Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-12-20
CULTURE Of MANGOES
Agricultural Department Work
 ing With Tropical Fruit.
sPIOY AND AROMATIC IN FLAVOR


 Restricted-Best Species Comes From
 India--ProHtable Uses of the Cheap
 Fruit In Porto Rico.
 The department of agriculture wants to teach the American public to ap- preciate mangoes and thereby add an other tropical or subtropical fruit to the American market, says the Wash Ington Star This is not wholly a new Idea. The department has been work Ing at mango culture for about four teen years and has one of the most complete collections of mango plants in the world But it is only in the past year that the industry has really begun to look up, and it seems as though there were a chance of making It real commercial success.
 The mango is almost entirely trop- teal fruit, so that there is little of the United States proper that is adapted to it's culture But Florida, below the latitude of Palm Beach, Porto Rico and Hawaii and the Philippines are all good spots, and it is expected that within few years the mango industry will be worth reckoning with.
 Since the war with Spain many peo- pie have eaten mangoes. Prior to that 1t is doubtful whether many people in the United States had ever tasted them. Possibly it is because of this more or less widely disseminated knowledge that the mango industry has not thrived as it should. Yet that is more or less of libel en the mango. The fruit grows wild in Cuba. In fact, If it had not been for the mango Spain might have still been in possession of the island, for the insurgents were able to live on mangoes when there was nothing else for them to live on. Probably every one of the 27,OO0 Amer Ican soldiers who poured into Cuba ate mangoes. Some of them never repeated the experiment. Yet there is a certain seductive flavor to the fruit that makes even civilized people eat it. There is spicy, aromatic flavor to it that is found in no other fruit and which will make an otherwise respectable and we'll conducted person eat 1t a second or third time, even with the certain ty that he will have to turn the hose on himself afterward.
 But this Is true only of the common or garden mango. The department Of agriculture has collected mangoes from all over the world, and Mir. Oliver, who is in charge of the tropical fruit work and Is himself a mango enthusi- ast, says that there are many varieties, two especially that can be eaten in po- lite society They are the Mulgoba and the Alphonos. and they are the chief !, sorts that the department is trying to impiant fin the southern regions of the United States.
 The best of the mangoes come from India, where they have been cultivat- ed for hundreds of years, and the agri- cultural department has got specimens of all the best varieties. T.!e common West Indian mango Is more or less like a short length of hemp rope soak ed in turpentine and brown sugar. But the department has mangoes that have scarcely any of this woody fiber In them, that will skin like plum and that have all and more than the pe- culiar seductive flavor of the West Indian fruit. Altogether there are six ty-two varieties in the collection, and these have come from all quarters of the tropical world, from India. Africa, Ceylon and the Malay archipelago. When they have been brought to the department they are grafted on to the stock of hardy seedlings, and from these cuttings can be taken in great quantities and ''enarched" upon hardy seeding stock There is one tree in the department greenhouse that has furnished almost 100 cuttings, and the average potted plant will give from six to eleven "flushes' in a season, each flush being potential cutting for enarching on a hardy root.
 2 The mango is a little slower than the orange in coming to bearing age. About six years is the minimum, but the trees at that age are prolific and probably will prove very profitable. One of the southern growers has in- formed the department that from elev. en trees he shipped in one season $21e worth of fruit in the fourth year and another that at six years one of bis trees netted him S65. The fruit of a very inferior sort has been shipped in small quantities to Chicago and sold for 60 cents a dozen, but manages in Washington bring from s1 dozen up. A mango plantation will take about forty trees to the acre.
 I The native fruit in Porto Rico is ex. ceedingly cheap. in some seasons fetch. ing from to 20 cents a hundred. But even at that figure. with the inferior native fruit. the department has col lected statistics to show that for pre- serving and canning the cheap native fruit has its profitable uses. In fact the department has collected a mum Der of recipes for mango marmalade mango jelly and mango chutney that sound exceedingly well and indicate that the preserves made at a very small initial cost in Porto Rico ought to find good market in the United | States.
 Take 1t altogether. the mango is ( promising tropical fruit if one only se lects the right varieties for cultiva ] tinn- and the arricnItural derarfmenl