104 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



valuable as a fruit, has its own narrow zone where it is in perfection, a 

 belt on each side of this where it can exist, and the rest of the world is 

 entirely unfit for it. 



A table of zones with their corresponding fruits and vegetables could 

 be formed. The fruits would read somewhat as follows: 



7. — Huckleberries, cranberries. 



6. — Currants, gooseberries, cherries. 



5. — Strawberries, pears, blackberries, apples. 



4. — Plums, peaches. 



3. — Grapes, apricots, figs. 



2. — Custard apples, lemons, oranges, mangoes, pineapples. 



1. — Mangostans, durians, bananas, plantains, alligator pears. 



This table can not be made exact, from the fact that, while a genus of 

 plants has its general zone of temperature, each species has its own 

 special zone, so that while the finer grapes would be found to be subtropi- 

 cal, some of the hardier ones may reach up into the colder temperate 

 regions, and some poor, tasteless strawberries might be in subtropical 

 regions. 



This fact of the existence of plants in zones has in it much of value to 

 our fruit-raisers. Instead of spending time and money in trying the 

 practically impossible feat of raising apricots and figs, it will pay us bet- 

 ter to spend our time in multiplying and improving those fruits which are 

 at home in this climate. 



There are, then, certain fruits, among them the finest in the world, the 

 durian, mangostan, and mango, and the finer bananas, which can only be 

 produced in perfection near the equator. The question whether these 

 fruits shall ever be seen in perfection in our markets and on our tables 

 depends upon the existence of a territory near enough our ports in which 

 the requisite conditions for their growth exist. We may consider our- 

 selves fortunate that such a land does exist, with all the conditions of 

 tropical climates, virgin and fertile soils in unlimited quantity, and this 

 in the hands of a friendly and neighboring people. 



A cord drawn from the port of New York to the equator, touches land 

 at the mouth of the Amazon in South America, at about 3,000 miles, or in 

 Africa in the region of the mouths of the Niger and Congo, at a distance 

 of about 4,500 miles. The Amazon, then, and perhaps the Orinoco, 

 become important to us as the probable future source of supply of the 

 finer equatorial fruits, as yet unknown to us. With the mouth of this 

 great river within five or six days' steam of New York, and with improved 

 means of refrigerating, and electric trains from New York, we need not 

 despair of seeing mangoes and durians and mangostans upon our tables, 

 and bananas so delicious that those now in our markets would never be 

 mentioned again. There are remains of buried cities of former civiliza- 

 tions at the mouth of the Amazon; but in the native fruits of the great 

 river there is little to show that these ancient inhabitants had paid much 

 attention to their cultivation. Most or all of the cultivated fruits of the 

 country are of eastern origin and were introduced from the East Indies by 

 Spaniards and Dutch after the conquest. Those in most ordinary cultiva- 

 tion are the orange, banana, plantain, pineapple, and mango. The oranges 

 and pineapples find the climate near enough to suit them so that they 

 fruit readily, and may remain living some time when deserted in the 

 jungles, but they finally succumb to the native vegetation. Their quality 

 is indifferent, and the natives take no means to improve them. The 



