BTJXjIjETIN 



OF THE 



r)EPART]SIli]]SrT OF AGmiOULTUn-E 

 l^'rinidad. and 'X^obag-o. 



Part 3.] 1919. [Vol. XVIII. 



FEUIT 



THE AVOCADO IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO. 



By W. G. Freeman, B.Sc, A.R.C.S., F.L.S., 

 Director of Agriculture, Government Botanist. 



The Avocado (Persea gratissima) is one of the most important of 

 tbe fruits which have become widely distributed since the discovery of 

 the New World. Amongst the other tropical fruits which are natives 

 of the New World may be mentioned the guava, custard apple, mammSe 

 apple, cashew, sapodilla, and the papaw. There is some doubt as to 

 the original distribution of the avocado, but the general opinion is that it 

 is native to tropical America from Mexico to Peru and is probably not 

 trul}- wild in the West Indies, although introduced into the islands at 

 an early data and now naturalized in them. The earliest references, 

 accessible to me in the original, to the tree in the West Indies are given 

 below. Both refer to Jamaica. It will be noted that one author 

 speaks of the avocado as being planted, whilst the other specifically 

 states that it was introduced from the Continent. 



EARLY HISTORY IN THE WEST INDIES. 



Sir Hans Sloane, M.D., F.R.S., who visited Madeira, Barbados,. 

 Nevis, St. Kitts, and Jamaica in 16S9, as physician to the Duke of 

 Albemarle, Governor of Jamaica, published in 1707 to 1725 after his return 

 to England, his well known History of Jamaica in which (Vol. II. p. 133) 

 he gives the following interesting description of the Avocado. 



" The Albecato pear-tree, Hisp. Abacado, sen. Avocado. This tree 

 has a Trunc as thick as one's Middle, with a light brown or grey ash* 

 coloured Bark, having very deep Furrows or Sulci in it, rising to twenty 

 or thirty Foot high ; the Ends of the Branches have a great many Leaves, 

 standing without any Order on yellowish half Inch long Footstalks, they 

 are three Inches long, and one and a half broad in the Middle, where 

 broadest, very smooth and of a deep green Colour, with an Eye of yellow 

 in it, having one Rib in the Middle and several transverse ones branch'd 

 from it. Among the Leaves come out a short half Inch long Stalk, to 

 which are fasten'd by short Petioli from near the Bottom, Flowers of a 

 yellowish green Colour, to which follows a Fruit shaped like a Pear, as 

 big as one's two Fists, greenish on the outside, having a smooth Skin 

 and a Pulp uader it of an Inch in Thickness, which is green, soft, almost 

 insipid to the Taste, and very nourishing. Within this lies a naked great 

 Kernel bigger than a Wallnut, having many Tubercles and Sulci on ita 



