160 



T hope I have made it clear to you ; but if there is yet any obscure 

 point, or information which you may desire, I shall be pleased to furnish 

 it at your request. 



I have the honour to be. 



Very truly and faithfully Yours, 



(Sgd.) Wm. B. Seabrook. 



THE BREADFRUIT.* 



By Henry E. Baum 



(Continued from the Bulletin for June.) 

 Nutrition. 



When obliged to compete with the banana as a food staple the bread- 

 fruit has taken second rank on account of its comparatively inferior yield 

 and slower growth ; in the West Indies the banana played an important 

 part in the cuisine of the explor ers from the time of discovery, while the 

 aborigines had, in all probability, previously devel ped an extensive 

 acqu intance with that fruit, and accumulated traditions which were 

 passed on to their Spanish conquerors. Therefore when King G' orge III 

 caused the breadfruit to be introduced into his West Indian islands in 

 1793, the banana had an overwhelming advantage in being already 

 firmly fixed in the list of traditional food-plants and the usual conser^ 

 valism of man in changing his food matet iais prevented an extensive use 

 of the fruit in those islnnds. Except in a few of the Pacific Islands 

 where the successive ripening of dilferent varieties of b eadfruit keep it 

 in seasi n practically all the year, the banana, yam, and taro [cocoe] are the 

 plants chiefly relied upon by the natives. That the breadfruit will not 

 succeed as a food sttiple when obliged to compete with well established 

 cereals and root crops is generally acknowledged but neverthele s, 

 its utility as a fatinaceous food of considerable nutritive value is gene- 

 rally underestimated. 



From on analysis given in the Experiment Station llicord of the 

 Department of Agriculture (Vol. 12, p. Il76), it would seem that bread- 

 fruit contains more starch (25 per cent), and less water (25-H() pi,r cent) 

 than either the yam or sweet potato, but the presence »;f over 4 percent 

 of fibrous matter is a great handicap upon its attaining wide use as a 

 vegetable, a di advantage not shared by either of the plants mentioned. 

 The amount of nit^<^g^nous matter varies a gre it deal in the different 

 analyses, but the presence of protein enough to justify the following 

 statement is assured : 



"The re;^ult of the determination of nitrogen in a portion of the pulp 

 of the wasted fruit shows that this esculent must be classed with taro, 

 yams, potatoes, and rice as essentially f.irinaceous in character. "f 



The chief obstacle to the commercial exploitation of the fruit is its 

 lack of transportable qualities while in a fresh condition, owing to the 

 fact that it ripens quickly and soon loses quality after complete maturity 

 has been reached. The following quotation gives an idea of the Ha- 

 waiian fruit at maturity : 



* Reprinted from The Flant World, VI., 200 : Sep., 1903. 

 t Hawaiian Planters' Monthly, 13 : 316. July, 1894. 



