284 THE PIvANT WORLD 



fruits and vegetables he needs for his family. Baza's house is like many- 

 other country ranchos ; but it was the first I had seen in which the wood 

 of the Betel-palm i^Areca catecJni) was used in construction. In many 

 places on this side of the island Betel-palms grow spontaneously, and we 

 saw hundreds of seedlings along the road in damp places. We also 

 noticed large Lemoncito bushes {^Triphasia trifoliata) forming inpenetra- 

 ble jungles in several places. Baza pointed out to me the limits of his 

 property, and showed me on the other side of the river the small patch 

 of land he had cleared and cultivated. This was a part of the tract 

 claimed as pasture-land by Don Justo Dungca. I shall have the land 

 surveyed and examine into the title. Whatever I do I must not let my 

 sympathy interfere with a strict sense of justice. Property rights legally 

 established must be respected. If all land were taxed, those who make 

 no use of it would be unwilling to retain it and pay taxes upon what 

 yields them no profit, and they would be content to sell portions of it to 

 others eager to cultivate it. Continuing our journey we returned to the 

 coast and crossed the mouth of the Ilig on a balsa of bamboo like that at 



Pago. 



[to be continued.] 



Effects on Vegetation of the Hurricane 



in Florida. 



By Charles T. Simpson. 



The hurricane which visited the east coast of Florida on the 11th of 

 September last proved very destructive to vegetation in general. Thous- 

 ands of pine trees were snapped off or uprooted, and in the hard- wood 

 hammock lands live oaks, red bays, mastic, and many species of tropical 

 trees were destroyed or badly broken up, and nearly all were more or less 

 stripped of their foliage. Cultivated trees which had reached any con- 

 siderable size fared as badly as did those of the forests. But in the ham- 

 mocks and cultivated grounds the remaining trees at once commenced 

 new growth, which in many cases has reached a foot or more, and save 

 for a few gaps and broken limbs, one would at this writing scarcely know 

 there had been a storm. The hammocks and the cultivated trees are now 

 about as green and fresh as a northwestern forest in June. 



Not so with the vines. I had planted here on my place a large variety 

 of vines and creepers, some of which had reached a height of twenty feet 

 or more in the single season I have been here. Withbut an exception 

 all of these which grew upon the trees are either killed outright or so 



