pineapples are more susceptible than
ours, and are frequently injured as
much proportionately. In the blizzard
of 1886, at Cat Island. about sixty
miles southeast from Nassau. where
the largest pineapple plantations are
situated. one planter who had expect
ed to have 10000 or 60.000 marketable
apples, had only $4,000 fit to ship as
result of the blizzard This is worse
than it was upon the Florida Keys,
where the numerical yield was not ma
terially diminished. only the size be-
ing leSscned as well as the number of
slips and suckers. There was no actual
ice or frost but the long continued
cold. coupled with the violence of the
gale. worked great damage. Many of
the pines were so chilled as to cause
them 10 sucker without fruiting.
The tropical fruits of Jamaica are
packed so full of the sunshine of those
Happy Isles" that they are exquisite
IN creamy richness. or fiery with pep
per, or rugged with acid or disgusting
with musk or turpentine. to the gus
tatory nerves. The men of the
tropics are dull in their gustatory
nerves, while the cold blOoded Anglo
Saxon has a faStidious palate. The
drOwSy native wakenS out of sleep and
eats with equal mind whatever fruits
first come TO hand-mostly dense vege.
table cuStards or muSh. But when we
come to our own race we find one
writer describes the excellence of the
mangOSteen as utterly ineXpreSsible;"
another. as composed of the best of
the most palatable fruits in magical
combination another as "a vapid,
watery sop" Firminger says of the
n6ngO. ITO those who have never par
taken of il. no words can convey an
idea of the merit of this eXQuiStelv
luscious fruit" while an honest Ameri-
can soldier bluntly described it is tow
soaked in turpentine" OF the cherimo-
YER Doctor SPPmann writes: Its taste
indeed SurpaSSeS that Of any other
fruit. and Haenkp was quite right
when he called it the masterpiece of
nature" After this grandiloquent
generality. we feel that the natural
rebound is the cOntemptuous Judgment
Of Fenelle. that zone European pear
or plum is worth all the cherimoyerS
of Peru
Rreadfruit and jackfruit are a large
part of the subsistence of the poorer
classes The first resembles our we'll
known egg-hread. or. when fully ri.
pened on the tree rich. clammy
poundcake. though with an offensive
odOr. The iackfruit is an immense.
somewhat oval. ill-Shaped object. grow
ing all over the tree. along the trunk
or even the roots, heaving up and
cracking the ground like a hill of
sweet potatoes. The soft. fibrous in
terror is considered most delicious by
those who can manage to eat it. pos
seSSing a rich. spicy scent, but to such
n powerful degree as to be quite un-
bearable to those unaccuStomed to it.
But there are some few standard
fruits on which most Floridians are
agreed: from the creamy, frosted
sweetness of the Sugarapple to the eX-
quiSite Sherbet of the pineapple. Yet
every unbiased critic must pronounce
the pine. equally with the orange. bet
ter when grown under the blended
frost and sunshine of Florida than
when cooked 10y those glowing skies
which turn most fruits into SkinfulS
of scented muSh.